Chapter 13
“What are you doing here?”
My first instinct is to protect the neck. No idea why. Must be my lizard brain.
“You sent me an email, despondent over your breakup with Chris.”
“I am not despondent! And that was months ago.”
“Well, I didn’t know but I’m here now. I can’t let you go through this alone.” She opens her arms wide.
This is where I’m to fall right into those arms like when I was a little girl.
I know the drill. I don’t so much go into her arms as I take a step, and then another, until inevitably she has her arms around me.
She’s smaller now, or maybe I’m taller. Grudgingly I accept the maternal hug, expecting it to do nothing, but surprised by how warm and genuine it feels.
With Mami, I never understand what’s real, and what’s an act. That’s always been the problem for us.
“You look thin,” she says, utter amazement lacing through her tone, and I stiffen.
I’m not thin, but simply no longer overweight.
“A small size eight for some time now, actually.”
I hear the defensiveness in my voice, and I don’t like where my thoughts go. I try to remember my mother grew up in an age of body shaming, first done to her by a model-thin mother. Next, by a career she loved.
“You were a thin child, just like me. And how much do you weigh now?”
“Have you seen Abuelita?” I ask, purposely ignoring her question.
I vow that in my lifetime, I will redefine my relationship with her, and it will not include any talk of my weight or size. Or her weight for that matter.
“Yes, and Eddie.” She sighs. “He’ll never change, will he?”
“Still the same amazing man he’s always been,” I say, because I know she’s never liked my father’s older brother and she better not cut him down in front of me.
She’d met both brothers at San Jose State University where they all attended but said Eddie always thought himself “too good for her.” Where she got this idea I’ll never know because Eddie is one of those people who loves everyone.
Reluctantly, I unlock the door and wave her inside. “This is temporary. I couldn’t afford the condo on my own.”
“How incredibly cruel of Chris to do this to you.”
“Well, he joined the Peace Corps…”
“And abandoned his fiancée.”
She’s not wrong.
Mami glances around the tiny space, her lips tight, and I can feel the judgment coming off her in waves.
“Why are you not in the main house with your family?”
“Abuelita has a small house, stocked to the roof with decades of memories. Plus, I like my privacy. This is pretty much like my bedroom. I eat dinner with them and use the restroom, shower, anything else I need.”
When she takes a seat on what I still creatively call the love seat, I’m happy that at least there’s no way she can stay here with me.
Yay me. Not even a couch she can crash on.
My bed is too small for more than one person.
She and Seb will have to go find a hotel room and, unless Mami sleeps on the couch, there’s no room for her in the main house either.
“Have you ever thought of doing something different with your hair?”
“With my hair?”
She makes movements with her hands. “A layered cut with your type of natural wave would be so flattering.”
The unspoken message, I suppose, is that my current cut is not flattering. Ask me if I care.
“I like my hair the way it is,” I say between clenched teeth. “Where’s Seb?”
I hope he’s getting them a hotel room, the sooner the better.
Mami crosses one lean sculpted leg over the other one.
Naturally, she’s dressed to kill in black pumps that have partially sunk into the dirt on the way to my she-shed.
She should have considered that before she walked across the lawn.
Her crème pantsuit is tailored to her slim figure and her naturally wavy hair is straightened so no hint of a wave will show.
I, however, am a ball of frizz because while we might have the same hair, I don’t spend much time on mine.
For a moment, the silence between us is heavy, the way I worried it would be at my wedding.
I planned to see her on the best day of my life, not on one of the worst. But even if she’s here for sympathy, I don’t want any.
I’ll be fine. I always have been. Okay, so I might have to give up my firstborn to the real estate gods if I ever want to own a home in Seven Trees but otherwise it’s all good.
She reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “I have some news. It’s not good and I wanted to tell you in person.”
My breath hitches when worst-case scenarios come to mind.
While she looks smaller, she’s also noticeably thinner.
Even for her, which says something. She’s paler than normal, so either she’s finally stopped bed tanning, or she’s seriously ill.
For a moment I wonder what I’ll do if my mother is dying from some horrible disease.
“W-what is it?” I brace myself to hear the dreaded C word.
“Seb and I divorced weeks ago.” Her lower lip quivers but unfortunately I recognize it from her soap opera days. “It became final last week.”
She could turn tears on like a faucet. It was her greatest skill. Bravo! I almost whistle and clap. What a performance. It’s just like my mother to make her divorce from Seb a production. She’d sell tickets if she could.
I slump in relief. “Dios mio, I thought you were dying. Well, I’m sorry to hear it. Why didn’t you tell me before?”
She blinks in surprise and her hand rises to her chest. “And ruin your wedding?”
“Oh. Right. That was very…um, considerate of you.”
“And when you told me about you and Chris, well, I wanted to tell you right then and there. But I knew you’d be hurting, too, over your own breakup.” She pats my hand as if to show her motherly concern.
It falls flat. There must be another reason she didn’t turn up the drama earlier.
She wants me to believe she’s put my feelings above her own.
It doesn’t seem likely, and I won’t fall for her machinations.
She wants to be mother of the year now, and I can’t let her get away with it.
I’ll be nice, but I won’t embrace her second act. Or believe it.
“I’m doing great, actually.”
“You’ve always been stronger than me.” She sniffles.
“I’m not stronger than you, but I don’t let a relationship status define me.”
I threw the dart and it hit the target. But if I’ve hurt her, I haven’t penetrated the outer shell.
“You’re young, mi amor. Wait until you’re my age. The parts dry up, or they all go to Meryl Streep. The men want someone twenty years younger and they always get what they want. It doesn’t matter how much work a woman gets done.”
“Not all men want someone twenty years younger.”
“Just the best ones,” she says.
No. The worst ones.
Mami and I still see the world in opposite ways. Maybe if my father hadn’t died she wouldn’t be in this position. Everyone in the family says my father truly loved her, the way I remember, and I doubt he would have judged her for having the audacity to get older.
“What I had with Seb fizzled. So, I had to let him go.” She moves her fingers as if shaking off dust.
“You divorced him?” I want to believe that my mother has finally set an example I can follow of choosing to be with the right man or choosing to be alone.
“You better believe I did. But let’s not talk about me anymore.” She shifts in her seat. “I want to know all the news. Give me the latest updates. Are you still writing your little books?”
My little books, she calls them, still not in touch. The dialogue she memorized for her soap opera was written by talented writers. Years ago, Eddie shared a rumor Mami lost her job when she attempted to rewrite her dialogue to something more “believable.”
“There’s something I have to tell you.” I clear my throat. “You might hear about this at some point, but I was recently on a morning show with my new book.”
“Querida! I’m so happy for you. It’s what you’ve always wanted. You finally wrote the book!”
I finally wrote the book?
She’s forgetting all the ghostwriting I’ve done. A little pride in what her daughter has accomplished would be appreciated.
Although not the worst moment of my life, I believe it will surely be in the top ten when I tell her about Ryan, the real talent behind the curtain.
Hang on a second. I can’t tell her. It’s in the NDA and pretty sure it includes mothers.
Anyway, she won’t be here long and will need to go back to LA and the endless cycle of auditions.
“I wrote it under a pen name. Elizabeth Brogan.”
There. The words are out. I’ve just lied to my own mother and the ground didn’t open up and swallow me whole.
She gasps. “What a beautiful name. Great choice! I wanted to name you Elizabeth, after Elizabeth Taylor, but your father wouldn’t allow it. He wanted something Spanish. Sometimes a name really matters and can mean something. The name Geneva has suited me well all these years.”
“Anyway, just in case you want to look up the book. It won’t be under Lucia.”
“I’ll go and get your book right away. I’ll buy five of them and send them to all my friends.”
“That’s not necessary. Not to brag, but it’s already sold a lot of copies.”
It’s odd to boast about something that is not my accomplishment, but…that’s what Ryan wants me to do. He hired me for this purpose. I refuse to feel guilty about any of this.
Besides, looks like I’ve finally made my mother proud.
The next morning, I’m up earlier than normal for my shower.
The main house is quiet, Eddie already gone because he leaves early for his commute into San Francisco.
All is per the usual, except for finding the sleeping form of my mother on the couch.
Her suitcases surround her, and there’s no less than five of them taking up a whole lot of square footage in Abuelita’s modest home.
She stirs and removes the eye mask, sitting up. “Querida. Buenos dias.”
“Why are you still here?” Hard to believe she couldn’t find a single hotel room in Seven Trees, Mountain View, or Menlo Park.
“Eddie insisted I stay the night. It was late when we were done talking.” She smooths a stray hair back into place. “It’s been years but we will never stop being family.”
That’s convenient after she’s left Seb and apparently has no one else. Now suddenly we’re her family again.
I hear pots and pans clanging in the kitchen, which means Abuelita is up and cooking.
She’s close to eighty and not fond of my mother, but she’s been raised never to turn anyone in need away.
Once, she served lunch to an unhoused man who showed up at her doorstep.
When Eddie arrived, he escorted the man to the front door.
Then he’d had a stern talk with his mother about the fact not all strangers are created equal.
I leave my mother and join Abuelita in the kitchen.
“What are you doing? You don’t have to cook for her.”
“I’m cooking dinner early. It will be hot today so better to do it now.”
I’m not convinced this is true, or that she won’t offer to cook my mother huevos rancheros or anything else she wants.
My mother appears in the doorway of the kitchen. “Buenos dias. Is there café?”
I shouldn’t be surprised but she appears to be wearing some fancy negligee. At least she has the decency to cover up with an equally slinky robe. Her slippers, of course, are pink furry little bunny ones with heels. I refrain from telling her that the eighties called and want their outfit back.
“Aqui.” Abuelita gestures to the coffeepot she’s already brewed with fresh coffee for her guest.
“I’m going to work so I can’t eat with you,” I explain.
“That’s alright,” Mami says. “I’ll have breakfast with Abuelita.”
“Really? You’re going to eat?”
Coffee in hand, my mother nods on her way out of the kitchen. “I would love to.”
I glance between the two women, who are different as salt and sugar, two ingredients that should never be substituted for one another.
Abuelita barely glances up from the pan where she’s heating one of her homemade tortillas, but we exchange a significant look.
She’s not going to skimp on the butter or salt.
“Your mami is going to stay a while,” Abuelita says.
“What? Why?”
“Because she’s your madre.”
“But she lives in LA.”
She shrugs. “As long as she’s here, my door is open. This is the way my Antonio would want it. It’s done.”
Nothing I say will change her mind. The lines of hospitality run deep in my grandmother. Besides, I know my mother will be gone as soon as she hears of an audition for a woman of a certain age. Maybe I should ask about her plans, but I don’t want to know.
When I leave, I overhear Abuelita and Mami eating at the table, and neither one of them appears to be ready to sock the other one.
I think it’s safe to go, and I do, heading over to the coffee shop on University Avenue where they serve the best dark roast beans.
The line is out the door, and I take the time to scroll through my phone for any updates.
There is one from Pepper, advising she’s added photos from the shoot and links to the morning show to Elizabeth’s social media profiles but would like me to add personal photos as I see fit.
I’m told I should fixate on a funny object that will serve as brand-adjacent, such as being a coffee aficionado (though that’s been done) to a dog lover (done) and a bacon enthusiast (also done.) Pepper thinks branding me as a boat lover would fit nicely given that Soulmates features so many sailboats.
I’ve never even been on a boat.
Next, there’s a disconcerting email from Holly.
To: theghostwriter@hotmail
From: inthequerytrenches@yahoo
Subject: WTAF
Why didn’t you tell me you had a contract? When did you write the book? I’m insulted you didn’t think to tell me, while I’ve been sharing news of my dumb contest finals. You must think that’s so cute. Even so, I will be buying and reading your book today.
Holly
What am I going to tell Holly? I want to tell her the truth, because she knows if I actually wrote the book I’d have told her about it. We’ve been close enough to share our queries and rejections. But I absolutely cannot tell her the truth.
Now I need to come up with some excuse why I had to write it in secret. One that an actual writer would believe.
I’m so preoccupied with my thoughts it isn’t until I’m second in line that I look up and notice him.
Ryan.