Never Too Real (2 page)

Heather nodded, mulling her response, still not looking Cat in the eye. She absentmindedly rubbed her stomach and glanced at the constant bottle of pink elixir in front of her. Looked like she needed some.

“We took a big chance on you, and we gave you a lot of time. And it was good! We did good!” Heather’s arms fluttered again.

“So, then . . . what was it?” Cat aimed her focus on leaving the office with answers and she was determined not to allow even a glimpse of feisty stereotype into the room.

“Listen, we probably overestimated what kind of audience you could bring.” Heather shrugged.

“What do you mean?”

“Y’know, the numbers were there and we really had hoped for a new—more—demographic . . .” This reveal turned Heather into a babbling faucet. “And the whole, y’know, AltaVision thing was something we really needed.” AltaVision was the network’s Spanish-language partner and one of the only spots where business growth was happening.

“AltaVision? Listen, I never once said I would go on TV speaking Spanish. You didn’t even bring it up in negotiations.”

“Well, y’know, we tried, we tried with the show. But, well, it’s in the paper tomorrow so . . .” Heather was done. She threw up her hands in surrender.

The abrupt end caught up to Cat. Maybe four minutes had passed since she’d sat down. “Wait—so that’s it? We’re dark? That show—the one we just taped—was my last one?”

Cat could not believe her eyes as she watched the once-fawning Heather, the Heather who’d wanted to hang out and gossip about who’s-dating-who or who would slap Cat’s back with joy about their ratings, instead end their relationship by standing up and stepping forward from behind her desk, toward the door. Cat was being ushered out.

“I’m afraid so. It’s done,” Heather said coldly as she lumbered behind Cat and opened the office door. Heather’s two research minions stood waiting on the other side. Armed with new reports, surely, on what people wanted to see next, or whom.

Wow. Great choreography,
Cat thought.

These two were also Cat’s enthusiastic allies only months ago, but now the two small men mumbled hellos and couldn’t meet her eyes. She was tempted to turn back toward the office and yell with pointed finger at Heather, to remind her how recently she had been the one crying gratefully to Cat as the show’s numbers had saved her job. But that was then. This was now. And now, as humiliated and steamed as Cat was, she was all too curious about the feeling of joy ruffling her feathers inside, beckoning her to come closer and away from these people.

Numbly, Cat walked back to her desk, back straight. As the only brown girl in her private school growing up, the scholarship girl, she had learned how to silo herself in, to protect herself with a psychic bubble. And she was not going to let this be a walk of shame. In her head, she fell onto another mantra that helped her when she was ostracized as a kid: “Fuck ’em.”

 

It took fifteen years post-college for Cat to scale her way up from intern to local news producer to, with little on-air experience, host of a national cable news show on screens big and small, five days a week. With this network she’d also packed in hundreds of supporting appearances on its highest-rated national morning show, the local news outlet, online post-show shows, blogs, vlogs, and evenings hosting philanthropic events—a thousand smiles delivered, one after another. She’d been featured in dozens of magazines and even had an Ivy League degree. Internally, as she walked with concentration, Cat recited her accomplishments, the lines in her bio, one with each stride. Reviewing all she’d come through, all she’d accomplished functioned like a vaccine. It stopped her from feeling small. From letting her circumstances determine her self-worth.

But as Cat got to the back elevator, stepping in, rather than taking the main staircase in view of the whole newsroom, other thoughts began to seep in, dark thoughts. She was alone. She’d had no other life. No child. No spouse. No siblings. Just a suffocating, overbearing mother. So focused on accomplishing, building herself and her career, she hadn’t slept in years—hadn’t gotten laid in at least two. What had she done? What was she going to do? What was next?

Though Cat knew it was only an excuse, Heather said that the cancellation of her show had depended on one thing: Cat hadn’t brought in the hoped-for Hispanic demographic. Sure, Cat wished she were fully bilingual, but an absent father and a mother obsessed with her daughter being as “American” as possible, aka Anglo, white—add that to a New England education and the odds had been stacked against her. But no Latina whom Cat knew in the business was fully bilingual either. Which meant that you were either AltaVision material or SBC network material. The network had assumed that Cat, a gesticulating second-generation Mexican-American, would appear on their sibling network in Spanish. They hadn’t even mentioned it to her agent two years previous when they’d plucked her from her brief correspondent gig at a rival network. What, did they think she’d crossed the border yesterday? Stereotyping was just too easy for these people. This mistake had been costly for everyone.

Cat’s English-only policy came through the first week of taping when she was asked to appear on AltaVision to promote her new show.

“I don’t speak Spanish on air.”

“What do you meeeeean you don’t speak Spanish on air?” Heather had wailed, grabbing at her parched hair as she paced her office.

“But—but you’re Hispanic!” From the couch along one wall of Heather’s office, the muscled, miniature research director croaked.

“And?” Cat replied with a smile, doing her best to make light of what she realized was a lose-lose situation. “We don’t all speak Spanish that well, you know. More than half of us don’t. I was born here, just like you.” She turned to the bald research director with an Italian last name. “Can you speak Italian?” He averted his eyes. She continued. “I can talk to relatives and give people directions on the subway, but I’m certainly not going on TV with it.”

The room went silent. One side was panicking at their mistake. The other, recalling many mistakes along the way, including being forced to take eight years of French in school.

Approaching her pod of cubicles, after what felt like a long walk through the desert, Cat found her staff quiet. She realized that they were probably all out of work, too—or, hopefully, just reassigned. She wouldn’t be. She was now an embarrassment to the network. The Great Brown Hope who failed them. She kept her head down, maintaining face.

Rich, the Canadian, popped up by her side as she dropped into her chair, the cubicle walls shielding her from sight. “Cat, I’m so sorry.”

Without looking up, Cat replied, “I’m sorry, too.”

She hustled phone chargers into her bag and grabbed a favorite coffee mug. Behind her hung a poster made of a national full-page ad created for the show, Cat’s face and body taking up two-thirds of the space, her arms folded for authority. Heather said that poster was to go up in Times Square. Well, that wasn’t happening. The image already felt nostalgic. “I gotta go. Can we talk later?” Cat needed to clear her head. She wasn’t close to breaking down, she was just roiling inside, still baffled by the murmuring of glee vibrating in her gut. She couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, sure . . .” He sidestepped her gently. “Just call me, okay?” Rich was legitimately concerned for Cat, but he also had to deal with the rest of their staff, and his own future.

“Yup, I’ll call ya.” Cat, shifting a packed bag onto her shoulders, put out her hand for a shake.

Rich took it and sighed.

She’d come back for everything else, her clothes, her handwritten notes from grateful guests. Cat still had time on her contract, and they’d surely find a way to make their money off of her once the fog cleared. She’d be back in some capacity, she hoped. But as Cat strolled out, lighter this time, not one person looked up—she was an instant nobody. Folks who always had time to throw out a “Hey, C!” her way kept their heads down, watching her out of the sides of their eyes. Protective bubble in place, all Cat could think was,
Everyone knew but me.

Chapter 2

“N
o POTUS today? Not even FLOTUS?” The deep voice belonged to a tall, slim woman with a Leonardo DiCaprio haircut circa
Basketball Diaries,
standing ardently dapper in a custom-fitted, designer pantsuit. Magdalena Sofia Carolina Reveron de Soto not only cut a sharp, gender-bending figure in the room—contrasting with the handful of women around her who glistened in colorful dresses and jewelry—she was the only blue-eyed blonde, male or female, in a sea of brown and black faces.

Magda, as she preferred, was mingling among the bustle of handpicked business-owning insiders jammed into the concrete meeting room in the Executive Building of the White House. The president’s head of minority investment, a
dulce de leche
thirty-something who matched Magda in height, gave her a macho backslap in greeting. “Sorry, girl. Ghanaian president was here and the meeting took too long.”

Magda leaned back at his “girl” but patted his arm with affection. She needed him on her side for some pending deals. “African-American president pushes blacks and Latinos off the sched for an African president . . . Ha! Funny. How’ve you been, man?” As she asked, Magda scanned the room, everyone on break between the day’s sessions, looking for opportunities. Always lookin’.

“Y’know, good. All good. And how about this thing, right?” He swept his hand across the chamber in which, rumor had it, Thomas Jefferson preferred to hold his summer meetings thanks to the room’s concrete coolness. “We cannot go wrong with the people in this room.”

The White House’s chief technology officer, communications director, and chef had just left the stage. Gathered for the full day, among rows of red velvet chairs, were fifty well-groomed bodies, nearly all of color. One-third of the room was female—black, Latina, and a smattering of Asian. The men were the same mix, including a stately turbaned Sikh. And then there was Magda.

Magda’s appearance was a natural calling card in the room. She was a sunny-haired, butch, self-made multimillionaire lesbian with an enviable effect: She glowed with money, success, and charisma. Groomed by her Miami-based Venezuelan family to be a beauty queen, Magda was instead the irresistibly handsome king of her domain. Her face model-like, with makeup and a dress she would have slain the straight male half of the room. But that would be wearing a costume. Magda had much more swagger sans feminine packaging because she presented herself as herself. Besides, she was a devoted lady-killer.

“Magda! Hey, guuurl. Have you met Dev yet?” Kristina Jo, her face framed with a lion’s mane of curly, ebony Caribbean hair, her pantsuit fighting her curves, was the chattiest master-connector presidential appointee in D.C. Hustle skills honed in the Bronx, Kristina spent the next several minutes swinging her friend and ally, Magda, around, showing her off to the room.

Nearly everyone present knew Magda’s name, if not the face of the richest, independent, minority venture capitalist in the United States, possibly the world. She purposefully had no press, all the knowledge mostly built word of mouth. Having been in the closet until college, Magda was in the habit of conducting business close to the vest—all business. Everyone was thrilled to be introduced to Magda, from the African head of Facebook global, the Latina officer at Twitter . . . she’d make their follow-up lists at a ninety percent rate. The other ten percent would miss a gravy train. Magda had made much of her money early on, wrangling wise, front-end moves in social media and green energy. Her mind raced at a quantum rate and she preferred to operate without waste—every minute had a reason, every hour something to be done.

“Kristina, hon, I’ve got to check this e-mail.” Magda squinted at her cell. “What’s with the lack of service down here? It’s like a bunker in eighteen fifty. Shit.”

Kristina’s face dropped, but relit quickly. “Okay, listen, just ooooone small favor. The White House press corps is interviewing folks here on the event. Can you
por favor
do one in Spanish, too? There’s one other person in this room who speaks—”

“Fine, fine. But it’s gotta be real quick, all right?”
Man,
Magda thought,
this girl is so good she’s got even me doing press. Be careful.

The stage bustled with handheld audio sticks, phones set on “mic,” and one guy with a video camera.

“Here’s our guy!” Kristina waved Magda through and set her up directly in front of the young, Euro-styled videographer.

“Okay . . . Magdalena?”

Magda gave him a look that set his back straight. There were many ways in which she was absolutely untraditional, but when it came to addressing someone, someone older and accomplished, she’d never shake what her mama taught her.

He corrected himself. “
Señora Soto
. Can you tell us why this meeting of minority small business leaders is so important?”

Magda switched into “on” mode, a function of years of pageant training. She also had the rare ability to fuse conviction and concision. The few within earshot hushed to listen, then stifled the urge to applaud when she was done.

Magda’s Spanish wasn’t perfect, but it was authoritative. The greatest gift her parents had given her was neither her swimmer’s body nor her gorgeous face, computer-like brain, or work ethic, but the superpower of being multilingual. Multilingual meant global. And global meant powerful. Global meant money.

“
Muchisimas gracias, Señora Soto
. So happy you could be here and help us!”

Magda nodded a good-bye and looked around to note where everyone else was headed. Like cattle to feed, most were moving toward the door that opened on lunch. Magda’s stomach commanded her to follow.

“Excuse me, Ms. Soto?” called a dulcet voice.

“Yessss.” With polite exasperation, Magda turned around, then looked a bit downward, toward the much smaller person speaking to her.

“Hi, I’m Paloma Sala.”

It was the fortieth hand of the day offered in greeting. Magda took it while she also drew in the woman before her with her eyes. Beautiful skin. Umber.
Her mouth could be in a toothpaste ad.
This had to be the most attractive woman here, well, to her taste—and she was in a red dress. Magda’s groin awoke, silencing her hungry stomach.

“Paloma.” She rolled the name in her mouth. “That’s my
tía
’s name.”

A quiet three seconds moved like glue as their hands remained together as Magda took Paloma in and Paloma lay in her gaze, hypnotized by her striking figure and noted power.

“Hey, kids! You’ve met.” It was Kristina. “Paloma, this is Magda. Magda, Paloma.”

“Yeah, hon, we just got that done.” Magda snickered gently while continuing to gaze into Paloma’s full, blushed face.

Kristina caught on as Paloma looked away, suddenly a bit shy. “Good! Okay, so . . . Paloma runs an amaaazing education firm that specializes in financial curriculum for schools.”

This mention of her work, her passion, woke Paloma up and she chimed in. “Yes, and we’re doing great so far. But we’re always in need of more funding, so . . .”

Magda let go of her hand and snapped back into business mode. “Listen, I’ve gotta nab the CTO during this break, but are you in town for the night?” she asked her new acquaintance in the fitted red dress.

Kristina put on a knowing smile as she watched the two women.

“
Yes
.” Paloma nearly jumped on Magda, most likely excited about the source of “funding” she was about to spend time with, mildly unaware of Magda’s possible intentions. “I’m staying just a few blocks down. Here’s my card—feel free to text me. And can I have yours?”

“Sure.” Magda handed it over like something precious. “Just keep it close, okay?”

“Absolutely. See you soon.” Paloma bowed slightly and made her way to the door with her fellow lingering networkers.

Kristina followed Magda’s covetous gaze. “Maaagdaaa . . .” Her head tilted in a here-you-go-again.

“She wants to talk. So, we’ll talk!”
We’ll do a lot of talking,
Magda thought as she ran her fingers through the front flop of her blond do.

“Shit, girl . . .
coño
. Listen, she’s straight. Coming out of a bad marriage—husband cheated, yada yada—so the last thing she needs is for you to screw her over.”

“Sounds like what she needs is some lovin’, ya heard?” Magda threw on her urban-vanilla persona when she could, for fun. She was no crasser than her closest straight female friends. Shoot, only Cat held it all too tight in—she was nearly a novitiate, and mostly because she was a workaholic. Luz could catcall a man like nobody’s business and Gabi, damn. Gabi had been one of Magda’s first post-closet conquests but now was simply a dear friend who knew her all too well. And shit, that girl could talk about pleasuring men in graphic detail, without a stutter. Not that Magda ever wanted to hear about that.

“Ugh.” Kristina knew her warnings fell on deaf ears. Magda, just like many of the men in the room, thought with what was between her legs. She savored her plan to text Paloma later, wrapped her arm around her friend, and led her to the door. “C’mon. Let’s eat.”