Death of a Telenovela Star (A Novella)

by Teresa Dovalpage

  “Very,” Marlene said firmly. “How did you even watch this, anyway? I thought we didn’t get cable here.”

  Sarita waved her smartphone.

  “Come on, Tía! This is the twenty-first century! My friends are following the show and have been texting me the whole time. It’s on Facebook, too.”

  Ah, social media. It had replaced personal interaction, seeming to rule lives. Someday, Marlene thought, it would rule their deaths, too. People would die in front of their smartphones, breathing their last into the screen.

  “I read that Carloalberto has some pretty bad gambling debts,” Sarita added with a concerned expression. “I hope he’ll be okay.”

  Marlene remembered the man in the Hawaiian shirt and his not-so-veiled threats.

  “We all have our vices,” she said stoically.

  “Like your cigarettes, eh?” Sarita said.

  Marlene winced. “Hey, I—”

  “Here they come!”

  Carloalberto and Emma were on the promenade deck walking toward them. He had his arms wrapped around her, and they were smiling at each other. Marlene shook her head. Men.

  “He doesn’t look upset at all,” she said. “Tell me, how could the show run tonight without him even present?”

  “Their segments were submitted in advance,” Sarita explained. “Carloalberto and Helen already filmed several scenes of the movie they’re hoping to produce. He plays a king.”

  “A king?” Marlene made a funny face. “What kind of movie is this?”

  “Historical. I mean, historical plus fantasy. Like King Arthur meets Game of Thrones.”

  “Alabao!”

  “Don’t ‘alabao’ me! This is serious, Tía. Their clips were so good, and now they’re out of the running. How sad! They were so close.”

  “Yes, sad indeed,” Marlene said, feeling no sadness at all. “Now, come walk with me.”

  Before they completed a lap around the promenade deck, Benito caught up with them. He was in a hurry and wearing his chef hat.

  “Just to tell you, my dessert tonight is inspired by you,” he said to Marlene, just quietly enough that Sarita couldn’t hear. “It’s called Havana Nights. Cinnamon, meringue and a sip of rum.”

  Marlene fought back a blush. “Sounds good! I’ll try it.”

  “Who was that guy?” Sarita asked with a raised eyebrow after Benito left.

  “The pastry chef at The Ambassador,” Marlene answered, feigning indifference.

  The girl wasn’t so easily fooled. “Ese huevo quiere sal,” she said. “Which doesn’t mean an egg wants salt, but that someone wants—”

  “Shh, mijita! You’re getting too smart for your own good,” Marlene said, laughing.

  Around eight o’clock, Sarita went to a jewelry sale on deck six, and Marlene returned to their stateroom to properly dress for dinner. She didn’t want to show up at The Ambassador wearing the same yellow tunic this time.

  Her door was open. A vacuum cleaner stood in the hall next to a big trash bag. The cleaning crew was tidying the cabins, which usually didn’t take more than ten minutes, but the lack of security worried Marlene. Anyone could waltz in and take other passengers’ valuables. She would mention it to Benito.

  Faced with her own minimal wardrobe, Marlene peeked over at Sarita’s and picked out a dress. It was long and flowing, not overly young. Fortunately, they had similar body types. Unlike her niece, Marlene was proud of her ample behind. She looked in the mirror and smiled at her reflection, then said aloud that she wasn’t interested in impressing anyone.

  Back in the hall, she ran into Helen, whose cabin was two doors away. The screenwriter was sobbing.

  She’s the only one who looks devastated.

  That contest must have meant more to her than it had to Carloalberto. Helen wasn’t so young. Carloalberto was just starting his career, but she might be nearing the end of hers.

  8: Phone Overboard

  The North Star would dock in the Costa Maya port sometime before midnight. At seven o’clock on a packed deck fifteen, tanned and slightly drunk passengers danced to “La Bamba.” Others sipped mojitos or soaked in the hot tubs. The wind was balmy, and the sun set in a burst of copper hues. The sky stretched in a perfect arc above the ship.

  “Selfie time!” Sarita announced, posing in front of her phone.

  Other passengers all seemed to have the same idea. Carloalberto, in the company of “his women,” as Marlene had come to think of them, snapped pictures of himself and his companions near the mojito bar. Emma was her usual bored, indifferent self, while Helen seemed to have recovered from the “tragedy” of being knocked out of the contest, laughing and posing with her friends.

  The image of Yoel returned to pester Marlene. Come to think of it, he and Carloalberto could have been brothers. Both were tall and dark-haired and possessed the kind of swagger that had at first attracted her. It also struck her that her relationship with Yoel had been similar to Helen’s with Carloalberto, though of course she hadn’t known it at the time. It wasn’t until several months after the Bacuranao incident that she’d found out the truth: Yoel’s divorce had never been “almost final.” He was very much married to an older Spanish woman who’d finally gotten him a visa to join her in Madrid. Marlene had just been someone he’d felt he could profit off in the meantime.

  She spat on the waves and glowered at Carloalberto. He was looking nervous now, and she knew why: just a few feet away from them stood the blond man who’d threatened him the first day of the trip. He kept an obvious eye on the aspiring actor, who had a forced smile plastered on his Botoxed face.

  The stories Sarita had read about Carloalberto’s gambling debts were likely true. He spent hours at a time in the casino. But so did the other passengers, especially when there was nothing more exciting on the schedule. It didn’t matter—Marlene didn’t feel much sympathy for him.

  “Ouch!” Sarita yelped.

  She had stumbled on the wet floor and lost her balance trying to hold herself and her phone at the same time. Marlene hurried to steady her. “You’re going to end up breaking a bone with all this selfie garbage!”

  “It would be worse if I broke the phone,” Sarita replied.

  Carloalberto asked Helen to take a selfie of the usual threesome. They put their heads together and the screenwriter fumbled with her phone, finally flipping its perspective to the front camera. “Say cheese!” she yelled.

  Sinvergüenza, Marlene thought, glaring at Carloalberto. The guy didn’t have an ounce of shame. Neither did Helen. Marlene looked away, disgusted, and scanned the crowd for Benito, who had promised to join her when he finished his shift, and didn’t see what happened next. But she, along with everyone else on deck, heard Helen’s cry. “My phone!”

  A small crowd congregated around her, looking at the water where the device had disappeared after slipping from her hand.

  “You dropped it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So sorry!”

  “Oh, it’s fine. Never got along very well with that thing,” the screenwriter said with a sigh.

  Sarita was horrified. Marlene laughed.

  “See what happens when you go around taking selfies like an estúpida?” she told her niece.

  Her words fell on deaf ears. As Sarita took rapidfire shots of Helen, Carloalberto and the rest of the commiserating pack, Marlene realized what the girl’s WhatsApp messages had been about. Sarita’s friends must have asked her for close-ups of Carloalberto, Emma and Helen. They probably had an entire gallery in “the cloud” devoted to that comemierda.

  “Poor Helen,” Sarita said later, holding her phone carefully. “First she loses the contest, now her phone—nothing worse than not having your phone. She should have asked for a limpia from the Belize witch.”

  “The shamana wasn’t offering limpias,” Marlene reminded her. “Bu
t Helen can get one in Costa Maya tomorrow.”

  Once the ruckus was over, Marlene petitioned Sarita to accompany her to the library.

  “It’s the only place on the ship you haven’t been yet,” she said. “Reading is important!”

  Marlene had never been an avid reader herself, but the library happened to be on the same deck as The Ambassador.

  “I know that,” Sarita said. “I have all the books I need in my Kindle.” But she followed her aunt anyway.

  The library was a small room with barely enough space for a leather sofa, three armchairs, a table covered with games—chess, Monopoly and checkers—and two bookshelves that featured travel guides, paperback mysteries and romance novels. An electric fireplace with fake logs in the corner looked somewhat out of place.

  Sarita sniggered at the board games and leafed through a couple of books, but none of them held her attention for long. Apart from an older couple playing Scrabble, the room was deserted.

  “There’s nothing here,” the girl pronounced.

  The loudspeakers informed passengers that the raffle had started in one of the boutiques. Of course Sarita begged to go, even though Marlene warned her that this was likely just an ordinary sale in disguise of the items that had been languishing on the shelves since the beginning of the trip.

  Then Sarita, who had been checking her phone, exclaimed, “Oh my god, Tía! Look at this.”

  She showed Marlene an online article from The Miami Herald.

  “Despite being voted off The Terrific Two, the young Cuban actor is being eyed for the lead role in a new film,” the girl read, emotion choking her words. “Dubbed the next William Levy, Carloalberto says his agent is in talks with several producers about future roles.”

  “What about Helen?” Marlene asked. “It doesn’t seem like she’s been offered anything.”

  “On the show, they talk about how screenwriters who aren’t established by that age have an even harder time finding work than actors,” Sarita said. “She’s probably out of luck. But hopefully we aren’t, so let’s go buy raffle tickets! And don’t forget the party tonight at the Icelandic Bar.’” She ran toward the elevators.

  “Wait!” Marlene shouted after her. “You can’t just walk into a bar, you know that.”

  “The party is eighteen and under! Check the schedule if you don’t believe me.”

  “Okay, we’ll see.”

  Benito came out of The Ambassador and walked over to Marlene. “Hola! I was just thinking about you. Are you coming to the restaurant to eat?”

  “Not yet,” Marlene said, smiling. “I just wanted to bring my niece to the library. She loves to read.”

  9: The Night of “El Rey”

  The party was indeed family-friendly. Why the heck had they chosen to throw it at one of the ship’s bars, of all places? Marlene would have rather attended another Blue Man show, but there was no stopping Sarita. She had won nothing at the raffle but didn’t care: she was now fixated on the strobe-lit dance floor.

  The girl stood in front of the mirror, applying cherry-red lipstick as if her future depended on perfectly drawn outlines. She wore a tight black dress with a revealing neckline, high heels and way too much blush. Marlene didn’t approve of the outfit, but Sarita swore that her own mother had bought the dress for her.

  “Could you please stop acting like an uptight spinster?” she complained. “You used to be fun!”

  “Yes, and you used to behave,” Marlene replied.

  “I am behaving!”

  “Like a guanaja.”

  “A goose?”

  “Maybe worse.”

  The fact that Benito was still on shift at The Ambassador—one of the cooks had called in sick—probably accounted for Marlene’s foul mood. The last thing she wanted to do was attend a party.

  “By the way,” Sarita turned around and blotted her lips with a tissue, “Carloalberto’s on the passenger list for the ‘swimming with dolphins’ excursion tomorrow. Can we go too? Please?”

  Marlene had planned to visit the Tulum ruins the following day, but the temperature was expected to hit the high nineties. She had already been reconsidering, and Sarita knew it.

  “We don’t need to see two ruins, Tía,” she pleaded. “We’re going to Chichen Itza on Friday, and all those sites look the same. There’s never a place to pee in any of them, and they’re so hot and boring. I’m sick and tired of that Mayan stuff!”

  Marlene was getting pretty sick and tired of Sarita’s sass, but reminded herself that this trip was a gift to her niece. So what if all she wanted out of it was to be around a semi-famous actor? It was all harmless. Thankfully, Carloalberto hadn’t given a single sign that he’d noticed her. Too much on his plate to acknowledge a teenage fangirl. Marlene hoped he would stay busy with “his women” and that loan shark until they returned to Miami. In the end, she relented and called reception to book the excursion. It would be cooler than Tulum, shorter, cheaper. And she liked dolphins too.

  “Thank you, Tía!” Sarita hugged her. “This means a lot to me. I can’t believe I’ll get to be in a swimming pool with Carloalberto!”

  “You and two dozen other people,” Marlene muttered.

  “So?” Sarita shrugged and turned back to the mirror. “At least Emma isn’t going. I didn’t see her on the list. She probably doesn’t want to get sunburned. And Helen’s no competition.”

  “I’m sorry, competition for what?” Marlene asked sternly.

  Sarita blushed and shook her head. “I mean—never mind.”

  “Competition for what?”

  “Oh—you know, Tía. I just want to talk to Carloalberto.”

  This was the problem, Marlene realized. The girl was so young, she was confusing a celebrity crush for an ordinary one—she’d never had a boyfriend and had been painfully shy until just a couple years ago.

  “Talk about what, por Dios?”

  “So many things. Like his career.”

  “What career, mija? How many movies has he been in?”

  Sarita pursed her bright-red lips in thought.

  “A few. Short ones, but still. Some really cool commercials, and two telenovelas—he was a gang member in one and a lawyer in the other. There are others if you count bit roles. And obviously The Terrific Two. Plus that new movie they’re talking about!” She swallowed and said in a low voice, “If it goes well, I might even ask him out.”

  Marlene had no words for her niece, knowing this silly, innocent teenage crush had only become alarming in the vicinity of Carloalberto. But what was normal for a Cuban American teenager, anyway? Marlene was happy she didn’t have any of her own to worry about, but she was responsible for Sarita, at least for the duration of the cruise. All she could do was keep a careful eye on her.

  The party started around 8:30 p.m. The Icelandic Bar overflowed with underwhelming free canapés, overpriced cocktails and a discordant band. There were throbbing lights, a disco ball and smoke coming from a fog machine, which disoriented some people to the point that they were stepping on others’ feet. By ten o’clock, most of the attendees were too drunk to walk around without bumping into their fellow passengers.

  The band was playing old ballads. Some people belted out, in a pitiful Mexican accent, the last verses of “El Rey.” Sarita’s eyes teared up as she sang about the man who, with or without money, always did what he wanted. The misunderstood guy who had no throne or queen, but was still king.

  “Where do you think my king is?” the girl asked when she couldn’t find Carloalberto.

  “Probably off gambling.”

  Despite the thrill of being inside a real bar for the first time, it was a night of disappointment for Sarita. An hour later, Carloalberto still hadn’t shown. Neither had “his women,” for that matter.

  “I can’t believe it,” Sarita sighed, slumping into a chair and taking her he
els off. “How could he not show up?”

  Marlene was about to try to comfort her niece when the girl popped up, still barefoot, and headed straight to the casino. Marlene had no choice but to follow. Carloalberto was at the roulette table, fear and desperation on his face.

  “I guess he does have a gambling problem,” Sarita sighed. “I wish I could help him.”

  “Good grief.”

  “Maybe I can go talk to him?”

  Marlene narrowed her eyes. “Not unless you want this to be the last cruise you ever take with me.”

  “Oh, Tía.”

  “Come on, let’s go back to that idiotic shindig.”

  Helen and Emma had shown up at the party. The screenwriter immediately became a withering wallflower, though a very thirsty wallflower, Marlene noticed. She’d downed three margaritas and a shot of tequila in less than half an hour. Not happy with that, she flagged a waiter down. “A gin martini,” she said, slurring her words.

  Oh boy, thought Marlene.

  Emma danced with the blond guy in the Hawaiian shirt. Marlene overheard her call him “Fernando” in a familiar tone, but their interactions seemed more businesslike than romantic. They looked more intent on talking than dancing and hardly moved around the room.

  Helen disappeared around ten-thirty, and Emma and Fernando left half an hour later. Though Marlene wanted to go outside for a while, she didn’t dare leave her niece alone. But when the band began to play “El Rey” for the third time, she’d had enough. The blaring music was giving her a headache, all the food was gone and Sarita was talking to a couple of girls her age, so Marlene sneaked out to the deck and lit up a cigarette. Another middle-aged woman was out here too. They exchanged guilty smiles and went about their business.

  It was a good spot. No one else was around, and the party noises were barely audible. The waves were dark and gentle, and stars shone through thin clouds. Why would anyone in their right mind be inside a closed room instead of enjoying the beauty of the ocean at night? Marlene inhaled the smoke and started to feel better. She wished Benito were there too.