Page 92 of Margo's Got Money Troubles

She went to bed wondering about mother snakes and baby snakes and whether snakes feel love for each other, or if they draw that intense pleasure from some other aspect of their nature, maybe from killing. She imagined a snake philosopher telling his snake students about the greatest good and how everyone knew of course it was killing.

She’d have given anything to have someone to express these thoughts to, but she knew it wouldn’t be fair to call JB, even if talking to him would be more wonderful than anything. Who cared about sex, really? When what you needed was someone to talk to in the dark. She thought about what her dad had said about women and why he always ended up cheating. People are all so lonely. Even when they do horrible things, it often comes down to that, if only you take the time to understand them. It seemed like that should mean the world could be better, that people could help each other, like Jesus said. And yet that’s not what happens. That hardly ever seems to happen at all.

She couldn’t help thinking that if she went into real estate and things calmed down, and if her phone wasn’t buzzing with dicks and her days weren’t spent in cosplay lingerie, she and JB could try dating for real. But it was difficult to picture. Whenever Margo thought of herself as a real estate agent, she imagined her body with someone else’s face pasted on it, the scale slightly off so the head was too big like a Barbie. She tried imagining a JB doll grasping the Margo doll with his stiff arms, kissing her with his numb plastic lips.

Chapter Twenty-Four

The next morning I showed up at Kenny’s condo right as Shyanne came out the front door dressed head to toe in aqua Lululemon, dragging a yellow Labrador that couldn’t have been more than eight weeks old.

I didn’t think she’d be able to see me through the glare of my windshield, but she stopped dead the moment she stepped outside. I suppose there were only so many purple Civics with big dents in the front right fender. When I unbuckled Bodhi and joined her in the shade, she looked so on edge I almost didn’t know what to say.

“I came to apologize,” I said. “I’m quitting the account and I’m going to get my real estate license. And try to be... someone you can be proud of.” I struggled to push out the words. I tried to read her face, but it was guarded. It was unreasonably hot for February, and I could see the sweat gathering on Shyanne’s upper lip.

“I don’t know if I can ever forgive you,” she said, and my immediate reaction wasn’t hurt but skepticism. A full raised eyebrow. Like, This is how you want to play this scene, lady? I knew that was not how I should feel, so I tried to get back to feeling sorry and bad.

“I wish I could take it back,” I said. “I wish I’d been at your wedding.”

“Well, you can’t,” she said.

“I know that.”

The puppy was jumping up all over my feet.

“You got a dog,” I said. I bent to show Bodhi. “See the puppy? It’s a puppy!”

As soon as I brought us close, it jumped up and licked our faces with delicious puppy breath. At first Bodhi was terrified and clung to me, then he shrieked with laughter and kept trying to touch the dog’s face, almost stabbing it in the eye with his tiny fingers.

“What’s its name?” I asked.

“Lieutenant,” Shyanne said. “Kenny’s wanted to get a Lab for years and name it Lieutenant, so...” She gestured sort of disgustedly at the adorable puppy.

“He’s darling,” I said.

“I was going to take him for a walk.” Shyanne motioned in a way that seemed like an invite, so I followed. We weren’t so much walking Lieutenant as slowly meandering through the grass so he could roll in a three-foot radius around us.

“How have you been?” I asked, determined to outlast her coldness. I followed her as she followed the puppy, and she answered all my questions tersely with fake hurt. She was milking it almost beyond my ability to feign contrition when suddenly we lit upon the topic of her gambling in Vegas. She was like the sun coming from behind clouds as she described her system of waking up in the middle of the night, sneaking out of the hotel room, gambling until four, and then crawling back into bed before Kenny woke up. She detailed a game hand by hand in which she’d won almost ten grand. I thought of JB saying his mom had Lucille Ball energy, and I thought maybe that was why we got along the way we did, both of us raised by these delightful psychos.

“And you never told him?” I guffawed.

“Hell, no!” she said. “You know he’d put it in some bond or CD you can’t cash out for thirty years.”

I laughed. I talked a little more about the real estate idea, and Shyanne was absolutely thrilled. “Margo, that is genius,” she said, and invited me to come inside the condo to try this new drink she really liked that her personal trainer had recommended, which turned out to be a red powder you mixed with water that contained 150 milligrams of caffeine and enough niacin to make my arm skin prickle. We were sitting at Kenny’s kitchen table, or I guess their kitchen table now. Bodhi was in my lap.

“You’re going to need a whole wardrobe,” Shyanne was saying. “I’m thinking skirt suits, I’m thinking Victoria Beckham. I’m thinking legs for days and a nude lip. I’m so excited!” Shyanne was beaming. My heart was beating like a hummingbird from the red powder and also from relief, an eagerness for things to be easy between us again. She grabbed my hand. “I’m just so darn glad you came to your senses. I mean, I knew you would! I knew you wouldn’t want to lose that baby. But I am so, so glad.”

I froze. “What do you mean ‘lose that baby’?” I could hear the buzz of the overhead lights in Kenny’s kitchen.

“Well, they did come by, didn’t they?”

I’d never told her about the CPS visit.

“I mean, what a wake-up call!” she said. “Kenny said that’s what you needed, and he was right, I guess.”

It was taking a while for all of this to cohere in my brain. “Wait, are you saying— Did you guys call CPS?”

“Well, I mean, not me, but Kenny,” my mom said.

“Jesus, Mom,” I said. I had a sudden vision of reaching out, grabbing her lash extensions, and ripping them off her face.

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