Never Too Real (24 page)

“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

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 before we head to the second.”

One Year Later

Chapter 26

“W
ait, 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.

“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.