by Alexis Daria
Dedication
To my own Primas of Power, who inspired this book.
And to Rita Moreno, for lighting the way.
In loving memory of Tara Lee
April 22, 1988–October 12, 2019
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Alexis Daria
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
DUMPED!
The word glared at Jasmine in bright yellow letters, emblazoned directly beneath a picture of her own face. All caps, of course, and below it: Exclusive details from soap star Jasmine Lin’s humiliating breakup with rock star playboy McIntyre.
“Who put this here?” Jasmine demanded, slapping her hand over the words, as if that could make them disappear, as if the whole embarrassing ordeal could be concealed so easily.
Avoiding the tabloids with her face on them had been hard enough in places like Target and the airport, but she thought she’d be safe in her grandmother’s kitchen in the Bronx. But no, here was one of those blasted covers, stuck to the fridge with magnets shaped like a pan of paella and the Puerto Rican flag.
“We told Abuela to take it down, but she said it was a good picture of you,” her cousin Ava said from behind her.
“Porque it is a good picture!” Over by the sink, Abuela Esperanza’s voice spiked with indignation. She dried her hands on a dish towel and joined Jasmine at the fridge.
“A good picture?” Jasmine jabbed a finger at it. “I look like a deer in headlights watching a lifetime of breakups flash before its eyes.”
“¿Que qué? No . . . You look beautiful, although you really should moisturize more.” Abuela patted Jasmine’s cheek.
Jasmine ignored the dig about her skincare routine and peered more closely at the magazine cover. A paparazzo had snapped the photo on a rare rainy day in Los Angeles as Jasmine was leaving the salon where she got her eyebrows threaded. Pairing that headline—DUMPED!—with that photo—bleary-eyed and frizzy-haired—made it seem like McIntyre had left her because she looked a mess, or she looked a mess because McIntyre had left her. Either way, it was unflattering and incredibly rude.
And on newsstands and refrigerators everywhere, for all to see.
“Just be glad you have an up-to-date photo on the fridge,” her other cousin Michelle chimed in with an exaggerated shiver from over by the coffeepot. “My most recent is from sophomore year of high school when I still had braces and bangs.”
“That’s also a good picture,” Esperanza protested.
The fridge was littered with photos of Esperanza and Willie Rodriguez’s twelve grandchildren in various phases of childhood—never mind that all of them were adults now—held in place by a lifetime’s collection of magnets from around the world. All of the grandkids were biracial, and Jasmine had often thought the range of skin tones on the refrigerator could’ve been used as a makeup foundation palette.
Jasmine, Ava, and Michelle were all brunettes, but that was where the similarities ended. Michelle, whose father was Italian, had light brown eyes, a warm beige complexion, and straight hair. Jasmine had golden-brown skin, dark brown eyes, and thick wavy hair she usually straightened for roles. Ava, whose mother had been born in Barbados, was the tallest and naturally tan, with hazel eyes. Her dark curls fell to her shoulders, the result of a recent post-divorce chop.
But the surface differences didn’t matter. They were family.
Jasmine gave the magazine cover one last scathing look, but didn’t dare rip it down. Even at thirty, she still feared invoking her grandmother’s wrath.
“Forget about the picture. Ven acá, nena.” Abuela opened her arms and wrapped Jasmine in a hug.
Jasmine sank into the embrace, breathing in the sweet scents of vanilla and Esperanza’s face powder. It had been too long since she’d last visited, too long since she’d spent time with this woman who meant so much to her. The signs of Esperanza’s aging were clearer, although she still styled her now-gray hair in a short bob and wore red lipstick every day. If you’re not wearing lipstick and earrings, you might as well be naked, Esperanza used to say. It wasn’t until Jasmine was older that the true meaning sank in. Those things were armor against a world that had wanted to treat her grandmother as someone smaller and duller than the brilliant and beautiful woman she was. Looking after her appearance forced people to take her seriously.
Jasmine caught a glimpse of the magazine cover mocking her from over her grandmother’s shoulder.
Never again, she promised herself. Never again would her dating life give the national entertainment media machine a reason to shine a spotlight on her. Jasmine Lin Rodriguez was done with dating. She released her grandmother, who took Ava’s spot at the stove, and joined her cousins at the kitchen counter where Michelle passed around steaming mugs of coffee. After a deep inhale of Café Bustelo mixed with the house’s permanent scent of Sazón seasoning, Jasmine gulped the bitter black coffee, wishing it were a glass of wine.
Michelle jerked her head toward the kitchen doorway. “Basement?”
“Basement,” Jasmine agreed. The three of them took their mugs and trooped downstairs.
The finished basement had long been their hideout, their refuge away from the rest of the family, where they could talk about their hopes, dreams, and dumb boys. McIntyre certainly fell into the latter category, although Jasmine had no interest in talking about him ever again. If she could erase him from her memory, she would. No, better yet, she’d erase him from everyone else’s memories. Then he’d no longer be famous and no one would care that she’d dated him.
“Remind me where you’re staying?” Michelle asked once they’d settled onto the old sofa. It had once lived upstairs under plastic, but after surviving twelve grandkids, the plastic had been removed and the couch relegated to the basement.
Jasmine sipped her coffee again. “ScreenFlix is putting me up at the Hutton Court. It’s one of those long-term-stay hotels.”
ScreenFlix, the number one streaming service in the country, had cast Jasmine in the starring role on the remake of La patrona Carmen, a Venezuelan telenovela from the 1990s. After the popularity of American remakes of telenovelas like Ugly Betty, Jane the Virgin, and Queen of the South, ScreenFlix had seen the writing on the wall. Telenovelas were where it was at.
For Jasmine, who’d made a name for herself on English soap operas and received a Daytime Emmy nom, headlining a show on ScreenFlix had the potential to be her big break. If it did well, it could lead to more ScreenFlix projects, or maybe even a big-budget c
able show or primetime network program.
Michelle raised her eyebrows. “Ooh, fancy.”
Jasmine shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s in Midtown.”
“East or West?” Ava asked.
“East.”
Michelle wrinkled her nose. “Gross. There’s nothing over there.”
“Tell me about it. If it were any farther east, I’d be sleeping in the middle of the FDR Drive.” Jasmine couldn’t complain too much, though. ScreenFlix had a contract with the hotel company, and her agent had negotiated for her to stay in one of their one-bedroom units with views of the East River. And since it was an easy drive over the Queensboro Bridge to the ScreenFlix Studios production lot, the Hutton Court was where she’d be living for the next three months.
Ava and Michelle exchanged a look, making no move to hide it. Jasmine waited a beat, then caved. “What? What is it?”
“Jas.” Michelle leveled her with a direct stare. “Just move back.”
Jasmine slumped into the sofa. She’d known this was coming. Every time she returned to New York City for a visit or a gig, her cousins launched their campaign to persuade her to move back permanently. The three of them had been born just a few years apart and had been one another’s constant companions, as close as sisters. Certainly closer to Jasmine than her own sister, Jillian.
Jasmine sucked in a breath to argue, but Ava leaped in before she could utter a word.
“Hear us out. There are plenty of shows filming in New York City now, and you’ll be closer to us.”
“Along with everyone else in our family.” Jasmine shook her head. “No thanks.”
Michelle shrugged. “A minor technicality.”
“We’ve been over this. The remaining soaps film in Los Angeles, and there are tons of other opportunities there. I can’t leave.” As much as she might want to. “Anyway, I have a plan.”
Michelle’s eyebrows shot up. “Do tell.”
“I love a good plan.” Ava set down her mug. “Let’s hear it.”
“It’s my Leading Lady Plan.”
Michelle’s eyebrows drew together. “What’s that?”
“My roadmap for staying on track with my career goals.” Jasmine pointed a finger at the ceiling, referencing her picture on the fridge upstairs. “One: Leading Ladies do not end up on tabloid covers.”
“That’s just not true,” Michelle cut in. “Look at Jennifer Aniston. They put that poor lady on magazine covers for all sorts of made-up shit.”
That was a good point. Jasmine didn’t want to turn into the next tabloid favorite, although she’d happily follow in Ms. Aniston’s career footsteps.
“Can you give it a more positive spin?” Ava asked kindly. “Like saying what leading ladies do instead of what they don’t?”
It was such an Ava thing to say, but she was right. They both were.
“Fine.” Jasmine tore a sheet from the memo pad on the coffee table. The paper had beach details printed around the borders—sandals, an umbrella, a kid’s plastic shovel and pail—and said “Esperanza” on top in elaborate cursive. “What should I say instead?”
“How about, ‘Leading Ladies only end up on magazine covers with good reason’?” Ava suggested.
“That’s not exactly catchy,” Jasmine muttered, but she wrote it down with the tiny pen attached to the notepad.
“What was your second point?” Michelle asked.
Jasmine’s cheek’s warmed as she mumbled, “Two: Leading Ladies don’t need a man to be happy.”
Her cousins exchanged another look. It was the one they always shared when the subject of Jasmine’s love life came up.
“What about, ‘Leading Ladies are whole and happy on their own’?” Ava said, her tone gentle.
Jasmine doubted that, but since this plan was also supposed to keep her from getting derailed by romance, she wrote it down.
“What’s the third one?” Ava asked.
Shit. Why had she mentioned this stupid plan in the first place? Jasmine thought fast. “Um, Leading Ladies take their careers seriously.”
Michelle rolled her eyes. “You just pulled that out of your ass.”
“Fine.” Jasmine tossed the pen onto the table. “Three: Leading Ladies don’t sit home crying over their exes.”
Ava rubbed Jasmine’s shoulder while Michelle took the pen and wrote something down. When she was done, she slid the paper over to Jasmine.
Leading Ladies are badass queens making jefa moves.
“I almost wrote boss queens but with jefa in there, it would have been redundant,” Michelle explained.
Jasmine gave a small smile and spoke around the lump in her throat. “Thanks.”
They were all silent for a moment, sipping their coffees, and then Ava set her mug down and folded her hands on her lap. In a quiet voice, she asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”
It was the closest she would come to asking outright about McIntyre. Subtlety and patience were Ava’s tools of choice, which made her a great teacher. Michelle, a high-level corporate marketing consultant turned freelance graphic designer, was less likely to beat around the bush, but she’d follow Ava’s lead when it made sense to her.
“You’ve seen the tabloids, so you know the gist of it.” Jasmine heaved a deep sigh. “Obviously, I’m not dating McIntyre anymore.”
“We know that’s not the full story,” Ava said at the same time that Michelle said, “He was a tool anyway,” but then Jasmine’s phone rang. Saved by the bell. The last thing she wanted to do right now was rehash the painful and embarrassing experience of being publicly cheated on by a rock star.
“It’s my agent,” Jasmine murmured, answering the call. “Hi, Riley.”
“Hey, Jasmine.” Riley’s chipper tones filled her ear. Riley Chen was young and friendly, but when it came to making deals, she was a pit bull, latching on to negotiations with a ferocity that had made her a rising star in the agency. “Did you get into New York okay?”
“I did. Dropped my luggage off at the hotel and now I’m visiting my family.”
“I won’t keep you, then. But I wanted to call because I figured you hadn’t seen your email yet, and I know you don’t like surprises.”
A shimmer of dread threaded through Jasmine’s gut. Now what? Aware that her cousins were watching with undisguised interest, Jasmine kept her expression bland. “No, I haven’t checked my email.”
“It’s not a big deal,” Riley said quickly, as if reading the apprehension in Jasmine’s voice. “Just a casting change for the love interest.”
“Oh?” That kind of was a big deal. She’d already done chemistry reads in LA with the guy she thought she’d be kissing on-screen.
Riley continued. “The actor who was supposed to play him broke his leg in Aspen.”
“Oh, damn. Was it a skiing accident? It’s June.” And since they’d already signed their contracts, he shouldn’t have been doing something dangerous, like skiing. Not when they were due to start production in a few days.
“Well . . . not exactly.” Riley lowered her voice. “Apparently, he was meeting someone there, and he tripped getting out of his car. It looked like he was trying to be stealthy.”
Jasmine’s brows creased. “How do you know all this?”
“Someone caught the whole thing on their phone and sold the video to Buzz Weekly.”
Jasmine groaned. Buzz Weekly was the tabloid news source that had taken the McIntyre story and run with it, thus making Jasmine a household name. But not for a good reason, she thought, recalling the first point on her new Leading Lady Plan.
“I know,” Riley said. “We hate Buzz Weekly. But I watched the video, and the guy did a pirouette thing before toppling down a few steps. Only, like, three of them, but they were brick. He broke his leg and scraped up his face too.”
“Yikes. That sounds pretty bad.”
“Don’t feel too sorry for him. A girl in a bikini came running out to get him, and it turns out she’s only nineteen, whereas he’s almost fo
rty.”
Jasmine pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. There was always some scandal in Hollywood. And while it would be nice to think this one would take the place of her own, she doubted it. McIntyre was just too famous.
And now, by extension, so was she.
Riley wasn’t done, though. “All that to say, he’s off the show. You’ll have a new costar for Carmen in Charge.”
This was a big change. “Do you know if we’ll be doing chemistry reads, or is this a done deal?”
“Done deal,” Riley said, sounding sympathetic. “The producers don’t want to delay production, and he’s finishing up a pilot, so there’s no time for a chemistry read.”
“Who is it?”
The phone connection broke for a second. “—shton Suarez.”
Jasmine blinked. “Wait, did you say Ashton Suarez?”
On either side of her, Ava’s and Michelle’s eyes widened.
“Yes,” Riley said. “Have you heard of him?”
“Um . . . yes.” Holy shit. Of course she had. Ashton Suarez was her grandmother’s favorite telenovela star. Esperanza had watched every show he’d been on for almost a decade. She was going to flip when she found out.
“Oh, good, that’ll make intros easier. You’ll meet him at the table read. Anyway, I’ll let you go now. Have fun with your family!”
Jasmine murmured a farewell to Riley and slowly lowered her phone to the table. It had been completely stupid to say his name out loud in front of her cousins. Cue overreaction in three . . . two . . .
Michelle grabbed Jasmine’s wrist in a tight grip, her brown eyes wide. “Ashton. Suarez,” she repeated. “Ashton Fucking Suarez . . .”
“He’s el león dorado!” Ava squealed.
Michelle flung her head back and pressed the back of her hand to her forehead, adopting a dramatic tone. “And el matador!”
“El hombre seductor!”
“El duque de amor!”
“I know, I know,” Jasmine cut in. The guy had been on something like twenty different Spanish soap operas, and they’d be here all day if her cousins continued to spout his various character names.
“I think the one where he played the Golden Lion was my favorite,” Ava mused. “It was like The Godfather meets Indiana Jones.”