by Carmen Rita
“Hon, not happening,” Gabi assured Luz. “I get it. I get it a lot.” Luz mentioning her fear of being a statistic resonated with Gabi. She knew that at some level, she rushed into marriage because she heard her biological clock ticking and didn’t want to be another unmarried Latina, another single mother of color. Shame on me, she thought. So who was she to judge when it came to being embarrassed about becoming, or being, the so-called underclass of their ethnicity? And here she was, a relationship expert, a professional, possibly heading toward being another stat, a divorced parent. Maybe even a single parent.
“Luz, I don’t want you to deny those feelings in the slightest, but . . . but here’s a big opportunity. You mention privilege, and luck. Think: For the luck of your birth you are not or were not your sister. You got the big roll of the dice. She didn’t.”
“It could have been me.”
“Yes, girl. It could have been you. And that’s for all of us, frankly, but wow, for you, it’s a very real and very close alternate universe of sorts.”
Luz gulped as her mind’s eye imagined it for a moment. “Too close.”
“But, so, here’s the rub. What if in many ways this isn’t so much about you, but about that girl. Your sister.”
“Huh?”
“Your ‘alternate’ universes are meeting and meeting for a reason. Maybe for her reason just as much as yours. Imagine, you’re giving her the opposite of loss really. She can have a life now full of gains. Sure, she’s lost her mother and even lost her father for a very long time, just as you’ve lost some ideas of who you are. And you both can mourn that, and you will.” Gabi wiped errant salad dressing from her mouth. Luz had barely moved while she spoke and didn’t eat another bite.
“But think, Luz, your loss is her gain. And who’s to say that that’s not the universe’s plan for her and for you—for you to change someone’s life on such an elemental level, she’s won the lotto.”
“Yeah, she did . . . but, but . . .”
“Yeah, I know, your sitch is a bit opposite of lotto, but I think this girl will be the biggest gift to your family.”
Luz raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“You’re big on legacy, right?” Luz nodded in response. “Your father has an amazing legacy, especially as a black man.”
“True dat.”
“Well, as Latinas, particularly Latinas like us, of black descent, we have our own legacy—it’s not as rosy or pretty or quote-unquote ‘good,’ but it is what it is and your children and family will now see how most people of their shade and heritage live. Shoot, you’re like a bridge, girl!”
Luz couldn’t help but smile. She loved civil rights references. “Okay, I get it.”
“See it through her eyes for a second—you’re the grown-up!”
“Okay, yes, feeling a bit better now. The anger, falling aside a bit . . .”
“That’s my girl.” Gabi winked.
As they talked for another hour, Luz processing and Gabi guiding, Luz began to notice the sag in Gabi’s shoulders. Gabi, the brilliant boho, was the sprightly one, bubbly, energetic, a light. But Luz, Cat, and Magda had all felt and noted to each other that Gabi seemed more and more stressed and rankled at her husband lately.
“G? What’s going on with Bert?”
“Ya know. I dunno.” It was Gabi’s turn to put her fork down, licked clean of her favorite panna cotta, and smooth her napkin. She thought and took a last swig of her drink. “I mean, I do know, but . . .”
“G?”
“Luzita, I’m like a doctor who smokes. I feel like the lawyer who breaks the law, the cardiologist with a fast-food habit.”
“Wait—what do you mean?”
“I’m really concerned about Bert. About us. But see, I’m the therapist—I should be able to fix this. To just . . . fix it. But I don’t know if I can.”
“But you guys seem so happy, right?” Luz was genuinely concerned, yet slightly insecure about what to say. Gabi was a type-A gal who never asked for help. She was the helper, not the helpee. Talking candidly about their husbands, without the armor of neck-rolling and cliché husband-bitching, was a new thing for her.
Gabi didn’t look up from her plate as she absent-mindedly rolled, then unrolled her napkin. “He’s drinking now every day—every single day—and a lot. Whiskey. And it’s getting to be too much for me to run everything and support the household . . . I mean, it’s gotten to the point that I don’t want to leave Maximo at home alone with him at night because they get into nasty rows, and when he’s drunk, he’s not good. Just not good.”
“Oh, Gab-sters.” Luz was deflated and taken aback. “Is he cheating?”
“Probably. I dunno. I’m blocking it all out.”
Both women sighed and assessed the weight of what had just been revealed. The packaging of the weight was different, but the mass, strangely the same.
“Have you confronted him about all this, or, how much?”
“We’ve been in weekly therapy for a year, but seriously, this woman is not doing a thing. She’s too soft on him, and I feel like the nagging wife—she’s completely transferring something, someone to him of her own. There is not enough digging, too little analysis, and no demanding on her part that anyone take responsibility for what they’ve done.”
Luz was nearly done with her plate. “Well, now, that just won’t do.” She shook her head. “Is it hard to change therapists because you know so many people in the business?”
“Nah, sort of. But we’re all in therapy; it’s just a matter of finding one who works and is discreet. I’m giving her another week or two and then I’ll look for someone else.”
“Hmmm.” Luz was somewhat at a loss. When a friend shifts into an unfamiliar place and you’re excelling in that place, it can get awkward to be the blessed one. Luz may have her own current problems but thankfully, not in the marital area.
“How’s Chris handling all your news?” Gabi shifted her attention back to Luz.
“Ya know, he’s just the best. Seriously, I know I hit the jackpot in the husband department, but let’s just say it’s all gonna balance out as I hit the lotto with fathers.” Luz shifted into a game-show voice: “You’ve just won a brand . . . new . . . father! Your father comes with a home in the woods, also known as prisoooon! And if that isn’t enough, you’ve also won yourself a brand . . . new . . . juvenile delinquent sis-TAAAH!”
Gabi laughed. She could always count on Luz to sauce things up just right. “Oh, girl, you too much . . . But yes, you won the jackpot with the hubby.”
“Gabs, will you let me know if you and Maximo need a break?”
Gabi smiled and nodded as their glasses were refilled.
“Yeah.”
“No, really. Just because I have a new daddy don’t mean I don’t still get use of the old one and all he comes with, including property!” Luz paused, mentioning her father’s wonderful nesting and hosting skills, along with the beautiful Massachusetts estate. The thought of space led Luz to ask about the elephant she could sense in the corner of the room. “Would you leave him?”
Gabi exhaled. She gazed out the window, remembering herself in this same spot, the same restaurant a decade ago. Just another postdoc writer stretching her dollars to splurge on the fancy hot spot once in a while. What a different person she had been back then. Or was she just the same and life had changed around her?
“I don’t want to be a single mother. I don’t want to be a statistic, a stereotype. But I also don’t want to be una cabrona. I’ve been nothing but faithful, and I’ve had my own chances, ya know!”
“Umm, hmmm, I know!” Luz was remembering the night at one of Gabi’s book parties where a famous documentary filmmaker sidled right up to Gabi, asking when they could get together, sending her text messages inquiring when they could dine alone. But Gabi was just too good for that. She shut that man down. Now she was thinking that maybe she shouldn’t have.
“I just love the idea of family too much—fidelity, loyalty
. I hold on to that ideal, really. But at the same time, after all the work I’ve done to give him, us, a certain kind of life . . . I’ve given him so many gifts to try to win him back. Ay, Dios, I can’t even think of the money I’ve spent. Damn, hon, I really thought this was the one.”
“Well, he was the one to give you Maximo! So, okay, now it’s my turn to tell you to not be so hard on yourself.”
“But, Luz, how would it affect my business to divorce, to have my marriage fail?”
Luz’s eyebrows raised as she recognized in Gabi something that all the friends shared: fear of failure, period.
“Listen, don’t you think you owe it to yourself to be happy—or even better, to be respected, to show Max as a man how to be respected and be treated with pride?”
“Sure, but . . .”
“Nah, no buts.” Luz waved her fork in the air. “You’ve told me yourself that you can’t live your life for other people. It’s gotta be about you and that beautiful boy of yours. If it can’t be or won’t be about loyalty and wanting to keep your family together for the sake of togetherness, then you can make it about you and Max—making sure that you and Max are treated with the respect and love you deserve.”
“Yeah, but the business . . .”
“Fuck the business. You know that you’ll do great at anything you lay your hands on.” Luz found the anger in her against Bert grow, and her desire to protect and love Gabi and her lovely little Maximo took top shelf in her mind. She hated to come down so hard on such a huge decision—which was to be Gabi’s and Gabi’s alone—but she didn’t want her and Max to be exposed to this selfish, entitled “bro” another moment.
“Sweetness, I do not have a safety net.” Gabi paused before adding, “Like you do.” The net was money.
“I know.” Luz acknowledged with her eyes what was hanging in the air. She had a husband who had sold a start-up for millions and a father with a sizable inheritance. Gabi was the first and only in her family to get into six figures, and she had neither an inheritance nor a husband with earning potential.
“Look, I don’t want to make you feel bad here, Luz. I love what I do, but if this were to fall apart, I don’t know . . . I’m exhausted.”
Luz nodded gently. “Will you please bring Max and stay at the Vineyard for the weekend? Please?”
“Ah, thanks, Luzita. That’s nice. I’ve got TV bookings all weekend, though.”
“How about two weekends from now?” Luz asked. She wouldn’t let Gabi off the hook so easily. Her friend was a workaholic, admittedly both out of necessity and out of drive, and could barely stand to give herself the time for a twenty-minute bubble bath (which may have happened most recently ten years ago).
Gabi knew she needed it. But even more, she knew Maximo needed it.
“Yes? Great. I’ll make sure we don’t drive you nuts with the kids—and who knows, by then I might even have to bring along my new hermana.” Luz curled her lip as she said “sister.”
Gabi brightened at the mention of her, the opportunity to assist Luz in return. “Maybe I can help with that one.”
“Yes, yes! Lord only knows, I have no clue what to do with this girl.”
“Just do me a favor?” Gabi asked. “Try to have a forgiving heart with your mom. Families have secrets, and though we may not agree with why they’re kept, I’m sure this secret wasn’t kept out of a lack of love for you.” Gabi placed her hand over Luz’s and squeezed gently.
Luz smiled sweetly, her brow furrowed. She took those wise words in as she thought in return, But, my dear Gabi, someone is keeping a lot of secrets from you, and it’s definitely not out of love.
Chapter 15
The doorbell chimed a second time.
Fine, Luz thought. I’m fucking coming. She knew who was on the other side of that door. She’d tried to avoid her brother, Tomas, for a day, but with a sullen teen from the ’hood occupying his living room, and a female one at that, Luz had known that he wouldn’t be able to stand it long. It was all too weird.
“Whaaaaat?” she mock-whined as she opened the door.
From the inside it was an aged, ornate wooden entrada bolted to the back of the building’s own fireproof, condo-approved door, which was seen from the outside. She’d found the door-upon-a-door on her last trip to Mexico—in the town of Xochimilco, a tourist spot where you could board elaborately painted wooden boats to float lazily along the river that surrounded Mexico City. It was the route the ancients had used millennia ago to ferry goods. It had been magical for Luz. Now, the waterway was a colorful way to drink beer on a boat and wave to local children on the riverbanks along the way. Daily the door would transport Luz back in time to imagine those who had ridden the river before her. The door was very unlike her mother’s Dominican culture and their African history—Ma had made a face when Luz showed it to her and told her where it came from. Ay, such nationalism, Luz had thought at the time.
“Hey, you.” Tomas cheek-pecked her and moved in quickly.
“Hi. Whassup?”
“I’ve been cal-ling youuuuu . . .” he singsonged, deflecting her annoyance with his charms. As always, Tomas looked well put-together. Not as preppy as their dad, Luz thought. But definitely reducing his odds, in that button-down, of being pulled over while driving black.
Luz knew she was in the wrong for delaying her brother’s needs passive-aggressively, so she had trouble looking him in the eyes. “Listen, I’ve been on the phone with Chris for, like, hours. He’s trying to manage the kids on his own and figure out if they should come back now or wait this out a bit.”
In some families you’d expect a younger male sibling to head right for the fridge, pull out a cold one without asking, and plop himself down in a comfortable spot. Not Tomas. He and Luz were playful, but he had been trained to respect her authority and especially her personal space. Luz was big on personal space. When they were children, he remembered how she’d become tense if people were over, particularly if anyone wanted to go into her bedroom or dared to touch anything of hers. When sent by his parents to wake Luz up on lazy weekend mornings when she was a teen, Tomas would practically tremble at her doorway and call out her name in a whisper. She was a golden child to their mother and was also treated with kid gloves by their father. Now he felt he had more insight into the why.
“You want a drink, a cafecito or something?” Luz asked.
“Nah, I’m okay.” But Tomas’s stomach was growling.
Luz raised a brow. “Ya know you can help yourself, okay? I’m not going to bite your head off.”
“All right. I’ll have a coffee.” He sat down at the Saarinen marble table, all art-directed by Luz, in a chair at the end. Controlled.
“How do you take it, again?”
“Uh, light and sweet, like my—”
“Ladies. How could I forget!” She rolled her eyes.
They chuckled. As the chrome espresso machine churned out an overpriced Ethiopian blend and the milk foamed, Luz took in the small pleasure of creating this coffee. But a cloud soon rolled in over the milk foam as she noticed her brother was clearly tense. After her night with Gabi, Luz felt much softer, less judgmental. It was such a surprise to hear all that was going on with Gabi, all that Luz hadn’t known about. It made her realize that maybe there was something about her, all perfect and wealthy and put-together that maybe turned people off from being open with her. Cutting her off from what was really happening with those she really loved. How sad. I’m a jerk, she thought. Luz remembered yelling at Tomas to get out of her room when they were kids, sometimes smacking him in the back of the head if he didn’t move fast enough. I’m the same as I was then, without the hitting. Is that why I’m terrified of this girl being in my space? I’ve always not wanted people in my space. Unless I chose them, like Chris, or made them, like my children. But even the kids are afraid to get into my stuff. Luz set down Tomas’s perfect coffee and sat perpendicular to him. She sighed. He slurped.
“So,” Luz began, “how’s she
doing?”
“Fine. Fine.” He still couldn’t look at her. Withholding again. “Lots of TV-watchin’.” Luz assumed she got her overbearingness from her mother and so her brother was much more like their (his?) father; he was passive-aggressive. Luz had always thought it was just an annoying personality trait, a black-blue-blood stock feature, the need to saunter around things, to avoid making waves—to get things done, at times, in such a way that you didn’t even know he’d done them. But now she realized that it could just as much be the fault of her and her mother. Two in-your-face ladies made of tungsten.
“Okay, so, I talked to Chris.” Her neck bent, Luz’s head hung almost to her knees. She was exhausted. “This is going to be a big deal for the kids.”
“I know,” Tomas responded, looking at Luz directly for the first time.
“But are you sure she’s related to us? I really have to ask.”
Now her brother raised a brow.
“I mean, related to me, in full?” Luz clarified.
“I talked to Cookie’s sister. She corroborates the story.” Cookie was Luz’s godmother, her own mother’s dearest friend and neighbor during their teen years, saddled with her childhood nickname all through adulthood. Cookie had lived down the hall, before she moved back to the Dominican Republic, and was a very Spaniard-looking, book-smart Dominicana, a few years older than Luz’s mom. Luz was named after her—her real name, Luz, meaning “light.” Cookie had been taking classes at the local Ivy university and that was how Luz’s mother had met her father. Though Luz’s mother’s education had stopped in her teens, when the family moved to the city from Santo Domingo, Cookie made sure to connect her mother with someone who could help her move on up. To dee top—a dee-luxe apartment in dee sky.
“You talked to Cookie’s sister? How’s she doin’?”
Tomas pulled himself forward in the chair to lean in closer. “Good. But yeah, she says that she knew, and Cookie knew, but they were sworn to secrecy.”
“Knew what? About me?”
“Who your father was. I mean, is. So, yeah, it seems that this is his only kid besides you and that her mother, Emeli’s, had not been doing good health-wise for a while. And ya know, he’d been, like, moving around, like with other women and stuff, but always kinda kept in her life.”