Triple Love Score (33 page)

“Hello,” Miranda said.

“Well do come in—everyone’s waiting for you.”

Miranda was led down the center hallway past the grandest staircase ever. They continued past a series of doors all shut until they reached a set of double doors at the end of the hallway. Ellie opened both at the same time, and the two women stepped into a glorious glass-walled room filled with game tables and beautiful potted plants. Foursomes of women played Scrabble. Wait-staff circulated the room with pots of coffee and trays of cookies shaped like Scrabble tiles.

“The conservatory I call it,” Ellie said, making a sweeping gesture with one hand, “but the only thing I conserve here is my sanity. Without these gatherings, I think I would just die of boredom. When I heard you were at the university, I called up there to have them send you down right quick. You are just the type of thing I like to have here.”

“You do this often?” Miranda asked.

“Oh, yes,” Ellie went on. “I have all sorts come and visit and share their talents. Musicians, scholars. Why once I even had that man from the television, the one who yells at people who own restaurants poorly? I had him come down and do a cooking demonstration.”

“Here?” Miranda asked.

“Indeed, my husband, class of ’86, had a whole television kitchen brought in. We filmed it and gave out the DVDs to our friends for the holidays that year.”

“So what do you want me to do exactly?” Miranda said.

“Oh, you know, your usual. I was told you will make up poems on the spot. They’re going to collect the pictures from your website and make a special book for my friends. But first, please eat something. The buffet is still set.”

After her meager evening meals of food gleaned from hotel mini-bars and snack stations, Miranda did not need to be asked twice.

“Lisa,” she said to one of the passing servers, “Please show the Blocked Poet to the buffet—see she gets what she needs, then seat her at the head table.”

On the other side of the room, on a raised platform was a table for one with several Scrabble boards waiting for her. Miranda indulged on a variety of things from California rolls to sliders with bacon and bleu cheese. Despite Ellie’s small size, she appeared to understand food. Miranda mentally took notes to share with Avery. The shot glasses of tomato soup with little rounds of grilled cheese on top were simply too whimsical not to share. She considered taking out her phone and snapping a picture, but she wasn’t sure of the etiquette. After all, she was the help.

After the ladies finished up their Scrabble games, Ellie lauded the redhead who earned the highest score of anyone in the room, giving her a floral quilted purse filled with lotions and soaps. “Just a little something,” Ellie said. “Now for our main event. The Blocked Poet.”

Miranda ran through her samples, and then opened the floor to requests. Quite a few equestrian themes, one unexpected about NASCAR, one about Paris that she could barely contain her composure for, and many, many on friendship and debutantes and cotillion—the last two breaking her seven-letters rule.

“It’s okay,” a blonde in Barbara Bush’s pearls and pale pink twin set told her. “It means more if it’s about what we want.”

Ellie herself asked for one about orchids. The group luckily pitched in on that one calling out different types and colors until finally Miranda was able to fill the board.

After all the sculptures were complete, another buffet table was unveiled with tiny cups of cappuccino topped with delicate sugar cookies and pies the size of half dollars on lollypop sticks. Miranda mingled through the guests, answering their questions about two-letter Scrabble words and their favorite poets.

At the s’more station, Miranda found herself next to a six-foot-tall woman who announced herself as Ellie’s sister.

“Sister?” Miranda asked, looking the tall woman up and down.

“In law,” the lady said. “Class of ’85.”

“Oh, how nice, you all went to the same school.”

“Yes, nice. For those of us who earned our place and didn’t flounce in on legacy.”

“Oh,” Miranda said. “There’s something to be said about tradition.”

“Tradition. Speaking of that, I really wanted to ask you about that student of yours.”

“Which student?”

She leaned in to speak to Miranda and wound up hovering over her. “Aren’t you coy? You know. The one that landed you here. Rumor has it you bedded a student for an entire year.” The woman accepted her s’more from the attendant. She popped the whole thing into her mouth and then licked the marshmallow off one finger at a time. “Was it worth it?” she asked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Miranda said.

“Oh, you know, based on the email the student sent to Jonas, it sounds like you knew every inch of his body. What was it you said to him, “Put out or get out? Isn’t that quite the poem?” She leaned back and called out over her shoulder to the table of the women behind them who were pretending not to eavesdrop. “That’s right, girls. That’s what she said. “Put out or get out. To a student.”

“He wasn’t a student,” Miranda said.

“So it is true,” the woman said springing back. “I knew Ellie wouldn’t have been able to pull this off otherwise.” She reached over and took the s’more the attendant was handing Miranda and floated off, waving the treat in the air. “Ellie,” she called out. “We simply must talk about what I just learned from your little poet.”

Miranda’s cheeks burned with embarrassment. The car wouldn’t be back for another half an hour.

Instead she skulked about the edges of the conservatory, hiding among the various orchids and ferns, talking to the few guests who hadn’t yet heard the rumors burning through the room like a wild fire. The ones who had heard just winked at her or raised their cups of coffee in a mock salute. After her sister-in-law pulled her aside, Ellie left the conservatory and didn’t reappear. One of the waitresses fetched Miranda when the car finally arrived.

She dialed Scott the minute she reached her room, her ability to hold back her tears dissolving the minute he answered.

“Randa, slow down,” he said. “Slow down. What is it?”

She told him everything. The house. The food. The tall sister-in-law. The stolen s’more. The utter crushing embarrassment of the whole thing.

“The rotten shit,” he said. “How could he share that? That violates several different employment and student privacy statutes. We could sue.”

“I don’t want to sue,” Miranda said, her voice clogged with tears. “I just wanted to keep my job.”

“I told you this was blackmail. Now it’s worse than that. It’s blackmail and punishment. What the hell? You don’t even have to keep on doing this.”

The more he went on the more Miranda felt herself unable to focus. She didn’t want him to fix it. She just wanted him to listen. Instead of feeling better, she felt worse—first embarrassed and now lectured.

“Scott, please,” she finally said. “Listen, I need to take a shower. I have some early events tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” he said. “How can you even think of continuing?”

“I gave my word; people are expecting me.”

“Well, I’m expecting you, too,” he said. “I love you.”

“Scott, why are making this more difficult? I just wanted you to listen to me.”

“I am listening to you.”

“Then why don’t you understand that I want to be on this book tour, that I want to be doing this, that I want to keep my job, and that I never wanted to be just a mother.”

“Never wanted to be a mother?”

“Not that—just a stay-at-home mother. I want to keep my job.”

“But you didn’t say that—you said mother. What are playing at? You know what Lynn means to me. You knew this was a package deal.”

“Of course I do. You’re not listening. You misunderstood.”

“Maybe I didn’t, Miranda. Maybe you said exactly what you meant to say. And I’m done listening to it.” He hung up.

She tried calling back, but each time it went to voicemail.

I
N 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.