Page 67 of Margo's Got Money Troubles

When we arrived at KC and Rose’s, there was a dude there just chilling on their couch, Biotch curled like a hairy shrimp in his lap. He was an extremely tall and pasty white boy who, when he smiled, revealed a huge gold grille. “This is Steve,” KC said, before flopping back down on the couch, scooting her head in his lap next to Biotch.

“What it do?” Steve said, holding up a fist.

I reluctantly gave him knucks. “Are we not shooting today?”

“Were we shooting today?” KC asked. “Dude, I’m so out of it. We did mushrooms, like, all night, I don’t know if I can handle it.”

“This is the day,” I said. “Jinx is watching Bodhi, like, this is the day.”

Steve looked up at me and smiled again. “Baby girl needs a nap, you feel me?” He was wearing a Dodgers hat and a thick gold chain with a dangling gold pendant of a marijuana leaf. I went into the kitchen to find Rose, Suzie trailing behind me.

“What is the deal with Snoop Dork out there?” I asked, pitching my voice low. Rose had just put coffee on, and the pot gurgled and hissed.

“Ugh, I know,” Rose said. “They’re driving me crazy. They have sex, like, eight times a day, it’s disgusting.”

“Are we still gonna shoot?” Suzie asked.

“We have to shoot something!” I said. We literally had no new content to post.

“Could we shoot stuff just you and me?” Rose asked.

“I mean, I wrote it for the three of us!” I sat down at their kitchen table and tried to think if I could rewrite some of the skits so they didn’t involve KC. It was difficult to imagine. Rose’s character was great as a counterpoint to KC, but KC was the one generating a lot of the conflict. I hadn’t written a single script that was me and Rose, and I was realizing there might be a reason for that.

Rose sat at the table and set down massive pink mugs for all of us. She gestured for Suzie to sit.

“Now, don’t take this the wrong way,” Rose said, “but I just wonder if this isn’t a blessing in disguise—like maybe it will give us a chance to think of some new ideas! When we got the scripts for this week, they were kind of blah, you know?”

“Blah?”

“Like, every single one was something we’ve done before in a way. Like Ghost eats something bad, KC and Rose are exasperated, they try to teach her something human, it goes comically wrong.” She pulled her fingers like a rake through her long platinum hair. “I think we need something fresh, something new.”

I do not know how to explain this or justify it or make myself seem like less of a baby, but when she said this, I started crying.

“I’m sorry!” I said, covering my face with my hands.

“Sweetheart, this is not a criticism of you!” Rose said.

“I know,” I said, my face still hidden in my hands. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get my chin to stop shaking.

“We don’t expect you to be some TikTok genius who never gets it wrong!”

“I know,” I said, and gulped. But I had wanted to be a TikTok genius more than anything.

“We’ll all try to think of ideas,” Rose said. “It shouldn’t have to be you all the time.”

“I’ve gotta go pee,” I said, standing before she could say anything more, scurrying down the hall and locking myself in their bathroom.

There was a used condom floating in the toilet. I put the lid down and sat anyway. They didn’t want me to even write the TikToks anymore. I couldn’t breathe. They had all known. Even fucking Snoop Dork had probably read that script and said, “Yo, these TikToks are kinda whack!”

Everyone had always known, could see that there was something about me that wasn’t worth investing in. The way they could so easily throw me away. Mark, Becca, my old boss Tessa. My own mother, who must have once loved me as much as I loved Bodhi—a few naked photos and I was out of her life. And why shouldn’t I be? I was a liar and a whore. I’d alienated literally everyone in my life except my ex-addict pro wrestler dad, who was like, “Attagirl, keep selling those nudes!”

And JB. Precious, neurotic, Rocky Road–loving JB in his pearl necklace with his wild mane of dark hair and clerk-befriending mother. “You can’t have it both ways,” he’d said. But both ways was sometimes the truth, wasn’t it? I couldn’t tell if I was trying to keep lying to him or to myself. Either way, I had fucked it all up, and now he was gone.

I stared at myself in the mirror, being dramatic as hell, for a solid ninety seconds, but then I had to blow my nose because snot was dripping down my upper lip. I needed to pee, but I couldn’t stand the idea of a sea turtle dying because it tried to eat Snoop Dork’s used condom, and in order to use their toilet I’d have to fish it out. So I decided to just pee when we got home. Although then someone else would flush it. Finally, I gave in and fished it out with the toilet brush and peed.

When I went back to the kitchen, I swung my purse up onto my shoulder. “So Suzie and I will drive back then, and I’ll come up with some new ideas!” I said. I knew my voice sounded fake happy. It was the best I could do.

“Sweetie, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” Rose cooed. Sometimes her saccharine nature really made my teeth itch.

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