Never Too Real (17 page)

“
No me digas?
” She drew her free hand up to her chest, eyes wide.

“
Si, de veras
.”

They smiled at each other and locked eyes.

Tom followed up quickly with, “But don’t go farther than that with me in Spanish
porque mi espanol
stinks!”

Cat chuckled. “Deal!” She raised her hand for an urban-hand-slap-shake. Tom smoothly joined in. They even sealed the deal with an awkward fist pump. It was a nerd meeting. Tom may have been several years younger than Cat, but that only made her more brazen.

Sofia and Clark were tight in conversation while Cat and Tom turned to bonding on their shared experiences of other Latinos finding them not Latin enough. For him, it was his skin color and his mother’s side of the family practically disowning her for marrying a darker man. For Cat, it was her talking “white” and the people who still couldn’t believe that she could do what she did because, shouldn’t she be cleaning floors?

“Wait—what do you do?” he asked.

“Oh, um.” He hadn’t recognized her, though a couple of folks at the bar had given knowing smiles. She felt the familiar female urge to downplay herself. “I do TV.”

“TV? Like what TV? Producing?” The usual assumption of folks who didn’t watch television.

“Nope.” Cat chewed on an ice cube from her now-empty glass number four. “On air.”

“Wait, you’re, like,
on
TV?”

“Yup,” she said with a pursed-lip smile.

“Wow, okay, that is
so
cool!”

Cat’s cheeks warmed. “Well, ya—I mean, I guess,” spilled out.

“So, like, where can I see you?”

Her stomach dropped. “I . . . don’t have my show anymore.”

“Aw. Sorry about that.” Tom signaled the bartender for a fresh margarita for them both. Cat noted his pity fixer-upper. Was that nice, or was he just trying to totally get her drunk? But she already was drunk. Very.

“No, no, no . . . It’s all good. Ya know. Just doing some pilots now and figuring out what’s next.”

Tom slowly allowed a smooth grin to cross his face. His eyes twinkled with mischievousness.

“Okay, I just have to see this right now.” He started scrolling and typing on his phone.

“Aw, man!” She remained playful as he Googled her.

“Nope! Gotta do this.” Two seconds later, he peered intently at his screen, looked at Cat, who was not in full studio makeup and hair, though not bare-faced, then back at his screen and back at the woman next to him. “Wow. That is so cool.”

“Okay, okay. Moving on!” Cat waved her hand around as if swatting a mosquito. She turned cool. Tom noticed. He carefully nestled his phone back into his front pocket and seemed to resolve silently not to look at it again.

“Moving on,” he agreed. “So, what’s next for you?”

“I don’t know.” Their glasses were set down, sweaty and cold. Cat knew she should have stopped a drink ago, but where did she have to be? “It seems like TV news is dying, and it wasn’t the best fit anyway.”

“For you or for them?”

“For me, I think. I just need to cover something else . . . or, do something else.”

“Well, from what I saw, you seem great at it. Would be a waste to not have you on a screen somehow.”

Cat thought he was being aggressively flirtatious, but when she looked at his face, all she saw was a kind smile.

“Yeah, well, do you watch TV?”

“You mean, like news?”

“Sure—or just TV in general.”

“I don’t own a TV.”

Cat groaned and dropped her head in defeat. “That’s what I mean!
Caramba
.”

“I do have other screens. It’s not like I never watch videos, it’s just not on a television.” Tom drew out the word
television
as if it were a relic.

It was a relic, Cat thought.

“The tele-vi-sion,” she mimicked him gently. “Okay. Since you’re the future of media consumption, what do you think is happening . . . like, now.” The buzz in her head was getting louder and she couldn’t necessarily feel her lips or tongue anymore.

“Well, I’m a quant guy—”

“Wait, you’re a data dude?”

“A ‘data dude’? Well, if you put it that way, yes.”

Cat’s reporting on high-frequency trading and data engineering had just come in handy.

“But I’m not like a hedge-fund dude. I’m with a start-up incubator.”

“Thank God for that.” Cat was not fond of the numbers guys she reported on whose work was to just figure out ways to make money off exploiting trading gaps or market fluctuations. They didn’t make anything, just took what slipped from folks’ fingers or what passed someone by.

“Clark’s the Wall Street guy. I’m just tryin’ to hang to find out what we can work on together.”

Cat nodded. She was starting to hit a wall.

Tom noticed and picked up the pace. “Why not get yourself into one of those new online networks over at the big search guys?”

They talked shop for another half hour, as the bar stayed tight and crowded, bodies started to sweat, and Sofia was ready to call it a night.

“Hon, I love you—looooove you,” Sofia drawled as she took Cat’s hands in hers and gave her an encompassing embrace and sloppy cheek kiss.

“Love you too,
chica
.” Cat noticed over her shoulder that Clark had disappeared. “Wait—where’s the dude?”

“Oh, he’s out. It’s fine, fine.” Sofia slung her purse over her shoulder. Cat noticed how young and disheveled she looked in the moment.

“But, you gonna take a cab?”

“Oh yeah, yeah . . . Ciao, Tom,” Sofia slurred and hugged him as well.

Cat was concerned, not that her protégée couldn’t make it home, but about the situation that she herself was in right now—still in the bar, drunk, with a very attractive, much younger black man. Her mother would drop dead. Hmm.

“Okay,
linda
.” Cat smiled sweetly. “Thanks for hanging out.”

“No, no, no.” Sofia geared herself up with each
no
. “Thank
you,
mama.” She came closer again, placing a hand on Cat’s thigh to steady herself. “You are the best and you are the reason I do what I do, okay? Don’t forget it.” Cat was being lectured on self-esteem by a twenty-something. She both loved and hated this girl for it.

“I won’t. And, thank you.”

“Mmmwah!” Sofia threw Cat a loud hand kiss. She still wasn’t smiling—she was the warmest unsmiley person Cat had ever seen—but Cat sensed that Sofia knew she’d given her a gift tonight. She’d let Cat hang loose. Filled her with compliments. Shed tears. Left her with a whole lotta man.

“She’s wonderful,” Cat mumbled.

Tom smiled. “Wanna continue our chat about your taking over the world at another spot?” He certainly had pizzazz.

“Yes.” Cat signaled to close out her tab.

“No, no.” Tom handed the bartender his own card.

“You bugger.”

“C’mon now . . .” He winked as he signed the receipts.

“In that case, I’ve got even better tequila at my place.” Tonight, Cat felt her inner beast was winning.

Tom raised his strong brow.

Cat doubled down: “Maybe we should go there?”

“Yes.” He closed his wallet with gusto. “Let’s.”

As he let Cat take his thick arm, which he bent like the gent he seemed to be, Cat thought: My mother would just die right now. Die. Actually, everyone would freak out. Anybody seeing me leave? She scanned the room on their way out. Nope. And so what if they did. She needed this.

 

Cat and Tom had barely made it through the door before his arms, like steel girders, gently encircled her and she responded with pent-up lusty fury. Cat’s clothes shed in record time while Tom did his best to be gentlemanly, and happily match his host’s desire. It wasn’t work on his part so much as their passion surprised him—Cat nearly blinded by her needs, it would take longer for her to feel surprise.

A few hours later, Cat awoke nude and, from the waist down, feeling an accomplishment that she’d waited far too long in her life for. But that fallback feeling dropped away for awe. She was amazed at what she’d just done. What she’d just felt. It tasted like freedom. It tasted real and alive and awake.
Wow.

Of course, from the neck up, what she was feeling was pain. Six margaritas’ worth of pain. Her previous max was maybe two. As she fumbled for her robe to get her to her goal of pain relievers and water in the kitchen, she looked at the mound of man in her bed. Hills and valleys of dark muscle. Undeniably beautiful.
Thank you, Jesus.

Chapter 17

“H
on, I really miss you.” Gabi broke the sound of her and her husband’s typing and sniffed. They sat across the room from each other at home as they had for years now, each at their computer, working. Or, at least Gabi was working. “Let’s just go out, you and me—” She noticed what looked like a flash of alarm run across her husband’s face. They had a sitter lined up that night, which was rare, to cover for an engagement party thrown by new friends. Though Gabi noted to herself that the woman was the kind of friend who would be pissed at her bailing on the engagement party for her future marriage to save her own, current marriage. The situation between her and Bert felt too urgent to Gabi.
For whom the bell tolls. It tolls for me.

“We just haven’t spent any time together . . . out of this apartment.” Her face was full of honest pleading and resigned woe. She was tempted to keep talking, to say something therapy-like about “breeding intimacy” or “maintaining connection,” but her throat had closed on her. Gabi’s silence held Bert’s attention like a tether. His eyes widened as something seemed to sink in. She wasn’t sure what it was, but the panic was replaced by more wounded—or were they worried?—eyes.

“Oh. Yeah. I mean, are you sure?” He paused, rubbed the top of his thighs with his hands, a nervous tic. “But, but, won’t Zuri be mad? I mean . . .” He moved his right hand to run it through his hair. He was looking for a way out—and it hurt Gabi horribly to notice this—but after so many months of being neglected, Gabi knew that whether it was guilt or love, something made him feel inclined to say yes to his wife.

Gabi shook her head. “Yeah. Maybe. But this is much more important.” This time the catch in her throat made its way up and cracked her voice. It was rare for Gabi to be vulnerable. She was always in command, a national, well-known cornerstone of fortitude, for Pete’s sake. There was little room for weakness from her, or need. Sure, she needed people and things, but she never had to plead.

Bert’s face was slack again, still mildly stunned by her request. “Oh, uh, yeah, I mean, I miss you, too.” He paused. Gabi was sitting still, her eyes speaking loudly. “Yeah, okay, let’s do it.”

 

Two hours later, Gabi and Bert were cleaned up, Gabi particularly making an effort to look lovely. As they entered the restaurant and took in the trendy beauty of the railroad-style, wood-grain, green succulents built flush into the wall, ten feet full up and breathed deeply the scent of char, Bert ambled over to the open kitchen to shake hands and congratulate the new chef in town. The chef that wasn’t him. Bert’s notoriety from the show gave him props in kitchens all around town, but he was just a smidge too old and too needy to break into the freshest spots. Gabi was left to sit alone at the table for a while, ordering a glass of wine right away. The server was an adorkable girl in a cropped tee that looked like it had been used to soak up spilt coffee; proudly grunge. Gabi knew that the exposed inch of her bare, young belly was going to get a long look from her husband. It reminded her what a Sisyphean task she had. And look at where Sisyphus ended up.

Gabi thought back to a particular session with their couples’ therapist.

“Are you okay?” the therapist asked as Bert suddenly released a sob in the middle of their session, abruptly startling both women. It was a sound that escaped from him with a jump, followed by a red creep of color on his face and streaming tears, all in a matter of seconds. Gabi was shocked. She stared. She was incredulous and couldn’t, or wouldn’t, say a word. She couldn’t believe not only that her husband was crying, but how he released what seemed like a break in a dam.

All therapists have therapists, and after becoming more and more shunned by her husband, their voices escalating daily in anger and resentment, Gabi knew that another voice and point of view were needed. They’d been seeing Marion every week for nearly a year. She was almost sixty, a round woman with dramatically coiffed blond hair set in Upper East Side waves. Her makeup firmly and colorfully applied, she gave off a sexy grandma feel, like an
abuela
with style. She had been referred to them by a friend of Gabi’s, a pioneer in television psychology.

“Bert. What’s this about?” Marion asked with genuine concern as Gabi unconsciously shifted her body away from her husband and just stared at him. Finally, she thought, some emotion. Finally, something was breaking through. Was he going to admit it? That he was having an affair, or affairs?

“I’m just . . . It’s sad, y’know?” He sniffed and visibly worked at pulling back in all that he’d just let escape.

“What’s sad?”

“Just . . . this. All this.”

Gabi maintained her silence. She set her jaw as she realized that her husband’s moment of honest vulnerability was over as quickly as it had begun. She knew deeply, not only in her trained therapist’s mind, but in her soul, that she had married someone with a character disorder. These people were incapable of being anything but lonely. After all, they were alone—all they saw in every human face they encountered was a reflection of themselves. That’s where Gabi’s pity came from. Right now it was sinking in that soon enough, she’d be alone, too. But only for a while.

Bert shifted quickly from open and emotional to his default setting: slick and closed. Gabi could see his mind working around an explanation. She marveled at how well she could read his face and body language. She could hear him loud and clear without his uttering a word. And yet, she had willingly ignored so much for so long.

Marion seemed intrigued for once. Lately Gabi was questioning the choice and expense of seeing her, as they’d made zero headway and at times Marion’s eyes appeared too half-lidded for Gabi not to suspect she was dipping into her own supply of antianxiety medication. But this was a moment in which Marion could redeem herself. Gabi didn’t want to be the bad guy here, the nag. She needed Marion to press Bert. Press him until the juice of truth ran out to the floor. That was going to be the only way this marriage could be saved.

“Gabi?” Marion asked, squeezing the wrong fruit.

Gabi turned her head to face her; her eyes until this point had been boring holes into Bert’s. Without a blink, she looked at Marion and slightly shrugged. Therapist-speak for “you talk.” Marion got the message. Both women turned to Bert. His head was down as he fiddled with tissues, breathing dramatically.

“Y’know, I don’t know . . . It must be that, that I miss you, too.”

Nah,
Gabi thought.
That’s not it. That’s not it at all.You bastard.

 

Gabi’s attention came back to her seat in the restaurant as Bert returned.

“Oh, whew, sorry, babe.” He scooted between the narrow tables, his growing drinking belly almost knocking over Gabi’s water glass. “Yeah, so, he’s cool, pretty cool.”

“The chef? That’s great.” Gabi stifled the impulse to encourage him further and coach him into networking with this young “hot” guy, following up, etc., etc. She was always trying to help, but even she had to remind herself that sometimes helping is perceived as a bid for control. Especially when gender was involved.

The meal was four stars and Gabi maintained her confidence as much as she could through the meal, but the pleading and melancholy in her eyes was still clear. Bert reached out for her hand once or twice, but it felt so robotic and automatic that she felt a layer of mutual deception between their skins. She didn’t want to think of how many other women he’d touched the same way, and different ways, during the course of their marriage. She knew they had something incredibly unique, a connection that neither of them had ever had before and, she knew, possibly never again. That was her sadness. And that was also why she just kept trying, despite the truth she knew they had both buried down deep over the years.

As the server came by and her slice of naked belly glowed white just at their chin level, Gabi watched her husband’s eyes take it in and his smile grow. He held his gaze for two beats too long, then looked up at the server’s young, unlined, un-made-up face, took in a sharp breath, puffed out his chest, and leaned back in the chair, like a silverback male gorilla, ready to take her in, or on.

Gabi reached for her wineglass, her ears now only hearing white noise, her eyes glazed over until all in front of her was a hazy blur.