Triple Love Score

by Brandi Megan Granett

  IN THE MORNING, she only found Kristen’s latest update to the schedule, nothing from Scott. No email, no text, no call. She had to be to the airport in an hour; the tour began to make its way west. Next stop, Phoenix.

  On the way to hotel, she dialed Danielle. “Tell me I’m not crazy,” she said before Danielle could even say hello.

  “Wait, first tell me I’m not fat.”

  “You’re not fat.”

  “I’m sorry then, you are crazy; I am so fat I can’t fit into my yoga pants. My stretch yoga pants.”

  “Come on, don’t be hard on yourself, Dani.”

  “They split up the butt. While I was working. The only thing that saved me was that my shirt covered my ass.”

  Miranda tried not to laugh. “I knew you were having a girl,” she said. “Girls make your butt bigger.”

  “Oh, so the torture of parenting a girl starts early. All this, and then she turns sixteen and only comes out of the bathroom to yell at me.”

  “You were sixteen once; it isn’t that bad.”

  “Exactly, I was sixteen. I remember. So tell me why are you crazy?”

  “It’s Scott.”

  “Oh, I know you are crazy about him. What are you two lovebirds up to?” Danielle asked.

  “It’s not like that. That’s the problem. We keep fighting.”

  “Fighting?”

  “Well, maybe not fighting; we’re just not on the same page. He really wanted to me to quit my job and just move to New Jersey.”

  “That’s it—you should throw him to the curb. New Jersey! Who wants to move to New Jersey?”

  “Dani, this isn’t funny. He thought I would be a stayat-home mom. He wanted me to back out of the book tour. Still does.”

  “Ugh, I wouldn’t have thought it would be like that. You guys have known each other for so long. Why does he want you to back out?”

  Miranda told her about the party and the tall sister-inlaw.

  “That was cold,” Danielle said. “She took your s’more. But I do see Scott’s point. Why subject yourself to that? What does it get you?”

  “It gets me my job back.”

  “Okay, it’s a job, though, and last I checked you were pretty into Scott, engaged and all, right? Isn’t that more important?”

  “I wish it were that easy. I’ve got bills and student loans, and I’ve never—”

  “Miranda, you are talking to someone who followed her boyfriend to Turkey. Do you know how long it took me to get out of default on my student loans? I’ll have bills until I die, but I knew I wasn’t ever going to have another Omar.”

  “It’s just I never thought I could do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “The whole thing—be a wife, a mother. Count on someone else to care about my student loan payment. Count on someone else to care about anything I did or didn’t do. After my mom died, my father’s way of caring about me was to go behind my back and arrange things or make proclamations about what would or would not happen on his dime. It never felt like it was about me—just some generic principles on raising economically productive children that he picked up somewhere.”

  “But Scott isn’t your father.”

  “But he’s Lynn’s father.”

  “Yes, and so? You like her, don’t you?”

  “More than like her.”

  “Then what are you so afraid of?”

  Miranda stared out the window. Rows of identical brown houses with terracotta roofs lined the interstate. “Losing it all,” Miranda finally said.

  “Isn’t that what you are making sure happens? Work it out with him, Miranda. I’ve known you since we were fourteen. I know you love him. And her.”

  “Dani,” Miranda said, “How does your head feel?”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “It sounds like pregnancy has made you go soft. Are you feeling sentimental?”

  “Very funny, Miranda.”

  “Would it help if I told you that you were right, Dani? I do love him. I do want to work it out. I’m not sure how, but I want to.”

  “Good, then go figure it out. I gotta go. I’m suddenly very hungry. I think I need Omar to bring home some baklava.”

  “Cravings, eh?”

  “If I’m going to get fat, I might as well enjoy myself.”

  Miranda would have thought that each part of the country would have offered some distinction, something to let her know that she had just travelled several hundred miles and a time zone. But the hotels all looked alike. Sometimes exactly alike, as if they had been renovated at the same time. She would leave her hotel room looking down at a text message or email, look up and be on the completely wrong end of the hallway.

  The front desk had a package from Kristen. Inside, Miranda found four specially made Scrabble tiles with two exclamation points and two question marks. For the local color pieces, her note read.

  Luckily, Phoenix had the Suns basketball team—it should be easy enough to work that in. And the bird Phoenix. And really hot weather. Cacti.

  The next day a contract arrived from the NBA. It doubled all the Red Bull terms and extended to every team in the league. An email from Kristen identified a new procedure for making word sculptures for the NBA—they’ll hire an internal team to make sure every match-up featured at least two boards to place on Twitter, Instagram, and the Blocked Poet Facebook, which the interns would maintain. Miranda would maintain creative control and approve all boards first, if she agreed. Which she did, sending in this new contract immediately.

  Ambrose followed up with a simple text: “Keep doing this.”

  “Sure,” she said to herself, plunking down on another identical bedspread. “At what cost?” She looked down at her phone. Still no return call. The twenty texts she sent remained unanswered.

  C H A P T E R

  OREGON WAS KNOWN for its rain, but when she emerged from the airport in Portland, the sky was such a spectacular blue that she almost thought she had taken the wrong flight. But the green Prius taxicab that ferried her to the hotel downtown clearly echoed the eco-friendly reputation of the Pacific Northwest. And by the time she emerged from her hotel to head to the event, a light misting drizzle frizzed her wavy hair into an untamable tangle. At least the scenery matched her mood.

  At the last stop, in Seattle, Scott had broken his silence only to ask for “some time to think about things.”

  “Okay,” she replied. “I love you. And Lynn.”

  “I hope so,” he answered.

  She stood outside Powell’s, staring at her reflection in the door trying to pat down her hair to some respectable form when a hollow visage appeared next to her own in the glass. “Oh,” she exclaimed, bouncing back and knocking into the lady’s walker. Luckily, the nurse aide, a woman in navy blue scrubs with a print of tiny rainbow hearts, steadied both the lady and Miranda. “Sorry,” Miranda said. “Thank you.”

  The lady with the walker stood rigidly upright. A bandana held back thin wisps of blonde hair. Her skin was pale, white like paper, with the blue of her veins clearly visible on both of her arms. Her eyes were sunken with deep purple circles ringing them. Despite her obvious frailty and short stature, the woman was downright regal. A queen.

  “Let me get the door,” Miranda said.

  “You’re too kind,” the lady said. She moved slowly forward with the aide trailing in her wake.

  The event went well. Plenty of people attended. The local color word sculptures featuring espresso and hippies elicited enough laughter that Miranda blushed and looked at the floor. She noticed the Queen standing in the back, a cup of coffee in her hand. The Queen raised her cup while everyone else applauded at the end. This event also featured a book signing. It seemed the whole room stayed to get their copy signed, from a few older hippy ladies wearing flowing yoga pants with their gray braids hanging squarely down their backs, to a new mom with a baby in a sling, to a pack of hipsters with their skinny jeans and ironic Fedoras. The Queen, though, didn’t ge
t in line. Just as well, Miranda thought. The line was long, but she couldn’t help personalizing each book. Sometimes, if the person had a request during the event, she would draw in their word sculpture on the back page. The mother with the baby loved that; the book was a gift for her twin sister, who also had a baby the same age at home. “Sisters, mothers, friends, tired,” it read.

  She packed up her bag, helped the clerk box up the Scrabble boards to be sent on to the next location, and said her goodbyes. When she reached the front door, the aide blocked her way.

  “She wants to speak to you,” the aide said.

  “Oh,” Miranda said. “Sure.”

  The Queen was arranged on one of the overstuffed couches that rested in niches around the store. She lay with her legs stretched out across the couch. With a slight wave of her hand, she motioned for Miranda to take a seat on the footstool next to her.

  “Congratulations,” the Queen said.

  “Thanks. It’s a fluke really. I never thought I would have a book, or at least not a book like this.”

  “No,” the Queen said, “not that. This.” She pointed her bony index finger at Miranda’s engagement ring.

  Miranda felt her cheeks blush again; she still wasn’t quite used to the attention the ring attracted; when Stanton had purchased it, his motto was bigger is better. In the florescent lights of the store, the ring exploded with sparkling light. Despite everything, she didn’t want to take it off. She still wanted to marry Scott. “Oh, this, yes, just got engaged. It was my mother’s,” she added quickly. “I’m afraid it is quite obvious. Especially in light like this.”

  “No, love, that’s not it. I know you. Well, not personally, but I know you all the same. You’re marrying Scott Cramer. The Scott Cramer.”

  “What? Do you know Scott?”

  The Queen let her head drop back as an enormous cackle escaped her. She laughed until it turned to a cough wracking her body with tremors. The aide quickly handed her some water and the tube to a portable oxygen tank she had strung over her shoulder. Miranda hadn’t noticed the tank before.

  “So, you don’t know who I am?” the Queen asked when she finally regained her composure. “No idea. You aren’t here for some reason.”

  “No, Ambrose, the publisher set this up.”

  “Oh, Ambrose, I know him, too. Was always quite the big shot. Bit of a nerd, but that seems to have worked out for him. Unlike myself and my current state of being. Maybe I should have hit the books more instead of other things.”

  “I don’t understand,” Miranda said. And then it hit her. The color of her hair, the shape of her eyes, the slight dimple on her chin. Lynn. “Wait,” she said, “you’re Lynn’s mom.”

  “I am. Or rather I was. I guess that’s your job now.”

  “It’s not like that. Being a stepmother is different.”

  “Wait a minute,” The queen said. “You don’t want to be Lynn’s mother?”

  “No, it’s not that at all. I love her. It’s just, you are her mom.”

  “Not really, Love. I check in from time to time, but Scott does a pretty good job keeping me away from her. Can’t say as I blame him, things being what they are, but well, I’m sure you have lots of questions.”

  “I do have lots of questions.”

  “Well, I have lots of answers. Just not now. I could be free tomorrow.”

  “I can meet you tomorrow,” Miranda said.

  “Of course you will,” the Queen answered.

  She texted Avery to see if she had looked into Cassadee. “Sure,” Avery replied. “I was waiting until you got back. Emailing now.”

  The email contained multiple court documents. The final page, a summary sheet, listed offenses Miranda knew best from watching crime dramas on television. Intent to distribute. Accessory after the fact. Resisting arrest. Public intoxication. Prostitution. Attempted assault and battery. The sheet showed lots of addresses and a few aliases. On one drug charge from around the time Lynn was born, Scott Cramer appeared as a known associate. She read through Cassadee’s statements to a variety of judges and parole officers. In each, she always clung to her innocence. “I didn’t do nothing,” was the most common phrase. Nothing in those pages could ever help Lynn understand or know her mother. Somehow Miranda had expected something different, like a dossier from a spy movie or an FBI profiler report—something that said who Cassadee was as a person and not just what law enforcement charged her with doing.

  The last page detailed her release on parole to hospice care.

  Miranda didn’t feel right letting this woman just waste away without having something to pass on to Lynn. One day Lynn would ask, and Miranda would want to have answers. Her father, Avery, Bunny, and Linden didn’t just wipe away the memory of her mother; they celebrated her birthday, raised toasts in her honor, and talked about her all the time. Scott picked Lynn’s middle name for her. No one ever let her be forgotten. But despite all their best efforts, being without her mother felt like walking around with a shard of glass up against her ribs. If she hugged something too tightly or moved with too much excitement, the sharp edge pierced and stabbed her. It made her hang back, observe, wait. She didn’t rush in or get too happy. If Miranda could feel that way with twelve years of her mother’s love and attention, what could Lynn feel with none? Miranda imagined double the loss when Lynn finally found out that Scott wasn’t really her father and was just some guy Cassadee picked for the job. What could it feel like to lose both your parents without ever even knowing them? Not for the first time, Miranda wished she could climb into the window seat next to her mother’s chair and ask her. She would beg her to tell all about how exactly you prepare a child for loss.

  As she climbed into hotel bed number thirty-something, Miranda listed the things she wanted to ask. The things no rap sheets contained. Where did you grow up? What did your parents do? What is your favorite color or album? What was her father like? What was his name? Why did you give her up? The last one was probably the biggest question of all. Miranda couldn’t imagine any answer that would justify why someone would walk out on that child. She let the questions flood her mind until sleep finally took over.

  She made it through the event the next day without spotting the Queen. Her absence came with relief; if Scott knew she even talked to Cassadee, he would probably never forgive her.

  Miranda helped the staff with clean-up and hung back chatting with them about ideas for her next book. A petite young woman, maybe all of eighteen in a cardigan with pearl buttons and cat’s eye glasses proposed erotic word sculptures. After the girl said it, she covered her mouth with her hand, and her cheeks blazed red. One of the hipster boys from the coffee bar made it worse by saying, “Jill, will you come over and read it to me?”

  Miranda couldn’t believe it possible, but the girl flared an even deeper shade of red. But something about the way the hipster boy looked at her, and she at him, told Miranda that they would write those poems themselves soon enough. A pang of longing for Scott filled her. She wanted to be looked at like that. Then Miranda felt a light touch at her elbow. She wheeled around and was startled to find Cassadee’s aide.

  “Ma’am,” she said. “Dee is waiting in the car. She really shouldn’t have come out today. It’s not a good day for her.”

  “Not a good day?” Miranda asked.

  “I shouldn’t say nothing,” the aide continued. “But she’s really sick and won’t listen to reason none. The girl could sell a lady in white gloves ketchup popsicles. Just because she convinced me to take her here doesn’t mean I have to go all along with it. You should know.”

  “Thank you. I’m Miranda by the way.”

  “Oh, I know who you are. The minute that engagement photo popped up on Facebook, it’s all she could do to not talk about you. You be careful miss. The wounded are more dangerous.”

  Miranda nodded as if she understood, only she didn’t.

  Cassadee the Queen waited outside for them in the driver’s seat of an old Volkswagen Go
lf. The aide turned at the car and disappeared up the street with a little wave of her hand.

  “Get in,” Cassadee said through the open passenger-side window.

  “You’re driving?” Miranda asked, looking at the oxygen tank, moving it over to make room to sit. She kept her door open, not wanting to go anywhere with Cassadee. Not yet any way. Something about the whole thing didn’t make sense. Cassadee had lost some of her composure from the day before; she moved her head from side to side like she couldn’t keep her eyes focused on any one thing.

  “Nah, but I could. I kept my license. Never got popped while driving. Only walking, and you don’t need a license for that. I just like to sit up here. I like to imagine getting on the highway and cruising all the way down to Baja. I’d like to pull up next to some surfer beach and lay out in the sun smoking a bowl.” Cassadee leaned her head back and took in a few deep breaths that shook her whole body. She stayed like that for a few minutes, obviously transported to the place in her imagination. “Ah, that’s real nice,” Cassadee finally said. “So you had questions?”

  “Yes,” Miranda said. “I was hoping to know more about you. I think Lynn should know you; Scott seems to think that you didn’t want to see her. I just can’t believe that’s true.”

  “So he trusts you and everything, right? And vice versa?”

  Cassadee’s pupils were dilated, and she couldn’t hold eye contact; her gaze kept darting to cars passing in the street and a couple walking by with a dog.

  “I was just hoping to know more about your life, things from when you were little, like Lynn is now. I want to get to know you. I want Lynn to know you.” Miranda said.

  But it was like Cassadee hadn’t even heard her. “But the thing is, I need money. And I think it’s your fault I’m not getting it,” she said. “Because you see, he used to trust me. We were friends. If I called, he came. Well obviously, but I mean even after the child. He really kept up with me. I think he even forgave me for lying and saying the child isn’t his. He’s like that. Good. But something has happened. Won’t talk to me.”