I still have it somewhere, my scribbly eulogy on a folded legal sheet. It was short. Just a single page, but I must’ve written it over and over again until every word was perfect. Exactly like a good joke. I hardly remember being up there. But I do remember telling myself—Just read the next sentence. Don’t think about it. Just read. And that’s what I did. Because if I thought for a second that my dad was really gone, I would’ve lost it there in a roomful of people. The way Jeremiah’s brother is starting to lose it now.

  This might be a stranger’s funeral somewhere in Mississippi but it feels just like that dusty day in May. Only worse because now Imani’s leaving me too. How am I going to do this on my own? And this time, I really am all alone. The shock and sadness of it all swirls in my chest, bubbling up my throat. I swallow it back but then my eyes begin to burn and flood.

  Uh-oh, I can’t stop it. I open my mouth thinking I’ll take a quick breath but nothing goes in. It only comes out.

  All of it.

  At once.

  “Waah!” I wail, throwing my head back, bawling more than everyone at the funeral combined. Sobs spill out as tears flow down my cheeks like a torrential downpour on an April afternoon in the city. The one day you don’t bring an umbrella.

  “Oh my god, what?” Nick whispers, grabbing ahold of my shoulders. “What are you doing?”

  But I can’t make words, it’s just a jumbled mess—like my life.

  “Get it together, Olivia. Everyone’s staring at us,” Nick mutters.

  “Waah! Aah, aah, aah!”

  “Okay, crybaby, let’s go.” Nick helps me up to my feet and ushers me out of the room, apologizing to everyone on our way out.

  Outside, beneath the awning’s shade, I struggle to breathe and swipe my hands across my wet cheeks. Nick stares at me, as clueless as a new dad with a dirty diaper. “What’s the matter with you?”

  “My life is a disaster!” I cry out.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Imani just called. She’s moving to Germany in a week. A week! And now I have no steady income to pay the rent for our apartment. If I don’t get this audition, or even if I do, I’ll have to go back to a job I hate. And—and I have no one left. Like no one. I’m alone. I’m gonna die alone,” I manage to say through sobs of grief and frustration.

  “You’re not alone. What about your dad? Your family in Texas?” Nick’s assuming things. I never actually told him I have people in Texas.

  “He’s de-e-ead.” I blubber the truth. The pain.

  “Wait, your dad died?”

  “Ye-e-e-e-es! He died and left me alone. All I have left is student debt, which will follow me to my grave!”

  You know when a child is having a total meltdown at the checkout in the grocery store because his mother refuses to buy him a candy bar and his nap time should’ve started twenty minutes ago? That’s what I sound like. I might as well plop down on the ground kicking and screaming.

  “Okay, okay.” Nick makes his voice soft and soothing. “Calm down. It’s gonna be okay.”

  “I don’t know if it is. I never thought any of this stuff would happen to me but it did. And I feel helpless.” I finally look up at him. “I just want to be a stand-up. I want to make people laugh. Why is that so hard?”

  “Come here.” Nick pulls me in, swaddling me in his arms, and his heart beats against mine. I take a deep breath of his scent, all mixed with leathery cologne and cigarette smoke. He rocks me back and forth and strokes my hair. “I understand. I know what it’s like to feel like the world has left you for dead. But you’re tough.”

  I whimper at his words, almost wanting to fight them.

  He continues. “Don’t give up. You’re gonna make it. And I’m gonna help you land the Late Night audition.” More tears spill out of me. And I don’t know if they’re because of his sweet generosity—the brief relief and glimmer of hope he’s offering—or because of the fear that it won’t matter because the other shoe always drops. Nick lets me go and swipes his thumbs over my wet cheeks. “I’m a survivor. And a true survivor can always recognize another. You’re strong. You’re a winner. I know you’ll get through this. I believe in you.”

  I sniffle back tears, stunned by my breakdown behavior and by Nick’s sweet support. “Thanks. That means a lot.” I take another deep breath and clear my lungs. “Should we go back inside?”

  “In a minute. This is the strangest funeral I’ve ever been to. I need a smoke.” He lights up and takes in a long drag. “I’m sorry about your dad. When did it happen?”

  “Two years ago. He was only forty-eight.”

  “Shit. How did he die?”

  I glance at the cigarette in his mouth then draw my gaze up to his eyes. “Lung cancer. From smoking.”

  Nick exhales a plume of smoke, the realization shifting something in his expression. Like it all makes sense now. He takes a good look at the cancer stick gripped between his fingers, then kneels down and smashes it into the sidewalk like a nasty bug until the smoke is extinguished.

  The door behind us swings open. Holly, Jeremiah’s wife, stomps toward us, red-faced and trembling, eyes shooting daggers aimed at me. “How dare you come to my husband’s funeral!”

  Oh, shit.

  She jabs her finger into my shoulder, shoving me back. “You think I don’t know who you are, you big-city hussy bitch! How dare you show your face here, making a scene with your tears. I’m his wife!”

  What is she talking about? Then I remember that woman I met—Just steer clear of his wife, okay, honey?

  “No, you don’t understand, I—”

  “Oh, I understand perfectly. You think I’m just the idiot hillbilly wife but I did two years in community college too, you four-eyed floozy!” Holly’s removing her star-spangled earrings one at a time.

  I step back and Nick moves in. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m gonna kick your ass, Yankee ho!” She lunges at me but Jordan grabs her at the last second, keeping her at bay.

  “Run!” Nick yells, and we jet off for the Jeep.

  “Hooo-lllyyy shhhhh-iiiiitt,” I say, picking up speed. Holly’s on our tail like the Hulk. I’ve never seen anyone in platform stilettos run like that. I jump in the Jeep and slam the door. Since there’s a crowd of people behind us, Nick can’t back out without knocking someone over like a bowling pin.

  “What are we gonna do?” I say in a panic.

  “Hold tight.” The ignition kicks on. Mötley Crüe’s “Kickstart My Heart” blasts through the speakers. The engine rumbles and Nick steps on the gas, plowing over the grassy curb. He swerves left to miss the cars parked across from it, then makes a sharp right onto the road. And we’re off! I grip on to my headrest, staring out the vinyl back window, which is flapping in the breeze.

  Rest in peace, Jeremiah. PUMPIN’ Forever.

  Thirty-One

  Nick white-knuckles it all the way to the highway—both of us staring out ahead. Shell-shocked. Slowly we turn toward each other. Tension fills the Jeep from the front to the rear windshield. Until finally, it breaks.

  Hahahahahahaha!

  Huge belly laughs barrel out of us one after the other. Those good, deep, rich laughs that threaten your bladder control (you know what I’m talking about).

  “We just dodged a catfight,” Nick says between chuckles.

  “No one’s ever come at me like that—earrings off and everything.” I can hardly breathe. “Okay, but seriously. No more funerals this tour.”

  “Agreed. Well, unless they’re paid.”

  “I hope his real side piece is far away from Mississippi. That woman’s out for blood.” I hold my stomach, laughing so hard that my cheeks hurt. Then the tears start coming. “Oh, no!”

  “Are you crying again?”

  Through laughter and swiping at trickling tears, I say, “Yes. I swear I never get this emotional.”

  “Maybe you needed it.” There are so many things I could cry over but I don’t want to. How does it help anything? It doesn’t—better to just suck it up and keep going. “So how come you never said anything about your dad? I wouldn’t have been such a scumbag about smoking if you told me.”

  “Probably the same reason you didn’t mention your divorce. I don’t really know how to talk about it. I guess it was bound to come out sometime. This tour has strangely brought up a lot of stuff about him.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like this Jeep, which is basically a newer version of my dad’s. Your damn ’80s rock playlists and . . .” I stop myself, not wanting to say it out loud. Not even wanting to think it.

  “And what?” Nick asks.

  I let out a long sigh. The man’s already seen me cry. I might as well tell him this. “He wasn’t keen on me doing comedy. I keep thinking about what he said.” Nick glances at me, and even behind his Wayfarers I can see a curious look in his eyes. So I continue. “Back when I was in college, there were these open mic nights on campus. One night, I had a hard lemonade and went onstage. Even with liquid courage I was still so nervous. But the moment I heard my own voice over the sound system, it soothed me, which I know sounds so narcissistic.”

  “No, I get it. Holding the mic is powerful.”

  “Exactly. So I made some off-the-cuff cracks about the university, and I actually got a few decent laughs. And that was it. I was in love. I knew that night this is how I wanted to spend my time. Not stuck in an office somewhere, blinded by fluorescent lights and trying to prove my worth with every single legal brief.

  “So I started performing, and performed some more, and eventually went to mics off campus. And since my dad was such a fan of stand-up, I decided to tell him about it, somehow thinking he’d be supportive. Maybe even tell me to quit school and just do that, which is what I secretly wanted to do anyway. So I came out as a comic.”

  “Uh, I know how that goes. What did he say?”

  “He looked at me like I was turning tricks or something. And then he said to me . . .” I pause, not wanting to say it because it hurt so badly when he did. The sting of his words still hasn’t completely faded. “He said, ‘You’re never gonna be able to take care of yourself if you’re a stand-up comedian.’ He said I should finish my law degree and get a job so I could afford to go see the best comedians live. That that would be a better use of my time and talent.”

  “Ouch. That’s pretty brutal.”

  “It broke my heart but . . . he was my dad, and he hadn’t steered me wrong before so I listened to him. Well, mostly. I still performed when I could but at that point it was just an outlet, the one place I felt like I was being myself, and accepted for who I really am.”

  Nick smirks. “I knew you were a bit of a rebel.”

  “I wish I had been all rebel because now he’s gone. For all the time I’ve been an attorney, I believed he was wrong to discourage me. But now, without steady income and Imani moving across the world, I’m starting to wonder if he was right. I don’t know if I’ll be able to take care of myself if I’m just a stand-up comedian.” I half expect to break down and cry. Again. But I don’t. Actually, in a funny way, I feel better. Like saying what I’m afraid of gives it less power over me. Even if the fear is legitimate.

  “Everyone in this business has to pay their dues,” Nick says. “And sometimes, yeah, that means getting a second job. Especially in a city like New York. I mean you were a fuckin’ lawyer and you still needed a roommate to live comfortably. It’s unreal. But here’s what I know for sure. No matter how you pay your bills, getting up on that stage every night is how you take care of yourself.”

  It sounds strange but I get what he’s saying. For people like us, stand-up is self-expression, self-realization, and self-care. Like fresh air, allowing me to breathe and survive in this wild world. He continues. “If I didn’t have the stage, I’m sure I’d be dead by now too.” I think back to the photo of my dad. A photo I’m not quite ready to share with Nick. But I wonder, if my dad hadn’t given up on stand-up, would he still be alive today? “And, Olivia”—Nick brings me back to our conversation—“when you want something big, something worthwhile, there’s always going to be a good reason not to do it.”

  “Do you have any good reasons?” I ask.

  He looks over at me like he’s reluctant to speak. “I guess since you told me all that stuff about your dad, I can let you in on my story.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “I love stand-up too. Or at least I did until it came between me and the other things I always wanted.”

  “Like what?”

  “A family,” he says quietly. “I found a nice girl, we got married. She seemed supportive of my career, wanted to have a baby even though I was on the road half the year. But I did it so we could save up and not have to worry about taking care of our kids. We tried for a year to get pregnant.” He takes a moment like he still feels the sting of whatever happened next.

  “And then one day, I got back early from an out-of-town gig. I wanted to surprise my wife so I went to Palermo and picked up a couple cannolis, the kind she likes with the cherry on top. Before I unlocked the door, something felt off. Like the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. And when I walked in, half of our things were gone. I thought probably someone broke in but there was no mess, no broken locks or windows.” He fidgets his thumb on the steering wheel, keeping his eyes on the road ahead. “I didn’t want to believe it but I knew what happened. When I called her, she said that she’d moved out, that she met someone else. Then, later she told me that she’d been on birth control pills almost the entire time we tried to get pregnant.”

  “Oh my god.”

  “Yeah, she said that she couldn’t possibly bring a baby into the world with an absent father and husband.”

  “Damn, that’s cold,” I say.

  “Yep. That was it. I blamed comedy. Comedy got in the way of my marriage.”

  “You know that’s not your fault, right? Or comedy’s. She just wasn’t the right person. You know that?” I offer.

  “Yeah,” he says, the word getting caught in his throat.

  “Shit, man, you’re just as much a mess as me. How are you gonna help me land this audition?” I ask in jest.

  “Because I’ve done it before, remember?”

  Thirty-Two

  It’s Independence Day. A day that we celebrate freedom (from our buddies, the British). With no job, no Imani, it’s a different kind of Independence Day for me. I’m no longer under anyone else’s control, no longer dependent on anyone for my livelihood, no responsibility to anyone else but myself, and free to make my own way. I had no idea liberation would feel so uncertain.

  I need an anchor. A good show with lots of laughs would help.

  New Orleans has an electric vibe—one I’ve never quite experienced before. It’s as charming in person as it is on television—colorful town houses, bushy palm trees, and zydeco street musicians. We’re performing in a club in the heart of NOLA—The Wild Moon. I know, sounds more like a pagan store than a comedy club. It’s really neither, hosting both comics and bands—I dunno, maybe witch shows too.

  With my stage time just minutes away, I set my legal pad aside and let out a nervous breath.

  “How you feeling, Olivia?” Nick asks from a lounge chair in the corner.

  “Honestly? Pretty raw.”

  “Good. Raw is good.”

  “Yeah, well, it doesn’t feel good and I could really use a win tonight.”

  Nick leans forward and I feel a pep talk coming on. “Can I give you some advice?”

  “Please.” I sit up straight.

  “Go out there and just have fun. Pretend you have a hard lemonade in your system and you’re going up for shits and giggles.”

  “Shits and giggles? It’s been so long since I’ve done that. I don’t think I remember how.”

  He doesn’t respond, just stares at me, tapping his chin. “Let’s jog your memory then. Tell me a joke. Not one of your jokes. Just a fun joke. The sillier, the better.”

  A silly joke, huh? I snap my fingers, trying to conjure something. Then, I remember the joke my dad loved to tell. It always got a laugh. “Okay, I got one. Stop me if you’ve heard it.”

  “Doesn’t matter. Go,” he says.

  Here goes nothin’.

  “There’s a pirate ship sailing along the sea—a captain, a first mate, and a full crew on board. One day the first mate comes running up and says, ‘Captain, Captain! There’s a ship on the horizon!’ The captain says, ‘First mate, bring me my red shirt. We’ll go to battle.’ First mate brings him his red shirt, they defeat the ship, and sail on.” I’ve got Nick’s attention now.

  “Next day, the first mate comes running up again and says, ‘Captain, Captain! There are three ships on the horizon!’ Captain says, ‘First mate, bring me my red shirt.’ So the first mate looks at him and says, ‘Captain, how come every time we go into battle you ask me to bring you your red shirt?’ The captain says, ‘Good question. You see, this way if I’m shot during battle, the blood will blend in with my shirt and the crew won’t get scared and run away.’ ” I nod as if I’m the first mate. “The first mate says, ‘Very smart, Captain.’ And he brings him his red shirt and they defeat the fleet. Next day, the first mate runs up to the captain and says, ‘Captain, Captain, there are sixteen ships on the horizon.’ Captain says, ‘First mate, bring me my brown pants.’ ”

  Nick applauds with a chuckle. “That joke is the definition of shits and giggles.”

  “No kidding,” I say, feeling better. More playful.

  “Now go out there and have fun.”

  “I will. Thanks.” I turn for the door but then look back. “Hey, wish me laughs.”