Page 39 of Margo's Got Money Troubles

“No,” I said. But I found I was desperate to leave, wild with the need to be home with Bodhi safe in my arms.

“I’m okay now,” Jinx said. But how could he be okay in this brightly lit space filled with people who did not love him?

“Okay,” I said. “Sorry, I don’t know why I’m so worked up.”

“Go home to that baby,” he said. “Good night, my sweet.”

He used to call me that when I was little. I had almost forgotten it.

“Good night, my meat,” I said, which is what I used to say back.

I left him in his little cubicle and stumbled out into the dark night, where I took a cab that smelled like wax and gummy bears to my apartment, sprinted up the stairs, and burst into the living room only to find Suzie and Bodhi solidly asleep on the pink velvet couch, both gently snoring.

But as I tried to go to sleep that night, Bodhi safely tucked in his crib, Suzie covered with a blanket on the couch, I couldn’t stop hearing it, my dad saying, “I would have burned that hospital to the ground.”

I pictured the burned-out frame of the building, the clouds of ash, my father standing in his black pants and black shirt and black jacket, standing there, looking at me, loving me.

Chapter Eleven

In the morning I woke to discover Jinx had been released from the hospital at four in the morning and taken a cab home. I was furious he hadn’t called me.

“It was fine,” he said. “I lay down in the back of the cab.”

I wanted to ask him if the doctor had sent him home with painkillers, except I suddenly didn’t know how. I didn’t want to be another nurse checking his hand for a ring, another person who looked at him and only saw an addict. “What did the MRI say?” I asked.

“No disc slippage,” Jinx said. “Thank heavens.”

“That’s good,” I said.

Jinx was making tea in the kitchen. He paused, his magnificent hands midflight. “Would you like any tea?”

“No, thanks,” I said. He had turned on the overhead, but the light it produced was high-pitched and thin, humming green over our skin. I watched him for a moment before turning back to my room.

Why didn’t I know how to ask him about this? Last night, I’d felt so close to him, tracing the veins on the top of his hand as he lay in his hospital bed, talking about Rome, and this morning he felt like a stranger. Also, nine more fans had unsubscribed. I knew it was my fault for not showing the full vagine. My dad could go on about persona and making guys fall in love with you, but at the end of the day what these men wanted was simple: to kung-fu grip the original joystick all the way to googasm.

I was so pissed I didn’t even want to write back to JB. What did I want? What were my goals for myself? Actually, JB, my largest goal for myself is to become internet famous for being hot. Ever since I was a young girl, I had a dream that one day men from all over the world would want to cum on my face... only it turns out I’m too much of a coward to even do that! It felt good to mock myself in this way. Because I did want that. I wanted to be famous. I wanted to make a lot of money, absurd amounts of money. I wanted power: raw and cold and green. But every single time I thought about hittin’ the kitten on camera, I felt like I was going to puke.

Obviously, I would never say any of this to JB. Not only because it didn’t cast me in the best light, but because the dream of being famous was silent, urgent, and embarrassing. Closely kept as a birthday candle wish.

Instead, I wrote about food.

Dear JB,

I am a big fan of fruity candy, with banana-flavored things being S-tier, lemon-flavored things a close second. Banana Laffy Taffy—best candy in the world. Lemonheads—phenomenal. I like Runts especially. They always feel special because you can’t buy them in the store, you have to find one of those machines like at the mall or in some crusty pizza parlor. Probably the Runts have been in there since the early nineties, but they are none the worse for it because they are Runts—the Eternal Candy.

For special dinners, in our house the archetypal celebration dinner was steak and potatoes, but I never loved steak. I love chicken wings. I understand that wing places aren’t fancy, so it seems like a weird choice. If I were going to a fancy restaurant, I would probably look for some cream-based pasta dish. Anything that is a grown-up version of mac and cheese because I am essentially a giant child.

Because I live in California, for fast food I am obligated to say In-N-Out, and believe me, it is very good, but, and I hesitate to admit this because it is gross and I know it is gross, I really love Arby’s. If I am alone and sad, or alone and very happy, Arby’s seems to draw me like the North Star.

In terms of the foods I can’t stand, okay, I don’t like seafood. Almost all of it. But I especially don’t like octopus. And I have had it at fancy places where the other person was rapturous about it, and I still didn’t like it. This borders on sacrilege, but I don’t like crab or lobster really either. I won’t refuse to eat it, but I’d never be like, “Hmmm, let me pay forty dollars to wrestle two ounces of delicate, tasteless meat out of the carcass of this oversized ocean insect.”

And figs. Fuck figs. Certainly they do not taste bad, and I can even imagine getting over the little pinging texture of the seeds, but they are bland! Pomegranates are stupid and hard to eat, though they do look like encrusted rubies inside glowing with ancient magic, so it’s like sure, I’ll swallow all these little seeds that are like nail trimmings. But figs? And they are expensive! They come on salads that are like twenty-five dollars for five shreds of bitter lettuce and then these ugly cut-open figs that look like their insides are riddled with tiny tumors. We’ll call you back if we’re interested, figs!

I realized I’d written him the truth, but I figured it didn’t matter. It was only about food after all. And he wouldn’t know what was true and what wasn’t. I would never meet this guy.

And then, I didn’t even think about it, I wrote: What about you?

“What are you writing?” Jinx asked over her shoulder.

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