Page 45 of Margo's Got Money Troubles

“Well, you have to do it,” KC said. “It’s part of the fucking podcast.”

“I thought you had listened to a bunch of episodes?” Rose said.

Margo froze. She had not listened to a single episode, though she’d written to KC that she was a big fan. “I mean, I did. I just didn’t know it was, you know, required.”

“We do mushrooms every podcast,” Rose said gently. “That’s kind of the whole thing.”

Margo began sweating. She must have looked as terrified as she felt, because Rose softened and said, “Oh, sweetie, they’re fun! Don’t worry! You’ll have a blast! Maybe only drink half the cup.”

Margo nodded, not even able to speak.

“We all drink the whole cup,” KC said with such quiet command that Margo knew Rose wouldn’t try to argue further.

Margo thought she might start crying. How was she going to be okay to drive home? How long would she have to stay here with these scary people? When she finally did get home, how long until she could nurse Bodhi? She didn’t know anything about mushrooms or how long they stayed in your system. Yet she could not imagine leaving. She picked up the little bowl, and Rose nodded at her encouragingly. She took a sip.

“Let’s get this shit show going,” KC said, and Rose busied herself at the laptop and then started her intro to the show. While Rose was talking, Margo pulled out her phone and frantically texted Jinx: They are making me do shrooms, no idea how long this is going to be, I am so sorry I am so freaked out. She pressed send and looked up right as Rose finished speaking and was looking expectantly at Margo.

“It’s so amazing to be here,” Margo said.

About two hours in and they were still recording. Margo had no idea how they would edit this down into an hour show. Both KC and Rose had begun to look more and more like cartoon characters, their eyes glinting strangely. Biotch’s fur rippled like fields of wheat. They had discussed how they each got into OnlyFans, and Margo confessed she’d not yet posted the full vageen.

“You haven’t?!” Rose gasped.

“You’ve got to make the most of that shit,” KC said. “Give that taco a real grand entrance.”

“Absolutely,” Rose said. “I wish I’d known. Back when I started, I didn’t understand that the first time I posted vageen I should have charged, like, fifty bucks. Instead, I put it on sale, it was, like, three dollars. Do you know how sad that feels? To be like, here is my beautiful little vageen, it’s worth three dollars?”

“Darling Vageen!” KC said, in a man’s bellowing stage voice. “Most precious Vageen!”

“That’s good to know, actually,” Margo said.

“You should make, like, an advent-calendar-type countdown to your vageen!” Rose said. “And it can be your Christmas gift to all the men in the world!”

Margo suddenly imagined photoshopping her vagina to contain a tiny baby Jesus at its center, like a manger.

KC burped loudly into the microphone.

“How did you get into doing OnlyFans, KC?” Margo asked. She was becoming moderately less afraid of KC in part because KC was utterly unselfconscious. She was scratching her crotch vigorously through her leggings as Margo asked this.

“Rose made me do it,” KC said.

“I didn’t make you!”

“You did, you said, ‘KC, if you’re going to waste your life doing drugs and fucking dudes, at least make money doing it.’ I was like, sign me up!”

“She doesn’t care,” Rose said, smiling. “Like, about anything. I do all her money because literally she would just have millions of pounds of sand delivered to her parents’ house.”

“It’s free shipping! Rose. It’s free shipping on six hundred thousand pounds of sand. Like, how does that even make sense? Just think of how hard it would be for them to get rid of it!”

After that they all puked, and then KC said she was a sea cucumber and lay down under the desk, so the microphone picked up her voice only dimly. They discussed the men who wanted to dismember them or dissolve their bodies in acid. “It does get easier to tune out,” Rose said, “but then one day a guy will comment with something simple, like, just ‘butterface’ under one of my pictures, and I’ll start sobbing.”

“Oh, I definitely want to die,” KC said in her faraway voice. “Like every day.” Why wouldn’t she put on her headphones and sit at the mic? Why was she insisting on living in the dark, echoey shadows of the actual conversational space?

“You don’t want to actually die,” Rose said. “She’s afraid of blood; if she even sees a tiny bit of blood, she passes out.”

“That’s true. I’m very squeamish,” KC said.

“I guess my real question,” Margo said, having got caught up in her own train of thought, “is why is time only going in one direction? Like, does anybody know why?”

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