Page 100 of Margo's Got Money Troubles

“Do you ever think about starting your own account?” I asked. Because it was puzzling. Why would she ask to work for me when she could make a killing working for herself?

“Oh, I’m not pretty enough,” she said.

“Horseshit,” I said.

She laughed, finally looking up. “I don’t think I could do it,” she said. “If I’m being honest. All the attention and having to fake it with guys like that. I mean, editing a zillion nude images of myself every week sounds like some kind of existential hell.”

“Oh, you stop thinking about it as you,” I said.

“Still, I just... with my family... I couldn’t. I just couldn’t do it.”

I got that. “Would you want to be in the TikToks?”

She shook her head and went back to picking at her jeans.

“What do you want then?” I asked. Because it felt like she did want something and was too afraid to say.

She rolled her eyes, then smiled at me. “You know what I want!”

“I don’t!” I cried.

“I want to be part of the team,” she said, her voice breaking on the last word.

“Oh, Suzie,” I said, “you are part of the team. From now on, you are explicitly part of the team.” I reached over and hugged her, and her skin was surprisingly warm.

“And you’ll tell me,” she said. “I’ll be one of the people you tell when you’re thinking about quitting!”

“I will,” I said. “I’ll tell you every business-related thought I ever have.”

She sucked some snot back in her nose, laughed, and said, “I think that may be the most romantic thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

It was almost the end of February when I got a call from JB.

“I’m in L.A.,” he said.

“What?”

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I really think we need to talk. So I came.”

I didn’t know if I was happy or sad about this. Mainly it made me uneasy. And yet, on a physical level, I was thrilled to hear his voice. “Okay,” I said.

“Okay?” He sounded a bit surprised.

“Yeah. Where do you want to meet?”

“Anywhere you want,” he said.

“Oh, you’ll regret that,” I said, as I gave him the cross streets of my second-favorite Arby’s. (My second favorite was closer to his hotel. I wasn’t some monster who’d make him drive all the way out to Brea. I was only asking him to drive from downtown L.A. to Buena Park, which someone should be willing to do for love.)

I brought Bodhi even though he’d make it harder for us to talk because I worried JB had some big romantic idea in his head, that we were destined to be together. It seemed like he had to be in that mode to fly across the country to have a conversation. The Buena Park Arby’s had recently been redone in fake wood paneling and dangling pendant lights, bright red metal chairs. It was a lot cheesier looking than the Arby’s in Brea, which featured grimy gray and black tiles and weird ’80s confetti wallpaper. But it would do.

When Bodhi and I arrived, JB was already there. He half stood from the table and sort of crouched as we approached.

“Have you ordered?” I asked, overwhelmed by his physical presence. Even the fact that his glasses were greasy and slightly askew was making my pulse race.

“No, I was waiting for you,” he said. “I didn’t know what to order. I’ve never been to an Arby’s before.”

“You haven’t?! Oh, well, this is an occasion! You want me to order?”

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