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Shyanne called the next day and said she didn’t mean to be so harsh, but that I needed to stop while I still could and delete

the account. Somehow, I wound up promising that I would do so. “You’re right,” I said, running my finger along the windowsill

in my room. “I think you’re probably right.” When I was saying this to her, I meant it, and it felt good to bend to her wishes.

But when we got off the phone, I didn’t take down the account. Instead, I went and ate a bowl of shredded wheat, the big ones

that look like little doll beds, since my dad had replaced all the fun cereal in the house.

I figured that if the OnlyFans wasn’t successful after three more months, then I’d take it down. What was the difference between

now and three months from now? (Absolutely untouched by this logic was the idea that a successful run as a porn star is much

harder to bury than a failed one.)

The week before Christmas was a blur of nonstop filming. As soon as they had the go-ahead from Rose and KC, Margo and Jinx

and Suzie went to Fry’s Electronics, even though it was ten p.m. Christmas music was playing, and Jinx and Suzie skipped through

the store like kids. Margo waddled behind under the weight of Bodhi in his carrier strapped on her front. They bought two

GoPros and a boom mic, some lights, and a Roomba.

They started shooting at KC and Rose’s apartment on Tuesday and didn’t finish until Friday, so much longer did everything take than they imagined. Suzie wound up occasional cameraman and general fixer, bringing them all Chipotle, finding lost shoes or panties. Jinx was a kind of baby-wearing art director who knew a lot more about lighting than any of them had realized. They all needed endless costume changes to make it seem like everything took place over the course of seven days. Even once it was over, there was the editing and organizing, which took Margo another three days.

Still, when she watched it all back, she thought they had something. They had made something. If it was good or not, she didn’t

know, but she loved it. She absolutely loved it.

Margo was so busy that she hardly slept, and she certainly hadn’t gotten a chance to go Christmas shopping. At the last minute

she ordered an old-fashioned-looking teddy bear for Bodhi from Amazon and bought Jinx an electric razor and a subscription

to a tea-of-the-month club. But what to possibly get Shyanne? Margo wound up ordering her a necklace off Etsy: a tiny ace

of spades made of fourteen-karat gold on a delicate chain. Taking a deep breath, she booked her trip to Vegas for Shyanne’s

wedding on January 6. The ticket was expensive as hell, and she tried not to resent it. She added a lap infant. She would

let Shyanne be furious and count on the presence of Kenny to keep Shyanne from outwardly expressing the worst of it.

And yet, during the week before Christmas, where everything was a blur and she hardly had time to shower, she managed to write

JB four pages about the best sandwich she’d ever had (a Reuben). She spent an hour googling the mall by his hometown, looking

for pictures of how the food court was laid out.

He asked, Have you ever known anyone named Kyle and, if so, what was he like? Do you believe in ghosts? What is the worst you have ever

done on a test? Who taught you to drive?

They wrote to each other three, four times a day. It felt like an art project almost, answering each other’s questions, like

if they were careful, they could use these messages like Ziploc bags to store reality itself. Who was your first boyfriend? he asked. And she told him an only slightly modified account of Sebastian. Who was your first girlfriend? she asked. And he told her about a girl named Riley who always got the lead in the school play and had an amazing singing

voice, and how they never had sex and later it turned out she was a lesbian.

She told him about the TikToks they were working on and how excited she was about the project. Maybe you should go to film school, JB said. Margo started to write back that she couldn’t, but then, what if she could? She asked him about his job, and he explained he did something with machine learning and advertising, like with political ads. This was his first real job after grad school, and all the people he worked with were older, in their thirties, and had kids. He’d moved to D.C. for the job and didn’t have a lot of friends. He was originally from New York, and D.C. felt very different, he didn’t love it.

But it seems like you make a lot of money, she wrote.

I mean, not a ton, he had answered. I think I just don’t have much to spend it on.

That didn’t make sense to Margo. She googled how much machine learning engineers make and their salaries started at $120k,

which she considered to be a wild amount for a twenty-five-year-old to be making. Still, she guessed his mother would probably

be scandalized if she saw how he was spending it. Margo didn’t know what D.C. was like and pictured an entire city of people

who had done student government in high school. She could understand why JB wouldn’t like that.

By the time all the videos were edited, it was nearly Christmas. They didn’t want to post during low traffic and all agreed

to wait until the twenty-sixth. Margo thought the suspense might kill her.

The day before Christmas, at about six in the morning, a courier knocked on the door of their apartment, chewing gum and with

an improbably large diamond in his ear, and asked Margo to sign for some papers. Then the courier asked if James Millet lived

there as well and insisted Margo couldn’t sign for him. She went to wake Jinx, then stood awkwardly with the courier by the

doorway, not making eye contact as Bodhi continually yanked the neckline of her T-shirt, trying to expose her breasts so he

could nurse. “He’ll be here in a minute,” she reassured him. Finally, Jinx came to sign, and with the courier gone, they opened

their respective envelopes.

“What is yours?” she asked, as she frantically tried to understand what her own said, Bodhi grabbing at the pages and squealing.

“Jesus Christ,” Jinx said. “This is unbelievable.”

“PETITION TO DETERMINE PARENTAL RELATIONSHIP,” her form said.

“It’s a restraining order,” Jinx said. “From Mark and Mommy Dearest.”

Margo barely heard him, too busy reading her own form. Was Mark trying to establish paternity? For what godly reason?

On the second page there was a series of check boxes.

IF Petitioner is found to be the parent of children listed in item 2, Petitioner requests:

Legal custody of Children to....... PETITIONER ??

Physical custody of Children to.... PETITIONER ??

Child visitation be granted to.... PETITIONER ONLY ??

It didn’t make sense. Why would Mark want custody of Bodhi? He and Elizabeth had gone out of their way to keep Bodhi out of

their lives, made her sign papers promising never to contact him, and now he was suing her, or summonsing her, or whatever

this was?

“This is all my fault,” Jinx was saying. “Oh God, this is all my fault.”

Margo’s hands were so sweaty she was leaving damp marks on the papers, so she set them on the kitchen counter and rubbed her

free hand on her shirt. Bodhi still wanted to nurse, so she gave him a rubber spatula to distract him, and he immediately

whacked her on the head with it.

“I’m so sorry,” Jinx said.

“Sorry for what?” Margo snapped, almost irritated with her dad for making so little sense.

“Margo, I called him,” Jinx said.

“Called who?”

“I called Mark and I yelled at him,” Jinx said. “I was so mad that he made you sign that NDA, that he was your teacher. I

just... it got to me, and I kept thinking, He thinks he can treat her like this? He thinks no one is going to stand up

for her?”

Margo grabbed Bodhi’s fist midair before he bonked her with the spatula again. “But why would you do that? If you knew it would break the NDA and then Bodhi would lose his trust?”

“I don’t know, it was stupid, Margo, I wasn’t thinking clearly, but you know, technically it doesn’t violate the NDA. It says

you aren’t allowed to contact him. It didn’t say anything about me or a party affiliated with you or anything like that.”

Margo almost laughed, she was so upset. This time she failed to block Bodhi, and he hit her in the head again. “He wants full

custody of Bodhi,” she said. She tried to say this lightly, but there was a tremor in her voice.

“Let me see that,” Jinx said, grabbing the papers she’d laid on the counter.

Slowly, Margo tried to remember how to make coffee. It seemed almost impossibly complex. She floated uncertainly toward the

cabinet that contained the coffee filters.

“There’s no way,” Jinx said, slapping the papers back down on the counter. “This is just to scare you, sweetie. There’s no

way any court would grant him full custody.”

“Really?” Margo tried to swallow. Bodhi hit her again with the spatula. Jinx came around the island and took him from her.

Her arms were suddenly wet noodles, the muscles shaking, and she wondered how she’d been managing to hold Bodhi at all.

“A hundred percent,” Jinx said.

“What about the OnlyFans?” she asked. “Do you think they could take him because of that?”

“OnlyFans isn’t illegal!” Jinx crowed. “Plus, how would they even know you have an OnlyFans?”

Margo finally was able to separate a single filter from the stack. She put it in the coffee machine, momentarily uncertain

what to do next. It was true, she realized. They didn’t have a way of knowing about her OnlyFans. It was under the name HungryGhost.

“You don’t think they’ll say I’m an unfit mother?” she asked.

“I promise,” Jinx said. “This is going to be okay. This is all my fault, and it’s just a reaction to me calling and threatening him and it will blow over, I’m sure of it.”

“You threatened him?” Margo paused as she scooped the coffee grounds.

Jinx looked sheepish. “I mean, old habits die hard?”

“What exactly did you say?” She was not happy about this situation, but there was some small part of her that had perhaps

fantasized about Dr. Jinx threatening violence on her behalf her whole life.

“I don’t know,” Jinx said, “stupid stuff. About, like, asking if he knew how easy it was to break someone’s fingers, how they

kind of pop, you don’t even need to press that hard, and the sound they make as they break.” Jinx made a popping sound with

his finger in his cheek.

“Oh my God,” Margo said, then let out a peal of nervous laughter. This wasn’t funny. This was very bad. But the idea of little

Mark, his cell phone pressed to his ear, shivering with terror as Dr. Jinx made cartoonish popping noises with his cheek,

was too much.

“I may have also said that if he ever messed around with another student, I would cut off his member.”

Margo was now bent over, hands on knees, laughing so hard her eyes stung. It was the word member . Almost unable to stand, she finally said, “Was that the word you used with him?”

“Uh, I believe so,” Jinx said.

“My God,” she marveled. Jinx and Bodhi were both looking at her, concerned. “This is so bad,” she said, still for some reason

smiling, though she could feel that at any moment she might begin to cry. “I’m so scared!”

Instantly Jinx was beside her, one of his hands on her back, rubbing circles into the fabric of her T-shirt. She could feel

the tension leaving her body in real time, just from being touched.

“Everything is going to be all right,” Jinx said. “I promise you.”

“What do I do?” she asked.

“It says you have thirty days to respond, plenty of time. You do what all red-blooded Americans do. You hire a lawyer.”

“Right,” Margo said. Hiring a lawyer sounded overwhelming. “I just— Maybe I should call Mark. He isn’t a bad guy. I mean, he’s kind of a terrible person, but he isn’t an irrational person. I could at least find out his intentions.”

Jinx grimaced. “I mean, you can if you want to, but I would at least consult a lawyer and see if they think you should contact

him. You don’t want to accidentally give them more ammo.”

Margo thought about this. The thing was, if she had to guess, it was Mark’s mother who was behind this. Talking to Mark might

not do any good, and it would put her in violation of the NDA.

“It’ll be easy,” Jinx said. “We can start calling around after Christmas when people are back in the office.”

“You promise?”

“A hundred percent,” Jinx said. “There is nothing to worry about. This is just the way rich white people say ‘fuck you.’ Trust

me, I know their language, I’m practically fluent.”

Part of this game is that you are going to realize certain things before I do. This is called “narrative irony.” I know because

Mark put it on a test once.

Shyanne begged Margo to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with her and Kenny, and Margo knew on some level this was

Shyanne’s way of solidifying their making up, even if the way she phrased it was backhanded and confusing: “You ditched us

for Thanksgiving!” Shyanne said. “You know you did!”

“How did I ditch you?” Margo asked, laughing nervously. Lying to Shyanne about keeping her OnlyFans account left her constantly

off-balance.

“You don’t even love me anymore,” Shyanne said.

“Oh, shut up! You know I love you. Of course I’ll see you at Christmas.”

Though she didn’t entirely register at the time that Shyanne wanted not only to see her, but to have Margo continuously present

(and Jinx continuously absent) all of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Jinx was very understanding when Margo finally brought the dilemma to him. “Christmas is entirely meaningless to me,” he’d said. He and Suzie planned to watch an old WWE In Your House special, Canadian Stampede, in which, Jinx kept promising Suzie, Bret Hart was almost horrifyingly over.

“What is over ?” Suzie asked.

“Oh, just like, the crowd loved him,” Jinx said. “He could have punched an old woman in the face, and they would have cheered.”

Margo would stay at Kenny’s condo. Shyanne and Kenny were waiting until they were married to move in together, which seemed

weird to Margo, but weirder still: her mother was also spending Christmas Eve at Kenny’s and had gone out of her way to mention

to Margo that she’d be in the spare room while Margo and Bodhi slept in the basement rec room on the floor.

Why wouldn’t Shyanne sleep in Kenny’s room? Was it possible that her mother and Kenny hadn’t slept together yet?

“We thank God our budget has been approved,” Kenny was saying into a microphone onstage. It was Christmas Eve, the five p.m.

service, and he was surrounded by the youth band, fronted by a girl singer whose skin was the tender gray white of mushrooms

growing in the dark. They had opened the service by singing “O Little Town of Bethlehem” so poorly that Margo had been shocked.

The singer kept sucking in air mid-note and sliding around trying to find the pitch. Margo now understood what kind of youth

would accept being ministered to by Kenny, and it made her feel tender toward all of them.

When the song finally ended, the band and Kenny left the stage, and the pastor took the pulpit.

Pastor Jim had both Michael J. Fox and Ned Flanders vibes, an ultimately likable combination. The sermon seemed to be entirely

about Joseph. “If you were Mary and you were pregnant with the Lord’s baby, wouldn’t you be a little scared to tell Joseph?”

the pastor asked. The congregation laughed. “Yeah!” he said in his folksy midwestern accent. “I’d be afraid myself, if I was

in Mary’s shoes.”

More laughter.

“But, folks, do you think he believed her?”

Margo assumed the answer was yes, and Joseph believed her because he was a good guy. She was surprised when the congregation

stayed silent.

“No!” the pastor said. “No, folks, he did not believe her, and can you blame him? If the woman you were engaged to marry came to you and said, ‘I’m pregnant, but trust

me, it’s not from another man, it’s the Lord’s child’—what would you think?”

You could almost hear the congregation silently thinking that she was a lying whore!

“In Matthew 1:19, it says: ‘Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and was unwilling to disgrace her publicly, he

resolved to divorce her quietly.’” The pastor looked out at them. “Because what would happen if Mary were disgraced publicly?”

He waited a beat. “That’s right, she would be stoned! Put to death! Or, at the very least, cast out!”

This man did not utter a phrase without an exclamation mark. He was less boring than she’d anticipated. It did make Margo

wonder, however, how Mary really did get pregnant. She’d never thought about this in her entire life. It couldn’t have been

Joseph, or he wouldn’t have thought of divorcing her. Whoever it was, it was clear Mary lied and said it was the Lord’s baby

and got away with it. Was there another way of describing what happened? It was, as Jinx would say, an absolutely epic angle.

Mary must have had balls of steel during that conversation with Joseph.

“Wasn’t Joseph a great guy? Wasn’t he, though?” the pastor was saying. But Margo couldn’t stop thinking about Mary and what she’d pulled off. The pastor covered how she was visiting her cousin Elizabeth who was also having a miracle baby, John the Baptist, and Mary stayed with her for three months and returned home three months pregnant to have it out with Joseph, so it seemed likely that whatever happened, Mary’s pregnancy was probably the reason she went to visit Elizabeth in the first place, so she could hide out while she figured out what to do. Was it usual for women to travel alone like that? How old was Mary anyway? Margo pulled out her phone and googled: “How old was Mary?” Bodhi was fascinated by her phone and tried to pry it from her grasp. She could barely see but caught the phrase: “At the time of her betrothal to Joseph, Mary was 12–14 years old.” She let Bodhi have it, and he happily stuck the whole top corner in his mouth, sucking on the camera lens.

So, she was definitely raped, Margo thought. What other conclusion could you come to? She could picture a seventeen-year-old

Mary falling in love with some shepherd boy and having a dalliance, but a twelve-year-old girl? It had to have been rape,

not in the modern statutory sense, but rape-rape. Margo looked around at the congregation. How were none of them realizing

this with her?

“I hope you’ve come to love Joseph as much as I do. He was a righteous man. A man not afraid to do the right thing. A man

of the law. I like to think that he’s the secret hero of Christmas, even if he’s not the star of the show. Usually we talk

about Mary, we talk about the baby Jesus, but I like to think about Joseph. We could all learn a little something about being

a man from him.”

There was a murmur of assent from the crowd. Margo tried to catch Shyanne’s eye, but she was too busy wiping her tears with

a Kleenex. They all stood to sing “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” and Bodhi was thrilled by all the singing. He kept shoving his

whole hand in Margo’s mouth. She wondered, as she bounced him, if any of the men here subscribed to OnlyFans. She pictured

her voice, as it rose with the others, glowing subtly black. She didn’t know if she was enjoying imagining herself as slightly

evil because she disliked these people or because she was afraid of them. She knew they were likely nice people. She even

believed that they were probably better than her. But she knew they would hate her. She knew, if pressed, that they would

show her no mercy at all. That the lead singer, so delicate, so tender she quaked with the glory of God’s love, lungs fluttering

too fast to find the note, would press her gray New Balance sneaker right on Margo’s throat.