Names I Call My Sister

by Mary Castillo

  “You get no pay, play only three songs, and I choose every single one.”

  “Half pay, five songs, and we choose them together.”

  “I said no pay, three songs, I choose.”

  “Okay, it is a fund-raiser so you don’t have to pay us,” says Rocco. “And I guess you do have to be careful that what we play doesn’t contradict your campaign platform. So how about this? No pay, five songs, you choose.”

  “Or how about this?” I say. “No pay, three songs, I choose.”

  Rocco gazes at me in a way that tells me he misses me. And I miss him, too. But I also know that we will never work. We went somewhere new that last night, and from that place I had to go forward. But for whatever reason, Rocco needed to turn back. It scared the shit out of him, and yet in my gut I knew what happened was not a symptom of but the solution to our problems. I can’t explain it. I’m not even convinced that I should feel the way I do. I never have been able to behave according to how I should feel, but only how I do feel. Even when everyone says it’s wrong. This is how I end up alone.

  Now it’s my turn to look out the window, because I can’t let Rocco see me cry. I hear him say, “Okay, Jen, you win.” First I wipe my tears, and then I turn to give him a smile.

  Chapter 9

  To make peace with Jennifer and get her off my back, I offer to sit on her interviews for a campaign manager who can also serve eventually as her chief of staff. Of course, she resists left and right, insisting that she doesn’t need my help. Then she finally agrees, only to make it seem as if it’s her idea.

  Jennifer spends almost an hour with every candidate. She takes copious notes and asks the same question a variety of ways, as if she’s deposing a witness. Listening with one ear and minding the clock, I go on instinct. I know my sister and can tell who can work with her or not within minutes. Right now she’s impressed with this Leslie Harewood, but I see nothing but trouble.

  “As your chief of staff, I won’t just manage your calendar and run your district office,” says Leslie. “I’ll be your eyes and ears in the community. If I see an issue that can be addressed with a change in legislation, I’ll do the research and bring it to your attention.”

  I stand up and offer her my hand. “Thank you, Leslie. We have one more candidate to see, but we will be in touch with you shortly.”

  “Oh.” Leslie shakes my hand then offers it to Jennifer. “Thank you…Councilwoman.” She grins and skips out the door. What I would give to be that confident about anything, but I’m working on it.

  “I like her. She’s my favorite so far.” Jennifer looks at the itinerary I gave her. “Actually, Leslie was our last interview.”

  “No, I screened a résumé I received at the last minute and decided to accommodate the guy,” I say. “I think he’s perfect.”

  Of course, Jennifer says, “Unless he rocks my world, which I seriously doubt, I’m going with Leslie.”

  “Trust me, Jen, you don’t want to do that.”

  “Are you kidding me?” she says, staring at me over the rim of her glasses.

  “She brings a master’s degree in public policy from Columbia University, experience working at the Independent Budget Office, and existing relationships with key staff at City Hall. And that’s just on paper. It doesn’t hurt that she’s an African American who grew up and still lives in the district and is fluent in Spanish. Leslie is perfect.”

  “She’s too ambitious.”

  Jennifer scoffs. “There’s no such thing.”

  “Jen, your priority now is to find someone who can manage your campaign given all the barriers you have to overcome,” I explain. “The girl had nothing to say about that. All she talked about was what a great chief of staff she would make.”

  “Fantastic! She looks ahead. And that’s the kind of drive I need if I’m going to beat Cuevas.” Jennifer eyes me up and down. “Since my own sister is too busy to support me.”

  Ignore her, Michelle. “Jennifer, you need someone who’s competent but also…” I know exactly what I want to say, but I restrain myself. “Let me put it this way. Sure, Leslie will handle anything you throw her way, but it’s obvious to me that she just can’t…” I probably shouldn’t use this word, but nothing is more perfect. “…submit.”

  “Submit?” My sister looks at me as if I suggested she engage in child labor. “I don’t need anyone to submit to me.”

  I fight the urge to ask her if she would like to hear the evidence alphabetically or chronologically, but it’s almost eight o’clock and there’s no time for that. I have to leave soon for my own appointment, although I have yet to tell my sister that I have one.

  “Yes, Jen, Leslie’s perfect on paper. But you two are too much alike. The second you shoot down one of Leslie’s grand ideas, she’s going to jump ship.” I head to the office door. “You need a campaign manager and chief of staff whose only purpose is to serve you.” I open the door and usher in Mr. Perfect.

  As I expected, my sister’s jaw drops at the sight of Raul Cuevas’s chief of staff. “Ryan Alfaro?”

  “Not only is he the only candidate that has both experience in running a campaign and managing a legislative office, imagine all the press you’ll get when the media finds out Ryan left Cuevas’s campaign to run yours!”

  “So much for loyalty,” Jennifer says, although I can hear her salivate over my rationale. She’s the underdog in this election in more ways than the average contender, and she knows it. But I have no doubt that Ryan’s her man despite her legitimate hesitation. I nudge Ryan, to get him to speak.

  “I can alleviate any concerns you have if you would just grant me five minutes, Ms. Saez,” he says. He folds his hands in front of his silk tie. “Please.”

  Yeah, he’s perfect for Jennifer. He’d drop to his knees and beg if she asked him to. I say, “Look, Jen, I’ve got to go.”

  “Go? Where?”

  “I have an important errand to run.” I think quickly. “I need to head to the central library to look up something for you.”

  “At this hour?”

  “It’s open late. When I get home, we’ll talk, and you’ll make a decision.” I blow her a kiss, wink at Ryan, and rush out the door to meet with the Queen and a star member of the New York Jets.

  Chapter 10

  “Have a seat, Ryan,” I say as I take my own. What the hell is going on with Michelle? It’d be insane for me to hire him. I cut to the chase. “Does the councilman even know that you’re on the market?”

  “No, no, no. I’ve been wanting to leave for some time now, but I was just waiting for the right opportunity to emerge. But if Cuevas knew I wanted to move on, he would find some excuse to fire me.”

  “What on earth for?”

  “That’s just the kind of man he is, Ms. Saez. When he found out that our previous legislative director was applying to law school, he fired him for coming back five minutes late from lunch. This was a man with a wife and child. He wasn’t planning on quitting until he actually began classes. But Cuevas could not imagine how anyone would not give his eyeteeth to do his bidding.” Ryan pauses to hold up his résumé. “May I…?” I nod, and he places it on my desk. “Honestly, Ms. Saez, I could stomach the abuse if Cuevas were a good councilman. But he takes his loyal constituents for granted, and the rest…well, I don’t have to tell you.”

  “No, you don’t.” I scan his résumé. On paper he’s stronger than Leslie. But she’s a sparkplug like Echo. This Ryan…I don’t know. He strikes me as a bit soft. “So you want to come work for me to stick it to Cuevas.”

  “Not at all, Ms. Saez! In that brief visit you had with him a few weeks ago, I saw in you a person that can lead others and make change for the better. One moment you were coaching those kids and giving them the confidence to speak up for what they believe in, and when Cuevas tried to humiliate them, you were standing up and giving him hell in a way that I have never seen anyone do. Not even the other men on the Bronx Democratic Committee.” Ryan springs forward in hi
s seat until his face is only inches from mine. “And now you’re running for his seat when you have no ties to the county machine, no experience in public office, no war chest of which to speak….”

  And Michelle thinks this guy is perfect for me? If Ryan keeps this up, not only will I not hire him, I just might throw in the towel. And move out of the state. “Why would you quit a secure job with such a powerful man to manage a bare-bones, final-hour campaign for a dark horse?”

  “Because I know you can win,” he says. “I can help you win. Not only do I know how the machinery works, I know everything about Cuevas.”

  As enticing as it sounds, I give myself a reality check. Ryan has much more to lose than gain by joining my campaign. For all I know, Cuevas sent him here to act as a mole. A really good-looking mole. Knock it off, Jen. Where are you? Back in high school? I say, “You expect me to believe that you’re willing to risk your own political career to jump-start mine?”

  “I don’t have a political career.”

  “Sure you do. Even if I don’t beat Cuevas, he won’t be in office forever. Term limits will see to that. And if you remain loyal to him and the county machine, you can be next in line for his seat. Now why should I believe that you would give that up?”

  “Because I never wanted that,” says Ryan. “Ms. Saez, I have no desire to lead anyone or be in the public eye or anything like that. My strength—and what brings me the greatest sense of pleasure and fulfillment—is service.” Then he laughs shyly, reminding me of Rocco when we first met and he wanted to impress me. “And truth of the matter is that, even if I aspired to Cuevas’s seat, that’d be a pipe dream. The county committee has already chosen who they want to take his district when term limits forces him out of office.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I say. “Raul, Jr.”

  Ryan nods. “Unless you win.”

  Chapter 11

  “Of course you should let him,” I say as I transpose two books on a shelf. I push the cart down the aisle as Jennifer follows me. “You don’t have anything to hide.”

  “A complete stranger poking around my background, looking for dirt,” Jennifer says as she hugs herself. In her Valvo pumps and Maz Azria suits, she usually seems six feet tall. Now she looks like a Girl Scout. I have this urge to protect my sister even though I know she’s in no danger.

  “First of all, if Ryan is going to be your campaign manager and chief of staff, he can’t remain a stranger. You can’t keep any secrets from him,” I say as I wheel the cart around the corner toward the adult fiction section. “And Ryan is right. Once Cuevas learns that Ryan has leaped from his bandwagon to yours, he’s going to scour the earth trying to find a way to discredit you.”

  “Not like he doesn’t already have the whole carpetbagging issue,” Jen says under her breath.

  “Sure he’s going to try that, but that’s a minor thing, and you have a valid response,” I say. Honestly, I’m starting to wonder if my sister should drop this campaign. Since Jennifer dove into it, she hasn’t been getting enough sleep. Her late hours at the office enable me to keep my dates at Whipped a secret. Nor has she been eating right, from what the kids tell me, and they live off of junk food. Between her self-neglect and Cuevas’s public verbal assaults, the lioness is losing her roar. But Jennifer won’t quit even if she should, so the best thing I can do for her is help her see this campaign to its conclusion. “Just prepare yourself for the fact that he might twist the truth or straight out lie, Jen. This is the way campaigns are run nowadays. He’s going to go negative, but you can counter if you expect it.”

  “Jesus…”

  “Oh, c’mon, what’s the worst thing he can find out about you?” I ask. “You ran up some charge cards while in college?”

  “Actually, I was probably the only student in my dorm who didn’t.”

  Of course not. “You see,” I say. “You’ve never pulled a Paris Hilton, did you? There aren’t any videotapes of you floating out there, right?”

  “Oh, God…”

  “Is that a yes or a no?” I tease.

  “Michelle!”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “Ever been arrested for anything?” I already know the answer to this so I ask it only to put my sister at ease. While in college Jennifer did participate in a few demonstrations, but she never got arrested. If anything, she was the one who summoned the pro bono attorney and collected the bail money for those who did.

  Jennifer racks her brain for any tawdry events that might come back to haunt her. “The only thing I can think of is when I made law review. I wrote a pretty strident article defending a woman’s right to choose. Think he might use that against me?”

  “That depends,” I say. “Have you switched positions?”

  “No!”

  “Then don’t worry about it.” Even if Jennifer had flipped, Cuevas would never know. The woman’s acting as if she’s running for Congress. Of course, Cuevas is going to play dirty, but he’s not going to go that far to discredit her. It’s just a local election. “Being a maverick is not without its advantages, Jen. The worse thing he can say about you is that you’ve got no track record. Cuevas, on the other hand, has almost four years’ worth of votes and quotes you can use against him.”

  Jennifer’s eyes brighten. “It’d be great if you could—”

  “No, Jennifer, I can’t,” I say.

  “Ryan can’t do it all, and you’re in the perfect position to do it.”

  Because I truly believe in Jennifer and want to support her, I debate whether I should come clean. On the one hand, what I’ve learned can help her. On the other hand, Jennifer can’t win this City Council seat if she’s serving time for murdering me. No, this is not the time to reveal the turns my personal life has taken, especially when the truth is that I’m not willing to sacrifice it for her campaign. The only thing that lessens my guilt is the fact that my sister has no idea what I’m keeping from her. “I’m sorry.”

  “Are you really?”

  “Wait here.” I abandon the book cart and rush to the administrative office for my purse. I come back to find Jennifer picking up where I left off, reshelving books from the cart and reordering books misplaced by browsing patrons. What a freak. After snatching the book from her and placing it back on the cart, I say, “Trying to get me fired?”

  “If it means you’ll have to come work for me…” Jennifer stares at me as I reach into my purse for my checkbook. “No, Michelle, stop.”

  “I may not have time, but I do have money, so let me give you what I can.”

  “I can’t accept that.” Jennifer grabs the checkbook. “You’ve already given me the maximum contribution allowable by law, remember?”

  “I’m your sister, for God’s sake.” I snatch the checkbook away from her and flip to a blank check. “Don’t report it. Just deposit it, and spend it as you need it. The law can’t tell you to refuse money from your own family.” I make the check out for one thousand dollars, tear it out and hand it to Jennifer. She rips it in half. “What are you doing?”

  Some library patrons at the computer stations turn to stare at me. Ever since Jennifer took a leave from her job at the law firm, she spends almost as much time here trailing me than at her campaign office. If my own sister continues to stalk me at work, I am going to get fired. Then my moonlighting gig will become my primary source of income. Come to think of it, that might be…

  “I don’t want your money, Michelle,” Jennifer says. “I need your time and expertise. Nobody can do research and organize things like you. Why are you so intent on denying me the best thing you can do for me?”

  My face becomes hot. “So you think the only thing I’m good for is surfing electronic databases and pushing paper…”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “…and that I’m not capable of doing anything else? That I have no dreams or desires other than to prep you for your close-up? Is that it, Jennifer?”

  “Shhh!” says Mrs. Webb from “her” usual desk acr
oss the mystery aisle. The old woman is there every day, sometimes for four hours at a time. Elaine and I joke about charging her rent.

  “I can’t talk to you anymore,” Jennifer says. “You twist everything I say.”

  “No, I just say everything you mean.”

  My sister throws up her hands and steps around my cart. “I’m out of here.”

  “Ciao.”

  She stops to turn around and glare at me. “Did you just say ciao?”

  “What?” I yell. “I can’t say ciao?”

  Mrs. Webb says, “Shhhhh!”

  Jennifer and I both suck our teeth at her, scoff at each other, then stomp off on our separate ways.

  Chapter 12

  I head to the campaign office. Echo, Cindi, and Christian are there with a few more friends, preparing the invitations for my upcoming fund-raiser at the Marina del Rey. They listen to gossip queen Wendy Williams on the radio and try to solve her blind items as they stuff, label, stamp, and seal envelopes. They make each other laugh so much, no one notices my arrival but the ever alert Echo.

  “Hi, Jen,” she says. “Rye-yen called to say he was gonna be here soon.” All the girls have a crush on “Rye-yen.” Echo “pimped” him to recruit some of them to volunteer on my campaign, telling all her friends about the hottie she works for. But since Echo harbors the biggest crush on Ryan of all, she makes sure that her friends get their tasks done.

  “Thanks, Echo.” I slip into my office and grab the stack in my in box. At the top is a letter from the chair of the political action committee of Senior Sisters on the Scene, a twelve-year-old civic organization of African-American women over the age of fifty-five. The attached note from Ryan reads, First, the good news.

  They voted to endorse me and made a five hundred dollar contribution to my campaign! Not only is that fantastic news, I didn’t see it coming at all. Those old ladies were kind of tough on me, asking me as many questions about my personal life as they did my political opinions. I walked out of the interview believing that still being single and childless at the age of twenty-seven somehow worked against me.