it had morphed into a critically-acclaimed, award-winning podcast that had sat in the number one spot thirteen times over its run.
The name was an ode to my grandmother’s English heritage. I’d originally pitched Tea Time with Josephine, but my grandmother felt that title was too tame for the direction she wanted to go. Her vision was to candidly speak about sex and relationships. She loved being scandalous. The name ended up being fortuitous. Since the inception of her advice blog “tea” had taken on an entirely new meaning. It was now widely accepted slang for gossip or shade.
Ten years ago, I’d started helping her with the blog as a distraction from my own life, which at the time was a dumpster fire, but it had turned into a full-time job. As proud as I was of what Hot Tea had become, I was ready to do something more with my life. I wanted a challenge. That desire was why I was currently seated in DFW waiting for my phone to charge so I could text my producing partner that I had arrived an hour early.
When I’d checked in with a few hours to spare at JFK this morning, they’d offered to upgrade me to first class if I’d take an earlier flight. Who’d pass up first class? Not this girl. I’d had an amazing flight and had arrived over two hours before my original flight landed. I would’ve just taken an Uber or gotten a rental car but Mia, my producing partner, had insisted on picking me up.
So, living up to my millennial status, I was catching up on work in a Starbucks. Which meant I was sorting through the submissions for the advice portion of the show. I scrolled down to the next question.
I want my girlfriend to give me more blow jobs. How do I make that happen?—Dry Dick in North Dakota
This was exactly the sort of question that my grandmother wanted to answer. As much as it pained me, I copied and pasted it. The past ten years had been a constant tug-of-war between us, me pulling for more meaningful content, and her fighting for salacious. I supposed the balance we typically struck was why the show was so successful.
Thanks to the blowjob questions, we had great click-bait and once listeners found the show, they got hooked by the heart and humor. My grandmother’s candid, opinionated, shameless, unapologetic responses to everything from body odor to masturbation had captivated the hearts of millions of listeners.
“Excuse me.”
I looked up and saw a woman with a white halo of curly hair, and brilliant blue eyes surrounded by wrinkled skin staring down at me. She reminded me of Rose from Titanic. Rose at the end of Titanic, anyway—the one who throws the necklace into the ocean.
“Sorry, did you want to sit down?” I lifted up my computer bag to make room for her.
“Oh no, dear. I’ve just been talking to my Herbert.” She motioned to a sharply-dressed gentleman seated across the airport coffee shop. The man was ninety if he was a day. He tipped his bowler hat toward me and I smiled. “We noticed you when you came in…”
When she paused, I turned my attention back to her and waited, assuming that there was more to her story. But she just stared down at me with a sweet grin on her face.
“Oh.” I smiled, wondering if she’d meant it as a compliment and perhaps I should thank her.
Her eyes squinted and she leaned forward slightly. “We both think you look so familiar. But we just can’t put our finger on how we know you.”
This wasn’t a new conversation for me. I was recognized all the time for one of two things; my grandmother, or a reality show that I was on when I was eighteen. Or, more accurately, the scandal that had followed the reality show I was on.
The first reason never bothered me. My grandmother, Josephine Grace Clarke, had been a studio darling in the Golden Age of Hollywood and appeared in over eighty films. Her costars included legends such as Bette Davis, Gene Kelly, Katharine Hepburn, and Cary Grant.
I was not only her namesake but also her gene-sake. I’d inherited her long red hair, large brown eyes, and full red lips. I was the spitting image of her, and I wasn’t complaining. She was quite the bombshell in her day. She’d even dated Elvis Presley, who’d referred to her as the ginger Marilyn Monroe. She loved that particular