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ONE

LULA

I’ve been known to take the full 400mg dosage of Advil sometimes. I’m not proud of it, but desperate times and all that.

With music vibrating the floor and dollar bills being shoved into sparkling elastic, I’m contemplating another dose and it’s not even been six hours.

Turning to anti-inflammatories is not my usual coping mechanism, but today is special.

So, so special. See, I’m meeting my mother’s new husband. At his strip club. One of three he owns.

“Stop staring at your phone,” my mother chirps in that squeaky, urgent tone she gets when she’s trying to impress people and she thinks I’m ruining the vibe. “Mingle. I’ll introduce you to Larry as soon as the time feels right.” She shakes her head making a tsk sound watching me tap the screen on my iPhone, “You and your social media. You singing on TikTok again? For what?”

“It’s for work, mother. I’m posting on Facebook Marketplace for the scrapyard.” I lie. I do that as well, but right now I’m lost in the dopamine hits I’m getting from watching my latest video get tons of views.

My reply only intensifies the sour twist of her lips. “I mean, who cares about a scrapyard on Facebook?” She waves at someone across the room while fluttering her lash extensions that curl all the way up to her micro-bladed brows.

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the hundred or more people that have found us because of Facebook. Scrapping’s a big thing on Facebook. Lots of scrappers out there and I want them coming to Z’s Scrap all day long.”

I grew up helping my dad run the business. Z’s Scrap is a third-generation venture. It’s ‘Z’ is instead of Zdzinski since no one seems to be able to spell or pronounce my father’s family name. The work is messy and hard. It’s hot in the summer and freezing in the winter, but the yard is his baby. Well, his other baby besides me. And since Mom bailed on him and his blue-collar ambitions, she’s lost her baby status as well. Only problem is, running the yard includes long hours, lots of coffee, stress and junk food and my dad had a heart attack two months ago just after I graduated high school and I almost lost him.

One quadruple bypass later, he’s on 24/7 oxygen and a crap ton of home health, meds and rehab, but he’s stable, thank God. I’ve had to take the helm at the yard and with his care and any ideas of jumping in my beige 1999 Buick and heading to Nashville to be the next Taylor Swift are on permanent hiatus. Instead, I’m working every strategy in my arsenal to try to save what I now know is a business on the downslope of solvency. This is not what the summer after my senior year was supposed to be.

But, it’s okay. My dad is everything to me and losing the yard would be the death nail for him. That, and losing me. My singing dreams are secondary to keeping my father alive and that right now includes getting his business back in the black.

Mom makes a raspberry sound drawing my attention back. “Well, whatever you’re doing is only encouraging him. He should sell that place. It was always trashy, barely paid the bills. It’s going to bring you down too. Get out as fast as you can, convince your dad to move on, for goodness’ sake.”

I leave that subject on the sticky floor for now, just grateful my dad is getting stronger and I’m handling things the best I can. My mom can go pound rocks.

When she left, I went back and forth for a year or so, but in the end, I think she wanted her space so when I made the decision to be with Dad full time, it went over better than I’d planned. She had one condition, which was she wanted me to take her maiden name Laurence, from my father’s Zdzinski. She always hated his last name and truth was, I sort of wanted the switch.

Not because I didn’t like the name, but if I was going to be a star, well, Lula Zdzinski didn’t really have the same ring to it that Lula Laurence did. Dad agreed, wanting my dreams to come true so Mom did the paperwork and as far as the law is concerned, I’m Lula Laurence now. Stardom dreams on permanent hold.

“Don’t worry, Diedre,” I say. She hates when I use her first name, but right now, I think she’s earned a little rebellion. “I’ll be waiting right here when my new Daddy is ready.” I jab my index finger to the tabletop and release a dramatic exhale, keeping my eyes pinned to my most recent TikTok of me singing Lovestory with my signature slower, sultry style. The video is already up to 40K views in just a few hours. “There’s nowhere else I’d rather be than right here.”

“Stop that sarcasm. You know I hate that. It’s trashy.”

I’m not sure my mother’s version of trashy and the world’s version are the same. She taps a crystal-encrusted white fingernail on her matching blazing white teeth. Her white-on-white cheetah print jumpsuit is clinging to her like desperation, but I will say, she’s got the body of Heidi Klum with a high-end boob job.

A boob job she’s still paying off in installments. Zero percent interest though, so, that’s a plus.

“Well, when in Rome…” I look at the ceiling again on an eye roll, as the disco ball twirls loosely above us and the black painted drop ceiling tiles threaten to crash down onto the sticky two top I grabbed against the wall when I came in.

“Strip clubs aren’t trashy. Don’t judge, Lula. There but by the grace of God go you, young lady.”

“I agree. Not all strip clubs are trashy.” I huff, rolling my head back and around, listening to the pop pop pop of my vertebrae and watching my mother cringe.

She’s known Larry two weeks, and yet here we are at his premier gentleman’s entertainment center, The King’s Palace, to celebrate their nuptials.

Well, it’s no palace, and there’s not a king in sight.

Trash would be offended by the comparison.

“I hate that sound.” Mom reaches for her rum and coke sitting on a drenched square napkin next to her now empty shot of Amaretto.

I turn my attention back to my phone. The post has surged to 50K and little hearts and notifications are lighting up my screen, turning this unfortunate evening into less of the total loss I thought it would be.

“Do not ruin this for me, young lady. Larry is everything I ever wanted. Everything…” She pauses as the DJ announces the impending arrival of Crystal Showers taking the stage to the tune of that milkshake song I don’t really understand. “Everything your father was not.”

I clench my teeth and shoot her a hard glare thinking be careful what you wish for Mom.

“Don’t talk about Dad,” I snap as she flaps her best non-apology wave toward my face as I bite into my lip and count to ten.

The scent of cannabis drifting off two sparkly thong clad females with admittedly nice racks passing by makes my eyes tear.

It always smells like skunk spray to me and to each their own, but with all the magical scientific advancements in the world, couldn’t they create some version of pot that doesn’t smell like skunk ass?

They shoot me a side eye whispering to each other bubbling my anxiety to the surface and I offer a tight smile.

Neither one of them is perfect. Something tells me this place isn’t top of the stripper list of desirable workplaces. Still, they could each fit their entire lower body into a single leg of my jeans. I tug the neckline of my white peasant-style blouse up and try to disappear against the black wall behind me.

The thump of the bass and the sight of Crystal looking insanely bored while she dry humps the silver pole on stage is making this all feel like someone slipped me some peyote in my Shirley Temple.

What’s making it worse is, although my mother has always had an affinity for the Peg Bundy look, she was never into clubs or drinking and swore me off stripping as a career path from as far back as I can remember.

The first I heard of my now new stepfather was a phone call two weeks ago from another of his fine establishments on the less, less desirable side of Highland Heights, called the Teaser Club. She called to inform me she’d met the one and went on for twenty minutes about his Hummer, his Harley, his pinky ring and his string of businesses. Including the car wash where my mother was re-stocking the vending machines when their love story for the ages began.

Fifteen days later, one secret trip to Vegas and boom, I have a new stepfather.

Yay.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had a secret fantasy of having my own love story someday since I was a little girl. I’ve just never been good at flirting or dating and there’s always this little birdy in my ear with my mother’s voice saying, you’ve got such a pretty face, and my eyes, if you’d just lose the weight…

Ugg.

But, way back, I remember happy Sundays in the park with them holding hands, kissing and watching me play in the sandbox or climb trees. I would sing into sticks like microphones while they would clap and I would bow.

Mom was stunning back then, and still is. Problem with that, is she knows it, and she always wanted more.

Her dream of getting out of Highland Heights and hobnobbing with the country club crowd, sipping mimosas on Sunday mornings and playing tennis and polo, was not aligned with being the wife of a scrapyard owner. Third generation scrapyard owner to boot. A family dynasty.

“I just want us to be a family,” she hisses, her ice-blue eyes flicking to the back hallway where I’m assuming Larry’s office is. When I came in, Mom was standing at the bar, laughing over the crowd with a couple of the cannabis-perfumed ladies that walked by a minute ago, but, sans Larry.

“Well,” I start on a shrug, using a sardonically cheerful tone, “I don’t think there’s any way around that.”

She purses her high gloss Mary Kay pink lips, which look plumper than the last time I saw her.

“Stop it, young lady. Larry is our ticket.” She points at my chest then back at hers. “This is what I’ve been trying to find since—”

I still her with my eyes and she shakes her head, swiping her hand in the air between us.

Jesus, my mom is a handful. But, I do love her. She left my father when I was thirteen, looking for greener—and I mean, the color of money greener—pastures. Which, is ironic since she’s been living in a one bedroom apartment working on her vending machine empire ever since she left. Apparently finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow has been harder than she expected.

I remember reading The Great Gatsby as a freshman and I recognized so much of mom in Myrtle Wilson. Her husband worked hard, tried to provide, but in the end, it was her desperate pursuit of wealth and the happiness she associated it that left her laying in the street with one breast half torn off.

“Lula!” Mom grabs the top of my head and angles my eyes upward. “You aren’t listening.”

“What?”

“I’m going to the lady’s room. I want to make sure I look my best when Larry comes back out. You wanna come with?”

Her sandy blonde hair is in perfect beach waves. Make up looking like it was applied by a Hollywood set artist.

“Ahhh, no.” I shake my head, thinking about the sticky table in front of me and the stickier carpet under my feet. Risking the bathroom unless I’m desperate is a hard pass for me. “I’m good.”

“Suit yourself. Just, be ready to smile and get off that darn Tok thing. Once I get settled in as Mrs. Larry Nelson you never know, maybe he knows people. This singing thing of yours…” She toddles off as the milkshake song ends and Crystal gives her final, indifferent, spread-eagle closing move. “It’s probably not going to go anywhere, but you know I do whatever I can for my Lula Belle.”

A wave of relief loosens my shoulder muscles as she steps away only to return when she spins back around, eyes lighting up. She trip-stumbles, leaning down in that whispery, this is critical intel, sort of voice she likes to use when something is important to her.

“I didn’t even tell you. You’ve got a stepbrother.”