Never Too Real (11 page)

Southern hospitality must be reserved for certain people,
Cat thought.
Bitch.

“Yes!
These
shoes are comfortable.” Cat pointed at them, too, grabbing at Gloria’s eyes with her own.

“Oh, now, stop it,” Gloria pshawed. “Let me see—what size are you?”

Oh shit, no,
Cat thought.
Here we go.

Three seconds felt like thirty minutes as Cat’s quick mind tried to tackle the situation, pick it apart, and find a chance to take charge herself and turn things in her favor.
Oh, I know what you’re doing,
Cat thought.
You appear all smiles, but you are a smiling snake, that’s what you are. I see you, Gloria Keene. Butter on the outside. Rot on the inside. I got your scent, woman. I’m on it.

“Seven and a half.”

“Ooo-eeeee, girl, let me have those shoes! I wanna try them out—that’s mah size, too!”

Everyone on set and off was watching this very strange interaction, Cat noted. But her body made up her mind before she had a chance to think. Her reflexes said, Fuck it, sistah, this a shit-show. Keep on playin’ and see where it leads. Cat took off her shoes, lavender alligator peep toes with four-inch heels and at least an inch of platform.
Takes mad skills to wear these, she thought. Let’s see if Madame Butter-fly can
not
make a fool of her damn self.

Cat winced as Gloria stuffed her puffy, pale, flat foot into one of the shoes.
Oh God, they’re gonna get stretched out,
she thought, everyone still watching them—watching this strange “show” that was happening, well off-script for the day. Even Reality Amy sat quietly as Cat caught her stewing, pissed at all the attention not going her way.

Gloria popped herself up on Cat’s heels as the stage manager quickly stepped to her side with an arm just behind her in case she fell.

“Well, now, lookee here.” Cat watched her shoes walk away from her on someone else’s fat feet. Gloria teetered like a toddler in a tiara. She headed toward the front of the stage, making sure that all eyes were on her. “I’m gonna salsa! Where’s my musi-cah!”

Boundaries played a big part in Cat’s life. People who had respect and regard did not have their boundaries breached. They did not have their shoes taken off their feet in public, then mocked. Gloria putting on and prancing around in Cat’s shoes was the equivalent of pissing on her territory, like a dog. Those shoes? Gloria’s grotesque, side-to-side runway pantomime said, “Mine.” This stage. Mine. This show. MINE. And don’t you misunderstand, little brown girl. Don’t mistake who’s in charge here.

Fuck no, you’re not in charge.
Cabrona.

As Gloria neared the end of stage right and had to turn back, Cat bent down, swallowed her repulsion, and took Gloria’s old, sweaty, black orthos and slid them on her well-manicured bare feet. She knew as she did this that she was pretty much fucking herself over in terms of ever landing this show. But she’d already pretty much failed and besides, she didn’t want this damn circus anyway. She was tired of being the butt of jokes and being made to feel lesser than. She was tired of feeling powerless, after all she’d accomplished. If she were a different gender, different color, with this brain, this drive . . . She was done being disrespected. Cat had had enough.

“Ooo-eeeee! Lookee me! Lookee me! Where’s mah buttah? Where’s mah buttah at?” Cat pranced around just as Gloria had, tossing her black hair back and forth, walking as if Jabba the Hutt had legs and feet.

The tone and temperature of the set changed drastically. Everyone had laughed nervously at Gloria’s display, which all knew was an over-the-top appeal for attention. But there was a combination of sucking teeth, sincere twittering, no-she-didn’ts, and silent horror at Cat. Her performance crossed over into darkness and drama.

It was amazing what being let go for the first time ever could do to a hardworking, straight-A person. Cat’s world had been rocked by losing her show. She was on the road to questioning many, many things she had always taken for granted. This small conquest in this small but rich moment was propelling her in a new direction—but where? She didn’t know, necessarily, but she knew that with these damn ugly, squishy shoes on that she felt a twinge of something that she hadn’t felt in decades. An old, but familiar, tug. A lure toward something far away, but full of promise. Cat felt that tug, then felt it disappear. She came to amidst the applause of the stage hand, clapping for her.

“Oh, girl, that was good,” the sound engineer said to Cat as she adjusted her mic and Gloria huffily traded back her shoes and they all sat back down. Surely Gloria had said something during Cat’s pantomime, but all Cat had heard was clapping, whooping, and the roar of blood in her head; all she had seen were the lights on the stage. She had purposefully blocked out Gloria’s reaction because she didn’t want to feel bad about what she was doing. Plus, Cat had taken over, with force of will. Like a conquistadora, she had stood on that stage, and said, “Move over. This is mine. Because I say so.”

Cat was a solid person and she knew what she had done wasn’t right or mature, or maybe even sane. She had sunk to this woman’s level—but then again, she had beat her at her own game. All the bullying that Cat had been subjected to growing up had finally come in handy. She knew from experience that laughter can expose the truly insecure—can turn a bully into a runt.

Medal for me,
Cat thought.
Boom. Mic drop.

The next ten minutes following the Gloria-Cat shoe throwdown were like a balloon deflating. Some newsy topic was thrown out for the women to chat about as a group. Exhausted from what she’d just done (and feeling like an oxygen-sucker herself), Cat barely spoke. It was Amy the Mom’s turn to take her place on the stage and boy, did she ever. Talking, talking . . . Cat stared at her mouth moving but didn’t hear a word. Whatever she said, it was monosyllabic and not too bright. Ugh.
Who’s the bully now, Cat?
She told herself to tone it down.
Never turn into one of them, hon. Just turn the tables.

Before she knew it, Cat was done. Having been told by her agent that she should be ready to tape all day long, she was booted off the stage and out the door before eleven a.m.

Here’s to the small victories—or losses,
Cat thought.

Normally, she would have started making phone calls the second she had one foot in a car to review what happened with her agent or gossip and whine to Gabi or Luz. This time she didn’t say a word aloud. She didn’t even pull her phone out of her handbag. She barely said hi to the driver. She rode in silence.

Now what,
idiota?
Now what?

Chapter 10

I
t was late as Gabi put her ear close to the apartment door after she knocked. It was the entrance to Magda’s penthouse apartment, a space of cool grays and chrome. The doorman knew her and let her up. Usually there was staff milling about, either Magda’s assistant, her driver, or one of the two nannies. But instead, it was still and quiet. Gabi only heard the muffled sound of a siren from the street, sixty-eight floors down.

The chrome and colors were muted, but Magda’s place was happiest when it was loud and full. Magda’s children were her joy, but Gabi feared that due to her friend’s most recent split with their mother, Magda was on her way down. She’d mentioned something lately about her mother.

 

“Hey! Stop splashing your brother.” Magda’s suitpants were about as happy about getting soaked as her little boy. “I see that business again, sister, you’re out—understand?” “Ma-Da” leaned forward and pointed at her kids, five and seven years old. Pools in high-rises in Manhattan were rare, and this was a grand one. It had the added benefit of fourteen-foot glass doors that opened onto a terrace for sun-worshippers. Right now the closed doors served to allow Magda’s booming, scolding voice more space to echo.

Young Ilsa and Nico settled down a bit while their afternoon/evening nanny—a petite grad student aiming to get into the FBI—called them to the edge of the pool to reiterate their mother’s direction. These were Magda’s children, the girl the oldest, with her former partner, a Panamanian-American director of a nonprofit, housed in a downtown office building Magda owned. Magda was “Ma-Da” and the kids called their other mother—their birth mother—“
Mami
.” Albita was one of the loves of Magda’s life, but their fights were seismic and Magda’s drinking and traveling were just too big a burden for Albita to bear. Plus, she’d always suspected that Magda wasn’t faithful (and she was correct).

But they both loved these kids. Gorgeous, growing munchkins of joy. Magda needed them and the respite they brought her badly. Thankfully, her ex knew how vital they were to Magda’s sanity. Unlike many a partnership that ends in a messy splat of drinking and bitterness, their split became all about parenting their kids—together.

“
Hola, mis ninitos! Listo para galletas?
” As Magda settled back into her pool chair, scrolling through her phone, she smoothed over her blazer and squinted like a misplaced business mogul at summer camp toward a singsong voice that floated through the entry door. As soon as the word
galletas
registered, both children yelled and thrashed in unison toward the stairs of the pool, scrambling to get out. Ilsa left her brother in her wake, but catching the nanny’s raised brows, she turned to help pull him out of the pool.

“
Abuelaaaaaa!
” they yelled together. The small, well-put-together woman in her sixties, brunette with highlights, full makeup, gold jewelry clanging together, shopping bags in tow, bent down, stretching her face into the widest smile her enhanced lips would allow to kiss and hug her grandchildren.

“
Ay, yay yay, mi amor . . . beso . . . beso a ti . . .
” She held both in her arms, wet brown skin and all, looking into their hazel eyes with unconditional love. “Ju look so yummy, I gonna eat ju up!” She buried her face in their necks, little Nico first, then his sister. “Mmmummm mmmummm mmmumm . . . Mmmummm mmmummm mmmummm!” she gobbled.

The kids squealed a response.

“
Pero, Abuela, donde están las galletas?
” Nico pleaded for the promised cookies as he tried to stop his grandmother from eating up his shoulders with kisses.
Abuela
finally stopped when he put his little hand on her mouth, trying to push her away.

“
Ay, ay, mi
lipstick . . . Okay, okay!
Aqui están.
” She took out a box and handed it over their little heads to their nanny, who was ready to take it from there. “
Pero!
” Her long, red-nailed finger pointed up for emphasis. “Ju must wash dos’ hands before ju eat, okay? Deh pool
es tan sucia
.” Nico huffed and puffed just before his big sister pulled him over to the shower stand in the corner. Ilsa knew that as sweet and loving as their grandmother was, you did not mess with her directions. “Dere go my babies!” She patted down her dress pants and looked across the pool to see her daughter with her face still in her phone, having barely raised her eyes.

“Hi, Ma,” Magda said quietly. She heard the
clip-clip
of her mother’s heels head her way.

“
Ay, mi’ja,
why with jor face always in dat thing . . . The world goes by ju, and ju wouldn’t even know it.” Carolina Soto Reveron was a handsome woman. An older and darker version of her daughter. She was petite to Magda’s nearly six feet, and as she liked to joke when this fair, lean child came out of her and grew up, “My husband may have gotten the outside, but I got the inside—the most important part!”

She leaned down and cheek-kissed her daughter in greeting. Magda offered a hint of the same, eyes still on-screen.

“Maaaaaa, I gotta work. Two minutes—just let me finish this last one.”

“Okay, fine, fine.” Magda’s mother pulled up another chair and sat down next to her. The room was quiet without the splashing and laughter of the kids. They were across the room wrapped in towels, nibbling cookies happily, while their nanny busied about. Magda’s mother sighed.

“So.” She smiled at her daughter.

Magda dropped the hand holding her cell, waited a beat, then placed it on the side table behind her.

“Okay, Ma, here I am.”

“Now, das better! Well, Nico looks like he’s grown three inches, he’s just so handsome, like a movie star with those curls and those eyes, and Ilsa, did you get her to try out for the dance school yet because she’s a natural,
tu sabes
. . .”

“I know, Ma. The doctor says Nico’s on pace to be my height and next week is Ilsa’s visit to the dance studio.” Magda approached her mother’s tendency to rattle off questions and comments like working her way down a memo, addressing bullet point by bullet point, all in order.

“
Que bueno.
An’ ju look tired,
m’ija.
Have ju been for a facial this week?”

Magda kept her eyes on her kids while her mother talked to her. Ay,
with the “beauty” stuff.

“No, Ma. Not this week. Just lots of travel.”

“Hydrate, hydrate!
Mas agua, mi amor.
”

“Yeah, I do that, Ma.” Magda winked. She may have been fairly masculine in appearance, her mother accepting secretly her life as an openly gay mother and successful businessperson, but damn if Carolina didn’t continue her obsession with looking good.
Venezuelans
.

Magda’s mother paused for a moment. Her hands both on her lap, she stretched out her fingers and seemed to be admiring her nails, hesitant to ask her next question.

“How’s Albita?”

“She’s good, Ma. No worries there. She’s got the kids after tomorrow. I’m off to the Cali house for a week. Lots going on over there.” In addition to her apartment in the Manhattan skyline, Magda had a modern ranch in Salinas. It wasn’t as flashy as this, as she worried about keeping up a big home so far away, but it had to have room for her brood. And it had to impress the women she took home when the kids weren’t visiting.

“
Ay,
again? How long?”

“Just a week.”

“So, who’s with you out dere when da nanny doesn’t go with ju? Ju have staff?”

“Yup, just a couple of assistants.”
Uh-oh, here it comes,
Magda thought.

“
M’ija.
It must be lonely, no? All alone in dat big house . . .” Carolina had little inkling of her daughter’s proclivities. Instead she clung to the traditional idea of Latin families living and traveling in packs. The idea that a woman, even a woman like Magda, would live by herself, so far from her east coast family, was bizarre. There was much buzz in the family and among the wealthy of Miami about Magda’s living situation. She had homes on both coasts; an ex-almost-wife who happened to be black (horrors!); mixed children with two mothers! But at least they had good hair.

Magda sighed. She took a breath to take her mother in for a moment. She noticed something.

“Ma. Did you lose weight?”

Her mother waved her off. “Bah, no,
un poco
maybe.”

“You’re thin already—what happened?”

“No’ting,
m’ija!
I’m good—
todo bien
.” Carolina patted her daughter’s hand with her own, her heavy rings knocking on Magda’s knuckles. It seemed a stronger pat than necessary. Then she winked, stood up, and called after her grandchildren, clapping her hands. “
Abuelita
time!
Abuelita
time!”
Clap, clap.

Magda looked at her mother’s back. Her jacket draped over her bony shoulders. The cloth of her pants seemingly too empty of their contents.

She wondered.

As Gabi held her breath, waiting at Magda’s door, it was strangely quiet, even for an early evening when the kids were at the west coast house with their mother, Albita. Rather than knocking politely, Gabi rapped sharply this time. The text message that had brought her to Magda’s door was one of those text messages that sets a loving friend’s heart vibrating with concern.
Someone needs me,
Gabi thought. Her own personal song.

“Yeah,” a voice croaked.

It took an extra second, but Gabi recognized that voice. She’d just never heard it jangle like rocks in a bag before. She turned the knob. Unlocked.

“
Holaaa?
”

Gabi didn’t need to go far around the corner to see Magda, barefoot, in only her suitpants and a button-down, monogrammed shirt. Her back to Gabi, she was facing the bar and fixing what was most likely not her first tequila of the day.

“Is that my favorite piece of ass?” Magda delivered her slurred query not as playfully as the words sounded, but with a sad and low timbre and tone. Registering grief, Gabi instinctively felt her former feelings of deep love for Magda nudge up against the surface of her heart. The blond woman’s back was still turned as she took a swig from her next drink, her shoulders hung low.

“Hey.” Gabi dropped her bags onto the slate gray floor by the extensive granite kitchen island. Magda matched her oyster-toned surroundings to a T; the sun-yellow tone of her hair and her rose-flushed cheeks were the only warmth within a thousand square feet. Except now for Gabi’s colorful Brooklyn ensemble and messy curls, which clashed with the space like the hippy peacock she was. Gabi, like a walking kaleidoscope, stepped tentatively toward Magda’s broad back. “Sweetie . . . what’s wrong? What happened?” It had to be serious, Gabi knew, as Magda did not despair over lost loves or lost business deals. Dios,
I hope it’s not the kids. Not the kids.

Gabi heard the gulp of a swallowed sob. This was a bit frightening. Magda didn’t cry as far as she knew. At least not that any of them had ever seen. Stoic to the end. Compartmentalizing at all turns. Steeled and hardened when her family pushed her away when she was young and needed them. But as Gabi wrapped her arms around Magda’s tall back, the top of Gabi’s head reaching just below her shoulders, Magda couldn’t keep it together.

Floodgates. Gabi held her and rested her blushed-up cheek on her former lover’s crisp, pricy dress shirt. Magda set her drink down with her left hand and put her right over Gabi’s, now resting on the middle of her chest. She let the tears flow. They were heavy tears. Not only of sorrow and fear, but of regret and nostalgia and anger. Her father’s first phone call in years had been to tell Magda that her mother had stage four pancreatic cancer. There was little or no hope. It was too advanced. She had months, maybe.

“Ya . . . ya . . . Magdalena. I’m here for you. . . .” Gabi rubbed Magda’s back and neck. Of the group of girlfriends, she knew the most how Magda had become skilled at sending her emotions to solitary, never to emerge again. Here was an escape from the asylum. Or more like a revolt—it was not going to be contained.

Magda’s tears splattered the glass top of the elegant bar. She turned to hold Gabi in a full chest-to-chest embrace. Gabi’s hold gave Magda permission to cry and heave.

With her therapy practice and her time working in psychiatric hospitals, Dr. Gomez had become accustomed to managing the tears of others. But although she sympathized with the emotions she encountered professionally, she had a mission in that context: to be useful. Now Gabi wondered: If she let herself feel Magda’s despair, what would she find within herself? Her own pain was being held prisoner. Her marriage felt like it was ending. She felt that her life was a fraud, a failure. And her son. How he made her heart ache. Gabi opened the door of her heart a crack and let some of the pain seep in. It was enough to get her own tears flowing. After the previous night of rejection by her husband, after trying so hard just one more time, it didn’t take much to turn a brook in her into a river tonight.