Never Too Real (7 page)

“
Palomita,
you okay?” It was almost midnight, nearly five hours after Paloma sat down. They’d blasted through the evening without a moment’s silence, but the lack of a full meal plus too much drink had snuck up on the smaller of the two and was starting to take a toll. Paloma had slipped a bit as she tried to climb back onto the bar stool after a bathroom break.

“Oh, shoot. It’s so late . . .”

Magda flicked her wrist for the check and mouthed
La cuenta
to the barkeep.

“Wow, it
is
late.” Magda added a big tip and signed her tab quickly.

“
Ay,
thank you soooo much,” Paloma slurred as she watched the bartender pick up his payment from Magda. “Sooooo much for everything.”

“What floor are you on? I’ll take you up. You’re a little tipsy there . . .” Magda held on to Paloma’s elbow, supporting her as she dropped from the bar stool.

“Really? Oh, you don’t have to . . .” Paloma rustled in her purse for her keycard. Her brush-off was less than halfhearted.

Inside the elevator, Paloma went from giggles to a buzzy, happy quiet. Magda savored the anticipation hanging over them like a crystal chandelier. She was still holding Paloma’s arm and Paloma was allowing it, leaning on it. The doors opened and jounced.

“I think I’m this way.” Paloma pointed. The ladies ambled in silence down the hall. It looked a bit like a ceremony of some sort, down an aisle of transformation or, in Paloma’s case, indoctrination. As she inserted the key at her door, Magda stood just behind, her suit jacket grazing the back of the red dress. Magda breathed in the scent of Paloma’s hair, ran her left hand up her arm, placing her free hand on her waist. They both breathed in deeply. The key wasn’t working.

“Here. Let me.” As Magda reached for the key from behind—
click
—the door’s green light offered them both not only entry, but permission.

The women moved into the room together, slowly. As she closed the door, Magda slid around to the front of Paloma, looked down in the fluorescent light of the foyer, and cupped her heart-shaped face in her hands.

“
Tan bella,
” Magda whispered, then bent down to take Paloma’s mouth to hers. Years of pent-up, end-of-marriage pressure were set free in Paloma, and her gut-hungry response surprised Magda, setting her appetite alight. Within minutes they were naked and tangled on the white sheets of the bed, clothes thrown aside, having done their job for the day. Paloma let Magda take her. She was thrilled to be ravaged, maybe even more so by a woman. They explored each other for hours, dozing off for a few minutes before the other prompted more with a touch or a nibble.

Just before sunrise, a groggy Magda made her way naked to the bathroom, looking first for her phone. The night-light in the foyer made odd shapes on her lean, muscled belly. Funny, she didn’t remember plugging in her phone, but there it was. Not remembering nights happened more often than Magda liked to admit. As she popped her head out of the bathroom to see her sleeping companion, Paloma’s curved, naked back like an hourglass on its side, Magda noted, well, this one had to be good.

Shit.
Back to her cell. She had a conference call in two hours. She ran the tap cold and threw the water on her face and ran wet hands through her hair. She’d take a shower back at her own hotel room.

Grabbing her clothes and dressing, Magda didn’t want to wake Paloma up. She was lovely, and it had been a blast, but really, it was time for business.

Chapter 7

“N
iños
—don’t run so fast! You’ll trip on the rugs!” Luz’s kids had barely made it through the front door, whipping off their little shoes and throwing them into the entryway bin, before they ran like little drunks down the hall, screaming with pleasure as they bumped into walls and each other.

“Yeah, well, they’re hopped up on the crack that is chocolate-chip pancakes.” Chris placed his stylish loafers neatly on a shoe stand reserved for the adults.

Luz made a face. “I feel the opposite with all that food. I’m sugar-crashing, even after three coffees.”

“Wanna go lie down? You’re on vacation for two weeks! And a well-deserved one, I might add.”

The large colonial house on Martha’s Vineyard had been in Luz’s father’s family for generations. Surrounded by so much wood and history, there was a magical effect on Luz, like a quasi-spiritual vortex she’d been told existed in the deserts of Arizona. She hadn’t felt that kind of peace when she’d sneak out with Gabi or Cat every other year for a couple days of hiking, spa visits, and juicing. Luz enjoyed herself on those trips, but it was more the solace of friendly love, not necessarily a spiritual experience. This place, though, felt like a womb to her. A great-grandmother’s womb. Fiercely safe and warm.

And Luz had hit the jackpot with her husband. Not too many kind, loving, rich, sane men in the tech world. But Luz’s husband had had growing up what she had: a fairly normal immigrant upbringing. First-generation money. Granted, Luz had lucked out in a lotto way when her Dominican mother, whose formal education had stopped at fifteen, married her black-legacy father. Her mother’s dear friend, who lived down the hall from her near the Columbia University campus, had introduced her to a brilliant, well-raised African-American student she had been taking a class with. It was instant love and decades later, Luz still saw the warmth in their eyes. But her mother never let Luz forget the luck of her birth. She often brought Luz and her younger brother back to the old neighborhood when they were kids to stay with her grandparents with their plastic-covered rococo furniture to spend time with her cousins. Cousins who were fed a daily diet of fried plantains and cartoon television. Luz’s home was salad, PBS, and the news.

“I’ll take care of dinner tonight then?” Luz asked.

“Sure, hon.” Chris gave her forehead a smooch. “Okay, kids—I hear ya, but I don’t see ya. I’m coming!” They loved when he played tickle monster. Thankfully, their screams of joy would be confined to the finished basement, with Luz oblivious to the melee, two floors up on her bed.

As she was climbing the creaky stairs to the second level, the hall lined with photos of her various strains of flesh and blood, all kinds in shade and decade, the landline phone rang its charming, retro ring.

“Hon? Can you get that, please?” she called out, still between the floor she had left and the floor she needed to reach to take that much-needed nap. She hesitated as the phone stopped ringing and after a moment her husband called from out of sight downstairs. “It’s your brother, Luz!”

My brother . . . on the landline?
“What’s he want? I’m tired!”

“He says it’s urgent,” Chris called back. Now both of them back at the bottom of the main staircase, Chris held the receiver with one hand and blocked the phone’s mouthpiece with the other. “He sounds upset—you should take this.” His round, dark eyes communicated concern.

“Okay. I’m gonna take it upstairs.” Luz swallowed.

Luz had cared for her brother as if she’d birthed him herself. She was only five years older, but since he was a baby she had been like a second mama to him. Her little brown brother, who now towered over her, had been the best
Navidad
present a little girl could ask for—a sweet, happy baby who rarely cried.

“Hey, man . . .” she said into the phone as she heard the
click
that signaled that Chris had hung up his end of the line. “Everything okay?”

“I’ve been trying to get you on your cell.” Tomas’s voice was strained.

“I’m unplugging, ya know? Vacation . . . Whassup?”

“Luz, you need to come back to the city. But, I can’t tell you why over the phone.”

“What do you mean you can’t tell me why over the phone? Is Mom okay? Is Dad?” Her heart began thumping and her hand reflexively went to her chest.

“No, nooo! They’re just fine.”

“Are
you
okay?” Luz asked, worst-case scenarios running through her head.

Tomas had been crushed by the breakup of his brief marriage. He interpreted the divorce as failure, and their family did not do failure well, if at all. Luz had been there for him but worried many nights just how late he’d be out; how much he’d drink; that he’d get pulled in by cops who only saw a tall black man, not an Ivy-educated sweetheart. The fact that he’d gone this far in life and had only one run-in with the po-po gave Luz little relief. She assumed that the day would come when the odds stacked against him would take him down, if only briefly. It was just the cloud that hung over a man with black skin—no matter how many diplomas he racked up.

“No, no, I’m fine. Listen, I just need you to get back to the city. I know you just got there, and I know you’re taking a couple weeks off . . .”

“C’mon, what is this?” Luz just had to know what was going on. There had never been a time when her brother wasn’t completely open with her. They were confidants. And family was family. “I can’t just leave Chris and the kids and say—what? That ‘something’s up’?”

“I just . . . Please, it’s just important. We have to talk in person.” He was pleading now. Strongly, though—not whining, just firmly entreating. The tone of his voice gave Luz some assurance that whatever he was holding on to, he at least felt in charge somehow. She sighed. She took a full minute to think.

“All right, let me figure this out. You need me today or tomorrow?” Luz was intrigued, but damn if she hadn’t wanted a quiet night with her own family. Maybe even some lovin’ with her man once the kids were down. Something about how cool it could get at night here, the kids far down the hall, a lock on the door, all made Luz look forward to snuggling naked.

“Can you get back by tonight?”

“Let me see, okay? Worst case, I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

After hanging up the phone, Luz paused again. She had a feeling that she’d remember this moment for the rest of her life. There was going to be a before-the-call and an after-the-call. A “B.C.” and “A.C.” She didn’t know if this shift would be good or bad. She just knew that life would be different. And wherever she was headed, a carriage filled with family would be coming with her.

Luz had to prepare herself first, though. Mentally. And she had to make sure her family was set with provisions, that they were safe and feeling cared for by
Papi,
before she set out to do whatever it was she needed to do.
I’ll leave first thing in the morning,
she decided.

She caught her reflection in a mirror at the top of the stairs. Two deep frown lines marked her brow.
I don’t remember those,
she noted. They were just like her mother’s. Ma had once been tempted to Botox them away but feared the possible side effects; besides, Luz’s father had said over-my-dead-body. But her mother had earned those crevices above her nose. She’d had a hard life before meeting Luz’s father. She’d lived five times more lives than Luz ever would. Those lines made sense.

Now, seeing them on herself, Luz thought:
Is it my turn, now? My time to earn those lines?

 

“Can I have a glass of cab, please?” Cat leaned into the bar, fairly empty at five in the afternoon. Finding herself suddenly with too much time on her hands, no show to go to, no makeup room to run to, Cat had worked diligently to avoid being at a bar, any bar, at 5:00 p.m., but this was an essential exception. She was meeting up with the girls for some much-needed
hermana
support. The early hour had been Gabi’s request. Gabi wasn’t currently going out at night unless it was directly tied to her business. She’d said her little one was having trouble and she had to pick him up from daycare by 7:00 p.m., at the latest. Cat wondered if that was the whole story. Gabi was more than capable of handling things, but she’d been harder to reach than usual. It wasn’t like her.

Ah. Cat took her first generous sip of wine.
That’s so good,
thought Cat.
I could do this every day. But I won’t. Have to make sure I don’t.
She was secretly pleased in that moment that her friends tended to operate on Latin Time when they met: L.T. Working in broadcast had trained Cat to live her life by the clock. Late was never a good thing, and even though she knew her posse was always half an hour late, she couldn’t break herself of her on-time habits. And now she was grateful to be alone, calming down a bit more with each pull of drink from her glass.

“Oh, hey!” A tipsy, red-faced commuter in a suit and open tie called out to Cat from his bar table two yards away. He sat with a middle-aged blonde who, rather than being a fellow red face, was stone-faced. Cat saw him out of the corner of her eye and hesitated, sensing him as an “NF,” a not friendly. She couldn’t ignore him, though, lest he turn cranky and raise his volume. She looked at the bartender to make sure he was paying attention to this. He returned Cat’s look and gave her a nod:
I got you, sister
. Cat turned only her head toward the voice.

“Yes?” Though she tried to give folks the benefit of the doubt, she’d had her share of stalker-crazies in the past, so her body was tight in apprehension.

“Hey, aren’t you that girl with that show?”

Oh no. He was a worse person than she’d thought. She should have been late, just this once.

“Yeah, I am . . . that girl with that show,” Cat replied, her tone between possibly friendly and don’t-mess-with-me, smiling without her eyes.

The bartender kept his eye on the tipsy guy while the rest of his body went about the business of cleaning and prepping the bar.

“Yeah, good show. Good show.” The man raised his glass. His companion stayed quiet.

“Thanks.” Cat turned her head back to the bar, gave him a small glass raise in return, and took another sip of wine, checking her phone with her other hand. Body language for “we’re done here.”

It could be pleasant to be recognized, but it didn’t always turn out so well. Her first red flag was this guy’s happy-hour crimson face. The second and third flag were his shoes (ugly, but functional, trading-floor shoes) and his hair (ashy blond, tamped down with too much product). Cat recognized that he was likely not someone who lived in the city, around brown people, or liked things brown people liked, like immigration.

“Ya know, do me a favor and tell that Joe guy with the other show that he’s an asshole.” The drunk paused to swallow. “He lost me a ton of money.”

Cat didn’t respond but instead gave him a nod just like the bartender had given her:
I hear ya, brother
. She then thanked the stars for sending in a large group to sit down between them—just in time, preventing
Dios
knows what.
Geez, where are my friends?
Cat wondered.

“You want another one?” The bartender gave her a feel-for-you face.

“No, no, thanks. I’m good.” Cat craved another glass but knew she’d have to pace herself. It could be a long evening and she was much too thirsty and on edge.

“Hey,
chica
.” Magda had snuck in behind Cat and now leaned in for a cheek-kiss hello.

“Thank God you’re here. Freakin’ douchebag over there was giving me shit.” Cat gestured with her head. At the same time she also noted with envy how Magda never had bags with her. It seemed so freeing. No baggage.

“The fat fuck. Want me to tell him off?” At nearly six feet, with a rich chip on her freckled shoulder, Magda feared no one.

“No, no. Just . . . Anyway, how are you?” No television talk for Cat. Moving on.

“How are
you
doing? You okay?”

There was no getting away from talking about her show cancellation yet. Each of Cat’s friends had to check in and make sure their girl was going to be all right.

“Ya know, life goes on,” Cat said, rather unconvincingly. “I’ll figure it out.”

“You’ll do more than that. You’re a brown girl, for Pete’s sake! We’re in demand,
chica.
” Magda’s drink arrived quickly and she promptly sucked down half of it in one swig, ice clinking.

Cat had filled in the gang via group text on the night of her last show. Her substitute set of sisters had pinged her back all night, back and forth, until they were assured Cat had exhausted any rage or despair that could move her to do anything that would bite her in the ass later.

“Sorry, gals, I’m here!” Gabi shuffled in, loaded with bags, Cat noted. Including a handbag big enough for Mary Poppins—though stylish as all heck—plus what Gabi called her subway bag, a tote with extra shoes, books, magazines, water bottle, snacks, and whatever else she needed to get through the day. Cat felt exhausted just looking at it all. She loved Gabi, but anytime she felt torn and depressed about her lack of a husband and children, Gabi would bluster in loaded down, scrambling with her bags. It was a reality check.

“Okay, where are we?” Gabi embraced her friends as they made room for her at the bar. “Oh, and wine list please!” She waved to the bartender eagerly.

“
Ay, Catalina-mía,
how are you feeling?” Gabi patted Cat’s well-coiffed hand and bored in with her eyes of truth. Gabi could see through souls. She wouldn’t tell you that she could, or what she saw, but she always knew what was really going on behind your words. There was no sense in hiding anything. Though sometimes, she would reject or ignore what she saw. She knew she did that many times in her marriage.