Crystal gives him an are you crazy? look and says, “You know what I think, Kobra?”
We already know what Crystal thinks based on the tone of her voice.
I look at my mom and mouth, “Sorry,” as if I’m serving her a luncheon and I burned the chicken. This isn’t how I’d plan a reunion, but it’s an accurate representation of my life. The closer I get to my true identity, the more chaotic and insane things get. It’s no wonder I ended up in a coma.
My mom doesn’t respond. She’s as still as a field mouse, waiting for the whole thing to blow over. I wonder if that’s how she approached my teen years…
“You know what I think?” Crystal repeats. “I think you’re overcompensating for something with that twenty-foot snake.”
He looks truly hurt. “How about we go in the back and you can find out for yourself.”
“In your dreams.”
This is going to play really well in court. They’ve gone over death by snake at least twice. Denise must think so too because she chooses this moment to storm out. “Kobra,” she says in a cop voice, “you have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. If you can’t afford one, one will be provided to you.”
Does anyone ever listen to the Miranda warning besides lawyers? I’m taping it so Denise better get it right.
At that, Kobra bolts, and Crystal cheers, “Get him, girl!”
Denise unholsters her gun and takes off after him. “Don’t run. We have you surrounded.” Then she talks into her radio, just like a cop on TV. “Suspect approaching the front door.”
Sure enough, when Kobra opens the door, another cop is waiting. That cop shouts, “Stop!” and raises his gun. My mom has hit the floor and is hiding under the table.67
Kobra makes a move like he’s going to run anyway, but Denise walks up behind him and tases the shit out of him. I wish I’d gotten that job.
“God, maybe I should be a cop,” Crystal says. “I think I would have shot him, though.”
“You should be a cop,” I say. “If it doesn’t work being Mrs. JulesBrand Underwear.”
She laughs. “I’m getting us a drink.”
My mom is still cowering under the table, sweating through her yoga clothes. “Mia…” She obviously doesn’t know what she wants to say.
I give her a hand up. “I’m super sorry about that. I really couldn’t back out of the meeting with Kobra.” It’s true. “And I think it ended up going really well. Crystal got a great confession out of him.” Today is going great! “Thanks so much for hanging in there.” She doesn’t say anything so I say, “He didn’t respect the boundary I set, so we had to get serious.”
I think my therapy joke is funny but she doesn’t laugh. Maybe she will when she gets home and replays the whole afternoon in her mind. “I think I’m ready to go home now,” she says. “Do you want to come with me? Are you safe?”
“Thanks so much, but I think I’d better stay.” I look around at the chaos. “The police probably want to talk to me.” And I still need to hand over my vape pen with a bug in it.
My mom looks relieved and I can’t blame her. “Next time, let’s meet somewhere else.” She leans in. “I don’t know who pushed you into the Cupid sculpture, Mia, but there was a hashtag for the event. You might want to look on social media to see if anything jogs your memory.”
Apparently my mom also thinks like an Instagram sleuth. “Thanks for the tip, Mom. You name the place, and I’ll be there.” Before she leaves I snap a selfie of the two of us. She looks beautiful, if a little shell-shocked.
Mostly I’m happy because there will be a next meeting. I have a mom and I’m ready to craft a relationship governed by healthy boundaries.
After I talk to Denise and decompress for a while, I sit in a booth, just me and my phone. My mind drifts to Max and I decide to update my honesty project.
First, I post the selfie of me and my mom. We look quite a bit alike. I caption it, Found my mom! Talked for the first time in years. It’s a pretty good picture, except for the stripper booty and the uniforms in the background.
This is the first photo that Max likes. Now I know he’s paying attention and following along.
I post the picture of us on the scenic overlook over Laguna Beach. Me and Max.
I wait for him to like that one.
“Oh my God, Mia. Stop staring at your phone like that. You’re going to light it on fire with your mind,” Crystal says.
64 Guess I know where I got the idea for my business.
65 Looks like I can delay Botox. I’m even younger than I thought!
66 I don’t think he likes Crystal for her moral pulchritude, which is a word I know.
67 This might delay our next reunion.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
After the police clear out with Kobra in cuffs, I sit at the bar, order another glass of wine, and scroll through the #LBArt hashtag on Instagram. There are so many posts—and I have no idea how I’m going to get through them all. I hop over to Twitter and see a bunch of tweets and photos with the hashtag as well. It’s like everyone at the party spent the whole time staring at their phones. Which is probably true, especially given the theme of the exhibition.
There are about five hundred selfies, most of which aren’t interesting, until I catch a glimpse of myself in the background of one of them. I stare at the photo, zooming in and looking at it pixel by pixel. I see JP with me.
There’s another photo of JP and me standing next to a table of appetizer trays on the museum’s official Instagram account. I can see why they’d feature us. We’re young and good-looking and that yellow dress photographs amazingly. If only I still had the cape! But the longer I study the photo, the more it becomes clear how off it is. We’re standing too far apart, our bodies stiff and our smiles forced. I’ve read enough of those Us Weekly sidebars about the body language of celebrity couples to know when I see a happy pair and when I see two people who are in the middle of a giant fight about intellectual property.
The post is time-stamped at 11:03 p.m. on Tuesday. I was admitted to the hospital not long after that.
Suddenly, I’m super weirded out. If JP had been there, why didn’t he know about the head injury? Why didn’t he follow me to the hospital? Why did I wake up alone? You don’t just watch your girlfriend bash her head on an ice sculpture and then go to Switzerland to get clarity on a fight you had before the party. It’s a damning photograph. If the trial attorney showed this to the jury, they would deliberate for all of five minutes and send JP to prison for five years, of which he would serve six months maximum because, let’s face it, he’s a billionaire.