After three years of trying, Miranda’s mother, a disgruntled paralegal, receives a postcard congratulating her on her selection as a contestant on Dick Clark’s The $20,000 Pyramid, a 1970s game show. The date for filming is April 27, 1979, and the location is Studio TV-15 in New York City. These details are familiar to Miranda because they had been scrawled on a mysterious note she received months before.

Miranda’s narrative is directed at an unknown recipient of a letter she is supposed to write. She is in the process of mapping out in her head the events of the past fall and winter so as to write them in her letter, although the mysterious recipient is “gone and there’s no one to give it to anymore” (2).

April 27 is exactly 21 days away. Miranda makes index cards to help her mother practice for The $20,000 Pyramid. Miranda’s mom steals office supplies—including a large calendar, markers, index cards—from work to prepare for the game show.

Richard, who has been dating Miranda’s mom for two years, shares Miranda’s observation that, “the more stuff Mom swipes from the office supply closet, the more she’s hating work” (6).