Never Too Real

by Carmen Rita

  “Listen—what’s your name, hon?”

  “Um, Sara.”

  “Sara, what you’re doing is sometimes the hardest job of all: becoming a parent to your own parent, okay? Shifting roles in a family is never easy, but for most of us, it’s normal. So, stay with it, and keep taking care of you so you can help her.” Gabi waited for a nod from Sara, that her words had sunk in. “E-mail me if you need a pep talk, okay? Go right through my Web site and click ‘Contact Me.’” Sara—no ‘h’—smiled brightly with only the lower half of her face before shuffling off, hugging her autographed book.

  As a psychotherapist, Gabi’s policies were to always use someone’s name, and to say it often to acknowledge that he or she was being heard. Another modus operandi of Dr. Gold’s was to make herself available to any and all people as much as possible. E-mails were answered within twenty-four hours, forty-eight if she was on the road. As her sales climbed and her press mentions accrued, it was becoming hard to keep up. But that’s what interns were for, right?

  “Gabi.” Her public relations gal, a demure hipster rocking an obligatory topknot and owl glasses, crouched beside her, whispering. “Your phone. It’s ‘X.’”

  “Oh shit—I mean, shoot!” Gabi raised her index finger. “One second . . . Rachel, I’ll be right back.” She started to rise from her chair, eliciting a few panicked looks from those who remained in line. “Don’t worry!” Gabi assured folks. “I’ll be right back—two minutes!” Gabi held up two fingers, patience and peace.

  The PR gal stepped in to assure folks that the amazing, lovely “Dr. G” would return promptly. “No worries!” she sang in her Aussie accent. Folks in line buzzed.

  Gabi slipped behind the nearest bookcase to the back wall, pulling off a large, glitzy clip-on earring, like Mrs. Robinson taking a call in the hotel lobby before heading up to her rendezvous with the young Benjamin Braddock. Oh, how Gabi missed having time for her movies. At five years old she’d watched weekly movies, old and new, as a way to bond with her sullen, distant father, appropriating mannerisms and styles of the characters she admired. But always careful not to internalize their angst. She had her own. No need for more.

  “X”—the latest in a line of her most unstable, needy clients—was a call she was pressed to take. “X” was a suicidal, forty-something, female executive who was bipolar, single, and had just been dumped by another married man full of empty promises.

  “Bonnie, I’m here.” One finger went into Gabi’s left ear to block out the bookstore chatter. She heard the telltale snort of a crying jag.

  “I just can’t take it, Gabi! He sends me this text and I just can’t take it! It hurts too much. It huuuuurts!” The sound was not unlike that of Gabi’s five-year-old having a tantrum. This woman was eight times as old.

  “Okay. Okay. Listen, do you feel like you’re going to do something to hurt yourself or anyone else?”

  Gabi heard a snort before the answer. “Um, no. I dunno.”

  “Bonnie. I mean it, Bonnie. Are you—” Gabi strained to hear for any other sounds or clues that would signal that Bonnie was doing something else besides talking and crying.

  “No, no, I won’t, I won’t . . . I just really need to talk to you right now.” Gabi heard tissues rustling.

  “Tell you what. I’m going to have Dr. Wong call you in the next twenty minutes. She’ll ask you a few questions and figure out if we need to change your dosage—that will help you have a clear enough head to implement some more exercises, okay?” Gabi could hear her client’s breathing shallow down and her crying drop from boil to simmer.

  “Okay.” Almost a whisper, but of relief, not despair.

  “Okay?” Gabi pressed for better affirmation.

  “Yes. Yeah. Okay.” There was a sniff. “Thank you, Gabi. Thank you.”

  “You got it. Text me if you don’t hear from her in exactly twenty minutes, okay? Watch the clock. And remember, it’s not about him, it’s about you—take care of you!”

  Grow a spine.

  “Holaaa! I’m back!” Gabi waved as she made a grand entrance back to the author’s desk, sitting beside a five-foot-tall mockup of her book cover. She clipped her earring back on, jangling her bracelets along the way. Some people were all about jackets. Gabi had her jewelry, showcasing her love for Caribbean priestesses with their rows of bangles and flouncy white dresses.

  The fans were pleasantly surprised at how Gabi returned quickly, as promised; glowing smiles again lit up the line. Gabi resumed grinning herself, followed by asking how to spell each name. She accompanied this by doling out two-sentence advice nuggets and tidbits of en-couragement that she knew could lift people for days. She had some sort of power, she surmised, a gift. It was as if she had an internal generator that could throw off light and warmth. When Gabi looked at you, she saw you. Gabi was convinced she had been born with too much love to give, so releasing it little by little to so many people decreased the pressure inside her, her own pressure. The pressure of a need to give, to help. So if you didn’t need fixing, didn’t need helping, your time in Gabi’s world could be cut short.

  She felt the cell phone in her pocket buzz.

  “Oh shit . . . Again!” Gabi hissed.

  “Everything okay?” asked Ms. Topknot.

  Gabi pulled her glowing and buzzing phone out of sight, to just under the table. “Oh no . . .” she said.

  “Do you need another break?”

  “Nope! Nope. Not going anywhere,” Gabi proclaimed loud enough for all to hear. “Just one sec. A little baby-sitter guidance is needed.” Parents in line chuckled knowingly. Gabi typed both frantically and deliberately, her nerves and big thumbs preventing the even more rapid clip she preferred. It was her husband. She saw that he’d called her already, twice, hung up, and then sent texts.

  He’s being hateful. Come home now.

  OK, wrapping at store, will skip dinner.

  “June, I’m going to have to go right after this,” Gabi got out before her next greeting: “Hi, hon! Who is this for?”

  “But . . . what about the dinner?” June had her hand to her chest, just under her buttoned-to-the-throat collar. She had sexy-librarian-living-in-Bushwick down pat.

  “Can’t do. Family emergency—gotta head right home.” Gabi kept on greeting, signing, advising. “Can you call JC and fill her in?”

  Gabi couldn’t look June in the eye. She, her agent, and her editor had planned to celebrate making the New York Times nonfiction top three. But family first, right? Gotta fix family first.

  Chapter 5

  “Whew . . .” A burly junior staffer set a box of bottles on the concrete floor of the funky, open office. “Well, they didn’t have enough cava for the order, so they threw in some prosecco,” he sighed.

  “Ugh. Let me see.” Luz Tucker Lee, fussy but fair, ran her pale gelled nails along the label. “Pffft. At least it’s cold. Run three up front and the rest to the back, okay? Let’s get poppin’!” She raised her voice and twirled her hands in the air above her curly faux-hawk. The interns, her assistant, and Luz were prepping for a party starting in fifteen minutes.

  “Luz! Woman, you did it.” Stella was her only colleague who was a true equal, and her only confidant in the firm—a blazing ad sales and marketing firm that, due to some blue-chip client turnarounds, had become the hottest in the country. The women hugged.

  “Nah, nah, we did it,” Luz said to Stella, then added in a whisper, “and what a fuckin’ relief.” Warm and supportive, Luz was known as a cipher of a colleague and boss, some would say, a tough bitch. But after fifteen years of scaling the ranks with Stella, Luz trusted her enough to expose small dents in her armor, admitting relief.

  The women’s embrace was a visual yin-yang. Luz’s skin glowed a golden dark in contrast to her outfit, funky white Alexander Wang jeans and asymmetrical top, while Stella, a good Southern gal gone city, accessorized her long blond blow-out and freckled skin with the urban go-to uniform of black skinnies and black top. The seemingly
genetic, racial opposites shared one feature: their eyes. They both peered through lenses the color of tropical waters. “The Blues,” interns would call them out of earshot. “The Blues are stepping out.” “Do you have deck for The Blues?” “The Blues are on their way.”

  “I hear ya, girl,” Stella responded to Luz’s feeling of hard-won comfort. “Damn right.”

  Luz moved her hands from their embrace to sit them on top of Stella’s shoulders. “Okay, Chiquita banana. Let’s get this party started right.”

  Stella gave Luz’s cheek a friendly smooch and glided off to rally the stragglers. The interns—paid, per Luz’s insistence—were efficient. Glasses were out. Napkins, chips. Bottles started to pop. Luz gently directed the buzz as she shifted focus from directing the scene to receiving accolades, the person of honor. Luz had achieved what few in the biz, let alone a black woman, had done: She’d turned around a stodgy multibillion-dollar company—once led by a sunburnt, spoiled heir who was asked to step aside—into a cool place again, turning up the heat with a rush of new clients, following a winning lead, each bigger than the last.

  Luz greeted colleagues as they made their way to the tables lined with champagne glasses. Meanwhile in her head she ran a tape: I wonder what time he’s bringing the kids. Hope Mom and Dad take a cab—his vision ain’t so good at night.... Her internal sound track of concern was cut short by someone moving into her line of sight. As the figure came into focus, her body tensed.

  “So, lemme guess . . . next, a profile in Vogue?” A pale woman in unimaginative professional wear, ashy blond-brown hair in a ubiquitous blow-out, green eyes, and a sly smile said this in a voice that to Luz’s ears was lemon-sour.

  “Hmm.” Luz smiled only with her lips. “Oh, Graciela, you’re so funny,” she replied, just as sour.

  “Well, it’s just a matter of time, right? I mean, a Blatina turns around a blue chip . . . The headline writes itself.” Graciela cocked her head, still carrying a smirk.

  Why did villains always do that cocked-head, flighty-hand thing? Luz wondered. Gesticulating in a “Check it, plebs—I’m so witty, and fab, and just bad . . . bad, bad.” Nah, it just looks like you’re flinging tissues, twat.

  “Yes, well, what’s important is that we rock—the company—and that’s the headline.” Luz underlined her words with her finger. Catfighting and corporate culture shenanigans were not Luz’s style. But damn it if Graciela wasn’t out of central casting. The depressing part was that Luz had always liked villains. But this one, not so much. Graciela was a fellow Latina, but of the pigment-free, unsullied European-descent variety. The “G,” as Luz called Graciela out of earshot, didn’t call her a “Blatina”—a black Latina—as a compliment. She’d recently stolen a huge Mexican client from under her, emphasizing that after all, Luz’s Spanish wasn’t as good as hers and please, “She’s not Latina, she’s black!” Luz was never interested in a who-is-more-authentic contest and if the client wanted to kowtow to G’s racism and ignorance, well, she wasn’t going to stop her or them. Success is the best revenge. And here, this was Luz’s success party. Without another look, Luz turned her back to Graciela, leaving her pouting, and headed toward the door.

  “Oh, look who’s here!” Her arms reached out and the glow returned to her face.

  “Nena! Ay, we are so proud of you.” Luz’s mother, Altagracia Tucker, known as Alta, was a slight woman with expressive layers of jewelry, always a splash of bright lipstick, and a tendency to over-enunciate. She shared Luz’s skin tone, her long, generously featured face topped by a shock of close-cut gray curls, and the expressive warmth of a Dominican family.

  “Ay, Ma, this is so good. So good.” Luz held her mother tight. There was little baggage between them. Her mother had always been supportive and loving and Luz always aimed to please her. She was Luz’s biggest support in life and biggest fan.

  Luz’s father was rarely far behind.

  “Pops!” She went in for a hug ’n’ smooch with her handsome, slim, and dapper African-American father. “So glad you guys are here.”

  “Donde estan mi grandchildren?”

  “Ay, Mami, any minute. Pa, help yourself to the bar, have some bubbly.”

  “Oh boy, bubbles!” Roger’s delivery was tart and dry, a legacy of boarding school and summers at Martha’s Vineyard; a lifestyle unmistakably noted by his polo shirt, khaki trousers, tortoiseshell glasses, and neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper goatee. “As long as I don’t have to drink microbrews, hon. I met my annual hipster fancy beer quota at your last party.” He patted her on the back. Roger was in his late sixties, but he prided himself on always being in the know, naturally, and younger adults gravitated toward him, drawn in to his professorial air.

  Luz laughed. She always laughed at her dad. He was a beacon that kept her on course, a dependable New England lighthouse that never failed her, her brother, or their mother.

  “Okay. Move it along, amigos.” Luz chided her parents. “You’re holding up the line.”

  Luz’s mother gave her face one last proud pat as she strolled by. A dozen more guests had streamed into the office to celebrate. Luz was pleased by all the support.

  “Mami!” Two brown angels ran with open arms through the door, followed by a wobbling afro’d toddler in overalls.

  “My babies!” Luz never hid her enthusiasm for her three Benetton-beauties, as she called them, twin seven-year-old girls and a boy. The girls, Nina, short for Cristina, and ’Fina, short for Josefina, sported afro-poufs at different spots on their heads (mostly to help teachers tell them apart). Her two-year-old son’s eyes, Benny, short for Benecio, were balsamic pools. Nina, ’Fina, and Benny. With those she loved, Luz had a compulsion to shrink everyone’s name to a length nearly as brief as her own.

  “Oh, mi amor.” She greeted her husband, Christopher Charles Lee, with a quick, heartfelt kiss on the lips. She couldn’t love this man more. The only competition between them was who read more often to the kids before bed. “Chris, look at this madness!” Luz directed his gaze around the room while little Benny clung to her legs, shy, and her daughters stood awkwardly but excitedly by her side, staring at potentially sweet snacks, while most of the room took in the striking sight of the multi-culti, multicolored Tucker Lee family.

  “So, who’s this party for again?” Like her father, Luz’s husband, Chris, loved to tease her. She’d hit the jackpot with this Chino from Cali. Owning and selling a couple of start-ups for several millions, one bigger than the next, had made settling down, helping with the kids, much easier. Besides, he cherished being the Asian-American fun-guy in this emotive black, brown, loving family.

  “Seriously, though. You did it, sweetie.” He whispered conspiratorially in her ear: “Who’s la reina now, yo!”

  The twins headed to the snack table, tugging along their brother, who was in danger of taking the whole thing down with a yank of the tablecloth. Luz made sure the interns were watching.

  “Umm-hmm,” Luz murmured as she still held her husband. “Where did I get you again, hottie?”

  “At the mall . . .” Chris playfully took a handful of Luz’s flesh right below her waist.

  “Not made in China!” Luz and Chris had fun with their shared ability to culture-jest. It was one of their deepest connections, as both had spent much of their lives working and socializing with people who would mindlessly blurt slurs in their presence, followed by the excuse of “But you seem white to me!”—thinking it a compliment to be just one of the majority.

  Luz turned toward the door. “Aww, check it out, there he is.” A tall, classic-looking black man in a suit entered solo, turning more heads than Luz’s. “Ma brothah, whassup?”

  “Hey, sis. Congrats.” They hugged. Luz’s younger brother by five years, Tomas Franco Tucker was devoted to his big sister. They had grown up torturing each other, but when there was a Tucker Lee family gathering, he was there—this time particularly, as Luz had just helped him through a nasty divorce. “Looks good, looks good up in heya.” He
assessed as he gave a good look around the faces, and bodies, in the room. “Got any cuties for me?”

  Luz gave him some side-eye. She hoped he was joking.

  “Seriously, I’ve got a gala coming up and need a date!” he pleaded.

  “I’ll fix ya up with someone good. Meanwhile, grab a drink, hermano. And stay away from the interns. Or I will slay you.”

  Chapter 6

  The door to the hired car hadn’t even shut before tears began to fall down Cat’s face.

  Usually one for peppy small talk, instead she hoped the driver noticed her crumpling into the tight back seat, trying to hide from the demands of the world, her feet throbbing, head spinning. Cat dabbed at her cheeks with the sides of her fingers, just under her sunglasses. She caught the driver checking in on her in the rearview mirror, but she was well past the point of being able to care, as she usually would. She couldn’t keep up with the flow as her tears carved salt paths through the thick makeup still on her cheeks. She unearthed two tissues in her purse and started dabbing gently. Can’t let people in my building see me like this, she told herself. I should call my agent. Instead, she called someone who was, if anything, more influential.

  “Ma?” she croaked.

  “Oh, hi, dahling. How are juuuuu?” Cat’s mother’s voice was a Spanish-accented singsong via Mexico. It was a striver’s voice, seeking to sound blue blood even when she was servicing customers at the cheap buffet and steak joint where she used to wait tables.

  “Ma, I’ve been canceled.” Cat hiccupped back a sob.

  “Whaaaaa? Wha’ do ju mean, canceled?”

  “My show!” Cat caught the driver looking into the rearview mirror. Calm down, girl.

  “Ay Dios mio! Wha’ do ju mean?” Her mother’s voice turned shrill and whiney.

  “Ma. The show is gone. I’m done.” Cat pulled herself inward and made herself small. Parents create buttons. And then they push.