Never Too Real

by Carmen Rita

  “Hey, hey.” She headed over to her girl Patty. “Did you catch that one, gurl? Skin color—snap!”

  “It’s like they don’t even know what they’re saying.” Patty was a gravel-voiced Italian Jersey-girl, so fiercely loyal to Cat that she’d followed her from their previous network. Both were making less money but getting something much more valuable in exchange: their sanity. The hours weren’t as crazy and there was flexibility in taping. Cat was the executive producer as well as the host, so she called the shots. And she had brought along with her a couple of other producers who were all too happy to leave the madness that was network and cable television for a start-up online channel. Risky? Sure. But freedom and diversity and getting something new on the résumé as heads rolled left and right on the old-fashioned telly? Priceless.

  “You gotta stop touchin’ yo hair, girlfriend!” Patty admonished.

  “I know, I know! I hear your voice in my head all the time—‘Don’t touch it!’ ”

  Patty rolled her eyes, covered Cat’s, and sprayed. “Go. Done. Don’t touch it!”

  “Sí, sí, señora!”

  Cat’s hair was a different form of TV hair for her, and in general. It was grown out, loose—purposefully disheveled and touchable. Patty loved it, though she was a bit nervous at first to go against the old-school TV grain of perfectly shellacked hair. But she listened to Cat, took the leap, and surprised the host with exactly what she wanted. A kind of crown that reflected who she really was. Wardrobe helped, too. On a tight budget, Cat got one cram session with her favorite stylist, Kitty, a Lower East Side rocker chick in her forties. Cat now dressed much more downtown artsy than her previous employer had allowed. Kitty zoomed in on dressing Cat in not only what reflected who she was as a person, but also, she pushed the boundaries of who she’d been before. A new slate. A new look. For the first time in her life and for longer than she’d like to remember, Cat felt like she lived in her own skin.

  “Cat, here’s what’s up.” Cat’s senior producer, Eve, followed her toward the set. “We’ve got twenty to twenty-one minutes on the new study of kids and screen time—”

  “Ooh! That one’s gonna be good.” Cat reflexively placed her palm on her belly. Four months and counting.

  “And did you want to follow up on the eugenics thing, or does that hit too close to home?”

  “Ha! That’s a good thing!”

  “You sure?” Eve was Jewish, forty, a serious investigative TV journalist who, as the mother of two elementary-school-aged boys, had been thrilled to jump ship for a bit less money and a lot more flexibility. Plus, she and Cat had a shorthand, combined with the respect and ability to argue but love each other ’til the end. “You haven’t officially announced it, really.” Eve drew her eyes to Cat’s belly.

  “Right. Well, no better time than the now!”

  “Aw, c’mon! What about a press release and shit?” Eve loved a bit of press. “Could be great for the show!”

  “Tell ya what, amiga: How about we tape this, I present my little bit o’ news, and then we use the clip with the press release . . . ya?”

  Eve’s eyes lit up. “Let’s do it.” She hustled back to the control room, jazzed.

  The floor director hollered out a “Five to start!” The two pro-eugenics ladies chatted emphatically with each other, bonding over their shared fantasies of creating a future filled with model babies. Patty had popped up on set to powder them a bit. She said a prayer aloud as she did it—or maybe it was a curse—she could be such a bruja.

  Cat confidently made it back to her seat, jiggled her earpiece back in, and looked at her notes.

  “Pssst, Cat, your phone.” It was the floor director, Andy. She had left her phone on a stool by his camera.

  “Oh, shoot—who is it?”

  He looked quickly and mouthed: Your mom!

  The show had been on the air only a month but the on-demand viewing numbers were encouraging. Cat hadn’t spoken as much to her mother since hanging up on her at the airport a year ago. Cat was a family gal and it still made her feel guilty, but she also knew that at the time she was having a crisis. A big one. And anyone close to her who was not able to help her stay standing, who made it all the harder, would have to be set aside for a while. Or she would have lost everything.

  But once she finally found someone—younger, but so successful—to have a life with, a family, she had to allow her mother back into her circle. Pregnant and fulfilled, Cat finally realized that though her mother’s methods may not have been the most conducive to allowing Cat to breathe, she truly did what she thought was best. After all, the odds had been against her. A Latina, Mexicana, single mother living at the poverty line, trying to give her daughter the best the world had to offer her. Cat knew she had been hard on her and the solace that this realization gave to Cat was like a tether releasing her from pain. When Dolores called or scolded or passive-aggressively hinted that Cat could do something different or better, Cat didn’t let it own her anymore, it didn’t reach her insides. She was her own person now. Getting fired and hitting rock bottom can do that. And after Dolores fell off her chair, raised the roof in rage, and drowned her sorrows in dulces at the news that Cat was going to have a baby out of wedlock, she learned that her daughter had boundaries. Cat made clear: If you’re going to know your grandchild—and I want you to—you’ve got to accept me as I am. It wasn’t easy, it took months of being firm but as loving as she could be, but she did it. Abuela was now onboard.

  And here Cat was. On the set of her new show. Truly her show, a show she had created and one she ran. Strangely enough, it drew more viewers than her network show ever had. An all-female, all-the-time show that focused on issues big and small, with guests split among ages, races, and cultures. It was smart, just like her and her guests. Full support from the top brass on both coasts made it all so much easier. It was dreamy, actually.

  Add to this Cat’s move from a dull, overpriced apartment near midtown to a two-bedroom place in Harlem with enough space and schools nearby for what was soon to be her growing family. Dammit if she’d never been happier in her life, and had never wanted something—someone—so badly, as this baby. When she’d felt the first flutter of something alive inside her, she thought she’d fall apart with joy.

  Here she was. About to reveal why she’d been wearing loose tops and chewing ginger gum first thing every morning. And her mother was on the line.

  “One minute to start!”

  “Andy, I’ll call her right back, okay?”

  I will, Cat thought. I’ll call her right after we wrap.

  It’s time for her to meet the father.

  Chapter 27

  Luz chopped leeks while her husband put some finishing touches on his “gourmet” pizza for the kids. Low-volume old-school R & B played on the mini-speakers in the kitchen. Just husband and wife making dinner together in the quiet of their kitchen after a day’s work.

  The quiet was short-lived. Luz felt the floor vibrate even before she heard the roar of her incoming children. All three yelled with fake terror and tore between and around their mom and dad at the kitchen island, bumping both parents on their way to evading what must be some monstrous creature.

  “Ay! What’s going on here?” Luz called out.

  “Maaaaa, she’s going to tickle us until we peeeeeee!” one of the twins tried to explain while running, bobbing, hiding, and screaming with joy.

  “I’m coming for you and I’m huuuuungry!” Emeli poked her head around the doorframe, hands like claws, eyes crazy big, mouth smiling.

  The gaggle of siblings screeched in anticipation.

  Luz smiled. Her husband had just put their pizza in the oven and turned around to help his wife finish up the grown-ups’ dinner—“The kids will never eat leeks, amor”—wrapping his arm around her waist as Chris saw her face light up at the sight of Emeli.

  It hadn’t been an easy year. For anyone. Emeli joined the family abruptly and her father was going to be in jail for a lon
g time. This meant a new school. New home. New family. New way of life. Ever grateful to her husband for his personal and financial support, Luz was able to build her own business, already nearly as lucrative as her previous position, and work from home on her own schedule, so she could focus on the homefront.

  At first, Emeli was resentful beyond belief—resentful of her new family’s affluence, their multicultural ways, her nieces and nephew’s noise and curiosity. But Luz’s daughters and son had won Emeli over and then some. They made her feel needed. Special, despite her surliness. It was as if they just “got” it. Understood where her pain was coming from—fear and insecurity—and rarely took it personally. As for how she felt about Luz, well, the relationship was much more like a stepmother and daughter than two sisters. But Luz was okay with that for now, and so was Emeli. She had needed a strong, older female to hang on to, to believe in her. And Luz knew that things would continue to evolve between them and the family as a whole. And boy did her husband, Chris, know how to crack Emeli up—God bless him.

  Luz protected Emeli a bit from the rest of the family—protected wasn’t necessarily the word. Luz shielded her, maybe even kept her to herself. Luz wanted to strengthen their own ties before building ones between Emeli and the rest of the family, even her mother and father—the ones who raised her. As for managing the initial mess in her head after learning that her parents had been all too good at keeping secrets—and that a branch of her bloodline led to a prison upstate—she was getting there. It helped that she was inclined to focus on her children and husband instead of herself. She needed to make sure they were happy first. And now they were. So, now it was time.

  Seeing Emeli now, running around with her kids, Luz had never felt so fulfilled. There was, however, one more item on her to-do list.

  Dun-dun-duuuuunnn!

  The ominous-sounding doorbell was her husband’s sense of humor. The kids screamed even louder. “Aaaaaiiiii!” They ran back into the hallway. “Hide! Hide! Quick! C’mon!” came their various little voices.

  Emeli froze.

  “Hon,” Luz asked her, “can you take the kids to wash their hands?”

  “Okay,” she answered, looking slightly green with nerves.

  “Here we go, chica. Hammer time,” quipped Chris.

  “Seriously, brothah. ‘Hammer time?’” Luz dried her hands as she made her way to the door. Luz’s husband playfully patted her ass as she made her way by him.

  “Oh, hi, baby,” Luz’s mother greeted her at the door, with a kiss on the cheek and a half hug, her right arm cradling a big, fashionable purse.

  “Hey, Ma, Dad.”

  Her father couldn’t hug her, his arms full of bags.

  “Dad! What’s with all the bolsas?”

  “Well, you know your mother. Had to shop for this event.”

  Luz’s mother rolled her eyes. “Donde están mis niños?” she asked.

  “Oh, they’re running out back with Emeli. They’ll be here in a minute.”

  Luz’s mother was dressed in nearly her Sunday best. More like Saturday at a Broadway show. Luz made a note of her mother’s need to both impress someone important she was meeting for the first time and her need to primp as a way to prepare herself for something that might be difficult psychologically.

  “We’re here.” Emeli appeared in the kitchen entryway, standing tall and brave. She was a very different girl than she had been a year ago—and yet much more herself, paradoxically. She was the same Emeli, but without all the armor. Her hair still big and flopped to the side like a cool teenager, but her clothes just a bit looser, less skin showing, and the skin on her face clear of the stacks of makeup she’d had when Luz and she first met. Emeli looked refreshed and at ease, her face newly open.

  “Abuelaaaa!” the younger children yipped as they ran to their grandmother.

  “Ayyyyy! My babies! Mmmwah mmmwah, come here, more besos, mas besos!” She took each one’s face in her hands and offered each a “You’re so beautiful,” a “You’re so strong” in Spanish. It was like a beam of strength transferred from one generation to the next. Luz’s kids would internalize these moments and turn to them during hard times as talismans, sustenance.

  “What am I, chopped liver?” asked Roger.

  “Grandpaaaaa!” Nina, ’Fina and Nico made his legs disappear in a cloak of loving little arms and torsos.

  Emeli still stood. Smiling and quietly watching, not knowing her place.

  Luz took her mother by the arm and led her to Emeli.

  “Mom. This is Emeli.”

  Altagracia locked eyes with the teen. Emeli seemed vulnerable. But, she need not have worried. Abuela took the girl’s hands in hers, and said in Spanish, “Emeli. So nice to meet you.”

  Emeli tried to respond in kind. She managed, “Sí . . . gracias . . .”

  In that awkwardness, there was a shift under their feet. Decades of lives lived and hearts broken flew past and between them. The older woman lowered her shoulders, smiled sweetly, and took Emeli’s beautiful, light coffee-skinned, blue-eyed face in her hands.

  “Que bella,” she said, as her eyes welled and a tear broke free.

  Emeli’s eyes welled up, too, for the first time in months. The two women embraced, two generations far apart yet held together by history and by a man who made some bad choices but also, one truly good. Altagracia and Emeli held each other with equal intensity.

  Luz wiped away a tear. My mother. My sister. My life.

  The sniffles and silence were broken by a friendly, “Group hug!” Roger wailed as they all made their way to the women, piling into a scrum.

  “Yes! Group hug!” Chris and the kids joined in, all making squishing noises of joy. Luz watched it for a beat, taking it all in. Then, she, too, joined, her arms spread as wide as they could go, encompassing her beautiful, expanded, family.

  Emeli and Abuela laughed at the wiggling kids, angling to get a piece of them. Luz cried, happily.

  For years Luz had wondered about herself. Who she really was. Where she fit in. Who she wanted to be.

  Right here, she thought now.

  This is it.

  This is me. This is we.

  Chapter 28

  The host pulled a bang behind her ear. “So, this book really came out of a hard time for you. Tell us about that.”

  Gabi was on the set of the number-one network morning show on television, kicking off a round of interviews to promote her new book, Super (Single) Mom. She looked different from how she had a year ago. She sat up straight, still in her boho-chic gear, but looking much less frazzled than before. She radiated positivity and was markedly more magnetic than she’d ever been before.

  She smiled at the host, who seemed genuinely intrigued.

  “Well, Natalia, yes. My whole practice, my whole career, has been about healing in relationships and bringing joy and fulfillment to our lives as spouses, couples, parents.” Gabi paused before continuing on commandingly. “But as I was taking care of so many others, I discovered that I had disappointed a tremendously important person: me.”

  “And that’s a big deal, right, to help others so much only to realize that you’re not doing the same for yourself?”

  Gabi had known Natalia for years and had been a guest on her show, giving advice, dozens of times. To sit in the same spot and admit that she had fucked up was a big deal. Well, her husband—ex-husband—fucked up, too, hurting her in some of the worst ways you can hurt someone. But Gabi had done something truly wrong. She had ignored the wise voices in her head and she had tried too hard to fix things, to the point of not letting Bert breathe. Or herself, for that matter.

  She had known when he started working out again after years of lying on the couch. She had known when he said he was taking a walk and returned hours later, smelling of booze. She knew when he stopped wanting to go to bed with her. Yet, she kept hammering at it, at their household, trying to fix things by simultaneously appeasing him as much as possible (home-cooked meals and doting) an
d haranguing as much as possible. But she couldn’t face the truth, couldn’t confront him. Instead she chose to maintain the façade, maintain the semblance of family no matter how false. No one is blameless even in a betrayal so dire. She now knew that.

  And Gabi didn’t even realize how bad and wrong and hard it all had been on her (sublimate!) until she, now on her own with her son, started her first session with a personal trainer, a gorgeous, Irish twenty-something with livid blue eyes, and a mess of black curls. All he had to do was touch her legs to guide them in a stretch after their first workout. It set off electricity of such force that she was sure she was shaking. It was the first time she’d been touched by a man in nearly two years. After she got home from training, Gabi collapsed onto the floor of her shower, crying. She cried painfully. Now she was fully, physically awake. The realization of how she’d put herself, in effect, to sleep, her body and her needs, threw her into a new kind of mourning that day.

  But Gabi’s mourning quickly turned into awakening. And she began doing one of the things she’d always told others to do: She took her own advice. She worked on getting herself physically into shape. (And yes, continuing to see her trainer, though never crossing that boundary. She’d get there, physically, with several others soon enough.) And even more importantly, Gabi understood that the unhappiness at home and the now-clear depression in her ex had made her son anxious and fearful. So Gabi dropped all her corporate consulting work for months, instead seeing just a few clients at a time and writing her new book, to focus as much energy as possible on the true, lasting love of her life, her child. Gabi lived in daily fear of her drop in income and the possibility that she’d end up worse off after the legal battle of divorce, but she stuck to her guns with her time and making Max her priority. And now, here she was again. Back in the saddle, so to speak. Back on the high chair, on people’s television screens. Another book. And this one was her most personal yet. She’d soon find that her authenticity was contagious and it was to be her most successful book yet.