Angel felt that tenderness-for-Natalia twinge again. She was eating real food for a change. He decided to make small talk to keep her eating. “Wait ’til you taste the ribs in Baja. Best in the world.”
She discarded a chewed-over bone, licked the sauce from her fingers, and started in on a meaty one. “You really think Vaclav and I will like living in Baja?”
“Money-back! It takes, like, a day to drive down the coast of Baja from TJ to Cabo. From there, you drive past where all the gringo tourists hang. There’s this village that’s half Mexican farmers and fishermen, half artsy ex-pats from all over. They grow their own food, grow their own weed, and chill. No one gives a shit who you are or where you came from.”
She reached for an onion ring with her free hand. “I’ll have goats,” she said dreamily.
“Goats?”
“My babika had three little goats. In winter, when it was too cold outside, she let them spend the night in the farmhouse. They’d jump on my bed and sleep with me.”
“You slept with goats?”
“It was cozy.” Suddenly, her eyes widened. “I know what I can do in Baja!”
“What?”
“Start a goat-cheese business.”
“Goat cheese?”
“Babika made goat cheese. She taught me how. Vaclav can surf and play in a band. I’ll make goat cheese and have babies.” She frowned. “Unless I’m too old, for babies, I mean.”
“Yo, all those hormones that doctor shot you up with for Rex’s baby… There oughta be enough left over to kickstart you and Vaclav.”
She crossed herself with the onion ring, murmured a prayer, and ate it.
Angel held up the last juicy rib. Her eyes sparkling with hope, she tossed down the rib she had finished and snatched it. “Thank you, my angel!”
Chapter 22
Washington, D.C.
December 17, 11:00 p.m.
Phil winced from a sharp prick on his right thigh. He glanced down at Oscar. The tabby cat was curled up on his lap, sound asleep, its claws—which he never bothered to trim—flexing in and out. He wondered if Oscar was dreaming about catching a rat. For the past six hours, he had felt as if he were on the trail of a rat himself.
He had read and reread the online People article, FLOTUS Is Besties with Her Barber. The story told how Natalia discovered Angel Garcia, an illegal Mexican immigrant, when he was a humble hair-washer at Funck’s Beau Rivage Resort in Miami. “Thanks to the encouragement of Natalia Funck, Angel quickly became their top hairdresser,” the article said. The “happy ending” was Angel becoming the official FLOTUS hairdresser, with a lucrative side hustle as a stylist at Washington’s Funck International Hotel. “Angel is more than my hair stylist,” Natalia was quoted as saying. “He’s my dear, dear friend.” Phil wondered if Natalia had persuaded her friend to do something unthinkable, or if it had been Angel’s idea. He was determined to find out, even if it took all night.
Phil nudged the cat off of his lap. He stretched his legs, which were propped up on the discarded Amazon cartons that passed as a coffee table, and turned back to the laptop balanced on his knees. He clicked on the photo gallery with the People story. One picture showed Angel styling Natalia’s hair in her private salon at the White House. The next was of Angel blow-drying her hair aboard Air Force One. He clicked on another photo: Angel walking across the White House lawn with Natalia to the Marine One helicopter. The photo was so full of energy and emotion—you could see they adored each other—that Phil wished he’d taken it.
An hour earlier, while studying these photos, he had focused on the fact that they made an odd couple: the tall, elegant First Lady towering over the flamboyantly dressed young Mexican. It had struck him that the difference in their heights was about the same as between Angel and the trans woman in the photo he took this morning. Was it possible that the trans woman was Natalia in disguise? To check out his hunch, he had pulled up that photo and compared it to the one on People.com. Unfortunately, he’d discovered that the trans woman was taller than Angel in the photo he took, but in the People photo, Natalia had an additional three inches on Angel.
Though discouraged, Phil decided to study both photos again. Looking more closely this time, he noticed that in the photo on the White House lawn, Natalia was wearing five-inch stiletto heels, while in the photo he took this morning, the trans woman was wearing motorcycle boots with what looked like two-inch heels. That could explain the extra three inches, he thought. If so, the trans woman could be Natalia in disguise.
A rush of excitement motivated his next thought: If the trans woman was Natalia in disguise, then perhaps Angel entered the White House earlier with a real trans woman whom Natalia was now impersonating, and that trans woman was now impersonating Natalia. If that was so, the “Natalia” in the Christmas card photo taken at the White House this morning could be the trans woman in drag.
Phil hastily googled “Drag-queen clubs Washington, D.C.” He discovered half a dozen clubs that featured impersonators of celebrities like Cher, Bette Midler, and Barbra Streisand. They looked somewhat like the women they were imitating, but in a garish, over-the-top way. Not one could be mistaken as the real celebrity. He supposed that the exaggeration, the theatricality, was what audiences paid for.
Phil next typed in “First Lady female impersonator” and came up with a handful. Several were featured in YouTube videos, one with a not-very-convincing “Natalia” performance against a shaky Oval Office backdrop. But none of them looked like the real FLOTUS. He clicked on more First Lady female impersonators, determined to do his due diligence.
An hour later, Phil was still at it. He reached into his camera bag and rummaged around until his fingers seized on a plastic baggie. It held half a ragged joint that he’d been saving for a long paparazzi stakeout. A couple of puffs always zoned him out enough to hang in a little while longer. He needed it now.
Phil slid his laptop onto the sofa, next to the cat, and walked over to the gas stove. He knew it was dangerous, that he could set his hair on fire, but he clicked on the front burner, stuck the joint tip in the flame and sucked. What he called “happy fog” was creeping over his brain by the time he sat back down on the sofa and repositioned the laptop on his knees.
He took another toke and pulled up more images of First Lady female impersonators. Maybe it was the weed, but soon Phil discovered what he had hoped for: a Natalia impersonator in South Beach who looked so much like the real Natalia, that maybe the public, but not he, could be fooled.
Chapter 23
The White House
December 18, 1:30 a.m.
Moon hugged Natalia’s long Frette terrycloth bathrobe close to her body. As she walked through the halls of the White House, she noticed that the guards on night duty averted their eyes respectfully as she passed. Underneath the bathrobe she wore a pair of Natalia’s $10,000 black Escada jeans, rolled up, and Natalia’s’ $2,000 black Bottega Veneta cashmere sweater, its long sleeves rolled up too. Natalia had said that she could keep them. “A White House souvenir,” she had joked.
Moon felt in the bathrobe pocket for Natalia’s $1,700 black Moncler puffer coat, another White House souvenir. Before she and Angel left this morning, Natalia had stuffed it into its tiny nylon pouch, a feat Moon found magical. Natalia had assured her that once she escaped the White House hidden in the laundry truck and climbed out, all she had to do was pull the material out of its pocket and it would puff up into a warm coat. Moon glanced down at her feet. Too bad Natalia’s Frette terrycloth slippers wouldn’t puff up into Ugg sheepskin boots. Through the White House windows, she saw that snow was falling.
Following the map that Natalia had forced her to memorize, Moon ducked into the Vermeil Room. The guards knew that on her way down to the kitchen for a midnight snack, the First Lady always took a quick detour through here. Moon wondered if they ever peeked when Natalia prayed to the Jackie Kennedy portrait. She spotted it on the far wall, between a pair of primly draped arched windows. Jus
t in case, she walked over to it, kneeled down, and clasped her hands together the way she’d seen Ingrid Bergman do it in the old black-and-white movie Joan of Arc on TCM.
She looked up at the portrait. Natalia was right: Jackie looked serene, wistful, almost holy. She knew, of course, that Jewish people don’t pray to saints. They don’t have saints, like Catholics do. But since she was on her knees anyway, to satisfy any prying eyes, Moon figured that she would give it try.
“Dear Jackie, even though I’m Jewish and a trans,” she murmured, “I hope you’ll find it in your heart to help me get out of here tonight in one piece.” She was about to stand up, but stopped herself. “P.S., I think you are the most beautiful First Lady in all of American history. Until Natalia, that is.” Feeling a flutter of guilt and fear of jinxing it, she quickly added, “It’s actually pretty much a tie between you and Natalia, plus my mother, olav ha sholom, worshiped you, so I really hope you’ll help me.”
She slipped out of the Vermeil Room and followed her memorized map to a back staircase, which took her down to the White House basement. The guard near the swinging doors to the staff kitchen opened them, as if he’d been expecting her.
Inside, a lanky young African-American woman was busy mixing dough in a huge bowl. This must be Stella, thought Moon. Beside her was the U.D. officer that she figured was Tallisha. At first, she thought that Tallisha was reading Stella a recipe from a cookbook. But as she stepped closer, she saw that the book Tallisha held was Becoming, Michelle Obama’s memoir.
Stella broke into a smile when she noticed Moon. “Madame First Lady!” She beckoned her over. “I got a batch of biscuits piping hot from the oven!”
“Sounds yummy,” she said in her Natalia voice in case anyone else was listening. One whiff of the fresh-baked biscuits and she realized that she was starving. The dinner that had been sent up to Natalia’s bedroom earlier had seemed like starvation rations: a paper-thin filet of broiled salmon; three meager sprigs of raw broccoli; and six, count ’em, six, fresh strawberries. Plus a sewage-brown smoothie of dozens of fruits and vegetables that managed to taste like none of them.
“Here ya go!” Stella slid a basket filled with plump, flaky biscuits onto a counter. Their golden crusts glistened with melted butter. Moon reached for one and raised it to her mouth.
“Madame Funck!” said a man’s voice behind her.
Moon turned around, the biscuit poised midair. A brawny Secret Service agent approached, the kitchen doors swinging behind him. “The President wants you.” She read his nametag: “Pricker.” This must be the man Natalia described as Rex’s favorite bodyguard with an obscene-sounding name, she thought. He adjusted the coiled plastic wire on his radio earpiece. “I got Trophy,” he said into it. She guessed that “Trophy” must be the Secret Service code name for FLOTUS. With a sigh of defeat, she put the biscuit back into the basket. So much for praying to Saint Jackie, she thought.
Chapter 24
Between Nashville and Jackson, TN
December 18, 2:00 a.m.
Angel checked the speedometer: The Mustang was pushing 80. He eased off the pedal. He knew the highway patrol in the South would not take kindly to a gay Mexican and a tattooed trans woman trashing the speed limit. He had been driving for more than six hours and found himself starting to drift off, but they were six hours behind schedule. No time to stop at a motel for the night if they were going to make it to TJ and meet Vaclav in two-and-a-half days.
Natalia was slumped against the window, fast asleep. Even with her caveman forehead, wig, and faux ear and nose studs, she looked beautiful. More than that, she is a mujer valiente, a brave woman, thought Angel. How many women could walk away from everything the way she did, to follow her heart?
Natalia stirred in her sleep.
“Chica?”
Her eyes fluttered open. For an instant, she looked at him as if she didn’t know who he was, or where they were. Then he saw the realization kick in. She eyed the dashboard clock. “Moon better be hidden under a pile of dirty kitchen towels by now.”
“She’ll be fine. Yo, it’s me I’m worried about. If I don’t, like, hecharme un sueño, take a nap, we’re gonna end up in a ditch.”
Natalia turned on the radio. Garth Brooks was singing, “I got tears in my ears from cryin’ in my bed—”
“Does this help?”
“Country and western’s for Funck-loving gringos.”
“How about this?” She sang a lovely, slow song in Slovak.
“Sweet, but you’re, like, putting me to sleep.”
“All I know is lullabies my babika sang to me.” She thought for a moment. “I know. Talk to me. That will keep you awake. Tell me what happens after we get to Tijuana and I leave with Vaclav. Are you going back to D.C. to work at the Funck Hotel salon? Style the hair of the woman Rex finds to replace me?”
“Gretchen?”
“Right! Of course! The First Daughter will become FLOTUS. They’ll make the perfect First Couple.” She laughed. “Seriously, what are you going to do?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you.”
“Ask me?”
“Y’know that, like, village in Baja near Cabo, where you and Vaclav are gonna live? It’s called Todos Santos, by the way.”
“Todos Santos? I love the name! What does it mean?”
“All Saints.”
“Perfect. I’ll go to church every Sunday!”
“What if I lived in Todos Santos too?”
“Seriously?”
“Except for the go-to-church-on-Sunday part.”
“I’d love it, but I don’t get it!
“Long story, but this dude, Raphael, he was, like, my first love. Kinda like you and Vaclav, only we were maricóns and one of us didn’t get embarazada.”
“Embarrassed?”
“In Spanish, embarazada means ‘pregnant.’”
“You’re making fun of me?”
“Sorry! Anyway, Raphael’s father was, like, el Jefe Segundo, deputy mayor, in TJ. Super macho. Super pendejo, an asshole. When he discovered Raphael’s a maricón, he kicked him out of the house.”
“No!”
“Raphael disappeared. Poof! No more Raphael! I tried to find him, but it’s, like, he didn’t want me to. A couple of years later, I got the hell out of Mexico, went to Miami, blah, blah, blah. Then, when I found Vaclav for you on Google the other day, I figured, why not see if I can track down Raphael too?”
“Did you?”
Angel nodded. “He’s head chef at the Four Seasons Hotel in Cabo. Worked his way up from pinche dishwasher.”
“Wow! He must be an amazing cook.”
“When he was a kid, he’d hang out with my mom when she was making tacos. He was really into it. Food was always Raphael’s thing, like mine’s hair. Anyway, a couple of days ago we Facetimed. Raphael looks like he always looked. Guapo, handsome dude. He said I looked pretty good too.”
“You are muy guapo!”
“Yo, I’ve had lots of, like, boyfriends since Raphael, but he was always in my heart.”
“Like with me and Vaclav.”
“Right. So, Raphael has this little beach house in Todos Santos. He commutes about an hour to work at the Four Seasons Hotel in Cabo. He asked me to come down and stay with him for a while. We’ll see how it goes. If it works out for us, he’s gonna get me a job doing hair at the hotel.”
“I’m happy for you,” she said. “And for me.” Tears filled her eyes. “Vaclav and I won’t be all alone in Baja. You and Raphael will be our family.”
“Que chido! So since we’re family, how about you help me out right now.”
“What?”
“Take a turn at the wheel?”
“You mean, drive?”
“Please? I’m a camarón, a shrimp,” said Angel. “I can, like, curl up on the back seat and take a siesta.”
“I don’t drive.”
“What?”
“I’ve never driven a car.”
“Dude, how’s
that possible? What forty-eight-year-old woman can’t drive, except in pinche Saudi Arabia?”
“It’s not my fault! In Slovakia you have to be seventeen to drive. I was fifteen when I got—” She stopped herself. “I wasn’t old enough to drive when my parents sent me to Bratislava. Then I moved to Paris, where you take the Metro—”
“And then you moved to the U.S., where Rex Funck is driven around in a pinche limo! Hey, does Rex even know how to drive?”
She thought for a moment. “I’ve seen him drive a golf cart.”
He pulled over to the side of the highway. Leaving the motor running, he climbed out of the car. Natalia climbed out on her side. “What are we doing?”
In the distance, a coyote howled. “I love that sound,” he said.
“What is it?”
“A coyote. The slums in TJ had lots of coyotes. They competed with the people for the garbage.”
“What are we doing in the middle of nowhere, listening to coyotes?”
He walked around to Natalia’s side of the car, grabbed her hand, and led her to the driver’s seat. “Get in.”
“What?”
“Chica, you’re about to change your life. This is a perfect time to learn something new.” He nudged her. Natalia guardedly slid behind the wheel. She was so much taller than Angel, that her knees were crammed up against the steering wheel.
“There’s a bar thing beneath the seat.” He pointed down. “Give it a yank and push yourself back.”
She adjusted the seat and put her hands on the steering wheel. By the time Angel sat down in the passenger seat and closed the door, her face had spread into a smile. “I’m ready! Yo, dude, I’m pinche ready!”
“Okay, so first thing you gotta know about driving in Mexico: You drive with your cojones, your balls!”
She grabbed her washcloth-bulged crotch and laughed. “I can do that!”
The First Lady Escapes Page 12