by Carmen Rita
Now, I loved my time in television. I love the frantic nature of the business. My mind works a hundred miles a minute, so I need to do things that can keep up with it. I’d never had another job that used all my skills—used me on all cylinders. Not one. TV was it. But, there’s TV and then there’s TV.
So here I am.
No show. No show on the horizon. I speak, I write. But now that swinging into the next gig is not so easy, I’m asking: “Who am I?” Who am I.
Well, I’m the daughter of a ‘leetle’ Mexican woman who came to this country at the age of fifteen. She had me on her own and raised me to rule the world. She put every single ounce of her hopes and dreams about the opportunities this country had to offer into me. She packed them all in like a tin of sardines, like a clown car.
Cat pantomimed as she spoke, garnering some chortles along the way.
But we didn’t have a lot of money. She was uneducated. We were alone. My mother worked two full-time jobs while I hopped from caretaker to caretaker, sometimes a tía here, sometimes a cousin there. Sometimes a very freaky white lady down the street who wore makeup like Cruella de Vil!
And as soon as I could work—while going to school and getting straight As, mind you—I was put to work. I started baby-sitting at ten years old, even became a full-time nanny over the summer when I was twelve. Imagine hiring a preteen to care for two kids while you’re gone for eight hours a day. Disaster!
But nope, nope, I didn’t let it show, all the stress. I didn’t let disaster happen. Even though I was so exhausted and so sleep-deprived at times that I’d chew my cuticles to bleeding nubs—though my nails always looked fabulous . . .
Once I was old enough, I started waiting tables alongside my mother at a chain restaurant. The horror!
More chuckles.
Can you imagine being sixteen years old, when your parents are, like, ‘totally pains in the butt,’ and there I was, having to work next to my mother sometimes for thirty hours a week or more. Again! All while going to school and getting straight As!
So, but, who am I, besides a person who just got dumped?
I’m the product of that hardworking woman, an immigrant. Of course, while I was growing up, people had many different words to describe my mother and me. I won’t repeat them, but I bet you can imagine what they were. We just kept our heads down and kept at it. Then college came and I’m in the Ivy League and we just keep going at it, keep working, keep moving forward. Like a steam engine. Like one giant steam engine—nothing could stand in our way!
So there I was two years ago, suddenly with my own television show. My own national television show. My brown butt had a show! And I was the first in my family to graduate from high school, let alone college, then a master’s degree—and from an Ivy League school. There I was, singing the theme song from The Jeffersons as I moved into my doorman-building apartment. “Movin’ on up! To a dee-luxe apartment in the skyyyyy!”
I finally had a piece of the pie.
But guess what? All these things I wanted to accomplish, these items I could check off my list, the things I wanted to do my whole professional life have been done. Now what?
You’d think that I’d feel super-accomplished, right? That bio that was read just before I came onstage was impressive, right? I’m asking because, honestly? I’m not impressed. Now, I’m not going to stand here and give you some feel-sorry-for-me-and-my-fame-and-riches story. But I am going to ask you: Why am I not impressed?
Are you impressed with everything you’ve done with yourself? When was the last time you were most proud of yourself, in a good way? In a ‘Hey, that was kinda awesome’ way? I take it that if you’re here you’re looking for improvement. For tools to get ahead in life. You want me to impress you. Well, how’s this . . . ?
I figured it all out just now.
The reason that everything my mother and I worked so hard for doesn’t impress me or make me particularly happy may be that we got it backward. Could the American Dream that we tried so hard to make true be a little bit backward?
Some disgruntled mumbles came from the audience.
Wait! Wait! Stay with me here. This country is miraculous.
My girlfriends and I have a saying: “By the luck of our birth.” If we had been born in the native countries of our mothers, as little as one decade earlier . . . my goodness, I’d be so far from standing here, I might as well be on the moon. And I am ever grateful to the universe for the good fortune to be who I am, where I’m from, today.
But! And you knew that “but” was coming . . .
But, once we have that house and that car, that dream, are we completely happy? Once we reach our goals, do we stop and just . . . be happy? Or do many of us keep searching for happiness?
See, I think I’m not impressed with myself because I was chasing the wrong thing. I thought that if I got those degrees and got that show, got those accolades and that mantel filled with awards and fan art, I’d be happy. Here’s the truth: I was miserable. There’s a part of me that enjoyed the day-to-day. I enjoyed being recognized, I enjoyed some free clothes—who wouldn’t? But like my agent, when it comes to this race, I think I’ve done all I can do.
See, my dream is to be fulfilled. My American Dream does not live in that house in my dee-luxe apartment in the sky. I think I was chasing fulfillment through accomplishment. But what if accomplishment, true accomplishment, was a result of fulfillment—happiness—instead of the other way around?
“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
What if we were to do things that made us feel fulfilled, which would make us better at what we do—which then brings about raises, promotions, recognition, even that house!
Many of us who were the hope of our parents grow older and come face-to-face with a scary question: Whom did I do this for? Was this really for me? Is it okay that it wasn’t? When do I get to drive this freight train?
Is what you’re working on currently, or what you’d like to do instead of the career you have now, a source of happiness? Can you truly say that, once you hit a certain net income, or once you have money left over to put into savings every month, then you’ll be happy?
I don’t know.
I dunno.
For me, what I do know is that today, I’ve jumped off a cliff. I’m taking a leap.
Where am I going?
What’s my next chapter going to be?
As a dear friend said to me right before I missed my flight, on purpose: What have you got to lose?
And maybe that’s the answer. Not asking, “What do I have to gain?” but “What have I got to lose?”
What have you got to lose? What have you lost already? What are you ready to gain?
I don’t have it all figured out right now. And you probably don’t either.
Whaddaya say we figure it out together?
Write that next chapter?
And I promise I won’t go missing any more planes!
Thank you.
Even as the last words left Cat’s mouth, she saw people standing up. As she bent her head down in gratitude, the roar of 800 women nearly knocked her off her feet. She looked up and witnessed her first standing ovation.
Cat smiled so hard her cheeks burned. Her eyes welled.
“Oh, Cat, before you go?” The young producer poked her head into Cat’s tiny dressing room. Cat was beyond exhausted, from straight-up stress response for nearly twelve hours, a funeral, to performing with all new material, not bombing totally, being mobbed by dozens of women afterward, each of whom just wanted to tell Cat how inspiring she was and how moved they were and how they, too, could now ask: “Who am I?” Cat’s makeup was running, her hair frizzing, yet she didn’t think she’d ever felt so alive.
“There’s just one more person who really needs to see you . . .”
A handsome, lean-faced, forty-something woman peered in. Not cocky but strong and deliberate, she exuded astonishing confidence.
“Cat, I’m Audrey Grey. Exe
cutive producer over at Alta Productions for Gala.”
Gala? The largest online content creator in the country.
“Oh! How are you?” Cat got up to shake her hand.
Audrey smiled. “Listen, I was just out there . . .”
“Oh, yeah, well . . .” Cat fell into her usual self-deprecating mode.
“It was fabulous. It was great.” Audrey pronounced every word with such clarity that it mesmerized Cat. “I really needed some new talent to host our tentpole show. I want you to do it.”
“Me?”
“I know, people think Web and we don’t pay, but that’s bullshit. Okay, we pay a bit less, but something tells me that if I gave you this show to not only host but produce, you might be interested.”
“To produce?”
“Executive produce.”
“That’s big.”
“Your voice, your outlook. I want the show to be through your eyes.”
Cat raised her brows and held on to Audrey’s card, feeling it between her fingers.
“Let’s talk tomorrow.” Audrey took Cat’s hand, shook it firmly. “After you have a drink and get some sleep.” She winked.
Cat smiled broadly. Tonight may be the best sleep of my life.
Chapter 25
Ay.
Magda unfolded herself out of her drop-top Audi, feeling for the first time in a long time the complaints of her body parts as they acclimated to a new environment: one with much less alcohol. (Well, it had only been two days.) Compensating for the aches, the sun warmed her fair skin. As she let her attention move to gratitude for the feeling, she smiled.
Magda needed that smile. This was to be her first visit to a psychotherapist, a specialist referred to her by her dearest Gabi, and Magda was anxious. There was only so much Gabi could handle; she couldn’t be Magda’s sole support system. It was a heavy load. And now Gabi had a load of her own.
Damn loser husband, Magda thought. The fuck. I should pay someone to knock him out.
She shook her head in hopes of shaking off the negativity. After all, revenge took care of itself. Give bad people enough rope—rope being time, usually—and they’ll hang themselves, with no loss of energy from you. Happiness is the best revenge, Gabi always liked to say. It was a jolly saying and Magda believed it enough, but she couldn’t resist imagining knocking Gabi’s husband out herself. Just one punch.
Sighing, she put her car keys in her pocket and raised her head to see where she was going. It wasn’t necessarily a fancy location. Fairly plain and dry. Magda usually preferred well-curated places and people, but this appointment wasn’t about suits, vacations, pretty people and high-end tequila. This was about getting her head on straight. About having a relationship with her father. Though he’d had a breakthrough, Magda wanted to make sure that her bitterness toward him for rejecting her coming out didn’t sabotage their future. It surprised her how happy she was to be receiving her father’s love again. It angered her as well. Ambivalence was a tough thing to live with. And life was too short, as they’d both just experienced with Magda’s beloved mother.
“Goddamnit!”
Magda turned her attention toward the sound of a frustrated female.
“Shit, shit, shit . . .” A woman, ten feet away, was trying to pull items back together into a now-busted box. It appeared that the bottom had fallen out; tacks rolled on the ground, and pens joined them. Notebooks dropped open.
“Oh geez. Here . . .” Magda instinctively bent down to help.
The woman wore snug cargo pants of olive green, a pair of black and white Vans, and a fitted gray T-shirt. The shirt had pulled up her back, allowing Magda a long look at her smooth brown skin, defined waist, and the hint of a tattoo. On her head was a pile of dreads rolled into a large bun, some dreads blond, some dark brown. Funky.
“Oh, thanks,” the woman muttered. “Thanks.”
As Magda focused on helping with the mess, she put off looking the woman in the face. She was rewarded for her focus as she helped lift the newly secure box into the arms of its owner.
“There . . . Hi.”
Lord, she was beautiful.
“Thank you.” The woman smiled a big-toothed, full-lipped smile. Her top lip folded right into the bottom of her nose. Her eyes were round and dark, makeup free. The box was heavy and she faltered for a second, attempting to shift it with her left knee, like a flamingo taking a nap.
“How about I take that and you grab the door?” Magda offered.
“You sure?”
Magda didn’t wait to answer. She just took the box, easier with her broad, strong frame. This woman had Michelle Obama arms, but they were a bit too short to wrap around the box like Magda’s.
“What floor?”
“Just to two, actually,” the woman said as she opened the door for Magda. Once inside the lobby, she pushed the elevator button and it arrived quickly. They stuffed themselves in. She asked Magda, “What floor are you going to?”
Magda felt a quick rush of embarrassment. Not only for her own sake but for her family’s, she knew that going to therapy was the best thing to do. Still, she was a therapy newbie clinging to her macho tendencies, afraid to admit where she was headed. Sense prevailed.
“Uh, four actually.” The woman pressed “4.”
Had Magda been at a bar, drinking, she would practically have been down this woman’s pants by now. At least she would have gotten a name and phone number. I’m nervous, she thought. Shit.
The elevator dinged on “2.” The door opened.
“Well, this is me.” The small lady with the pretty dreads stood in the doorway of the elevator and leaned in to take the box from Magda.
Magda handed it over carefully.
“Thanks—really a big help. Bye!”
At the last second, Magda held back the elevator door. “Oh, wait!”
The woman placed the box on the ground in front of an office door. “Yes?”
“I’m Magda.”
“Oh, I’m Cherokee.” She leaned forward to shake Magda’s hand. “Good to meet you.”
Magda let the elevator close. That was a warm smile. Was the woman just being nice or . . . ? She might not even like girls. Like that had stopped Magda before. But this was different. Dios, she was so warm. So, normal.
Magda got off on the fourth floor and followed the signs to a Dr. Amalfi’s office. She hoped no one was in the waiting room, no other clients—patients.
When she was buzzed in, the only one there was a nicely rounded Mediterranean-skinned woman with long hair and a warm smile.
“Hello, Magda!” She reached out for a handshake. “I’m Dr. Amalfi, Emma. So glad Gabi referred you.”
“Yes. Yeah. Well. Thanks.”
“Gabi mentioned that you’re a newbie, so I’ll be gentle.” Magda chuckled. The therapist continued. “Though if you know Gabi, you probably know all too well how this works, yes? Water?”
“Water? Yes, water, thanks.” Magda was rattled, though not necessarily in a bad way. “Question,” she called out a bit as Dr. Amalfi went behind a wall to grab some water.
“Yes?”
“Have you been in this building long?”
“At least five years.”
“Oh.” Magda expected a “Why’d you ask?” but the doctor did that frustrating thing that therapists do—she let the air hang empty, forcing Magda to follow up. “What’s that company on the second floor?”
Dr. Amalfi reappeared and handed Magda a cup of water. “That’s a tech start-up of some kind. I’ve met a couple of the kids from there. They seem nice.” She beckoned Magda to follow her to her office. Again she let the silence linger.
“Oh. ’Kay.”
Emma’s eyes narrowed, knowingly. “I did once get to chat a bit with a woman there—beautiful, with dreads.”
Magda warmed up. “Yeah, I just met her.”
The doctor watched Magda’s cheeks flush and her eyes wander to the right. She smiled. “Well, let’s focus on the fourth floor be
fore we head to the second.”
One Year Later
Chapter 26
“Wait, are you saying that being able to choose the hair color or eye color of your unborn child is a good thing?”
Cat was again in the host seat. But her new show was as far away from her previous show as purposefully as possible. The set was compact, modern but eclectic, mirroring the tastes and style of its host and creator. Mid-century modern furniture with a Peruvian throw here, an indigenous clay sculpture there, and of course, flowers—big, color-saturated flowers. It was upscale-tequila-bar-chic, and every member of the panel was a woman.
“That’s exactly what I’m saying!” responded one of Cat’s guests.
Two guests were agreeing enthusiastically that genetic sorting and selection during test-tube fertilization was not just a good thing for women but inevitable. Both were Anglo, one woman in her fifties, with the spiky red hair of a successful marketer and entrepreneur who didn’t have to toe a company line, the other, more plain and QVC-host, but just as feisty, in her early forties. Cat’s third guest, a round, witty blond blogger, shook her head in disappointment at her “sisters,” while a petite, long-lashed Indian-American doctor looked stunned.
“Have you gals lost your minds?” They tried talking over Cat, until she issued the inevitable—but friendly-fired—word slap: “Does eugenics mean anything to you? Eugenics? Nazis?” She delivered the kicker with the charm and wit of a scripted line in a dramedy; it did the job. They were stunned into silence. “What happens when you give people the right to select who gets to live and how?” Cat gestured to the camera. “And when we get back, tell us where you would draw the line between hair color and skin color.” She gestured toward herself and the other guests. “We’ll be right back.”
At “cut,” the production team sprang into action. It was half as big as the team on Cat’s previous show but multicolored, young, vibrant, and relaxed. Cat popped out of her chair for a quick makeup check.