When Miranda’s mother needs to focus for The $20,000 Pyramid, she “has to get herself into a certain frame of mind” that is “sort of like lifting one little corner of her veil” (72). Miranda’s mother does not actually wear a physical veil over her eyes. Lifting her veil is a metaphor for blocking out the distracting details and seeing “the world as it really is” (71). Every person “has a veil between ourselves and the rest of the world” Miranda’s mother explains, and most of the time people “walk around happily with these invisible veils” that keep the world blurry because “we like it that way” (71). The “beauty, and cruelty, and sadness, and love” of the world are too much for most people to take in, so “mostly we are happy not to” (71).

Miranda’s mother can focus and control the information she takes in, allowing her to sort through details to see the threads connecting them to bigger ideas. It’s this skill that makes her successful as a contestant on The $20,000 Pyramid. Miranda thinks about this veil frequently and wonders whether perhaps “every once in a while, someone is born without one” (72).