by Alisa Valdes
I try to remember music playing in my childhood home, and it seems to me there was only ever quiet opera or Dad’s old-time country-western. We were comfortable in our spacious adobe hacienda with the flowers and poplar trees droning with big-eyed cicadas in the summers. We were successful with our new American cars and conservative clothes from Dillard’s, an old family carrying on an old tradition of manners and sophistication. There was no discussion of much of anything, other than the business my mother started a few years before she met my dad and he took over.
“A man makes the decisions,” Dad says, “and a wife obeys. That’s what it says in the Bible, that’s what we do in this house.” My father controlled everything, informing Mom in short, proper Spanish sentences. I have never seen her without the bitterness of resentment clipping the corners of her mouth tight together. In college, I realized the Bible does not say a woman must obey a man. That’s my father’s interpretation. The northern New Mexico, Hispano interpretation. The Bible says a man and wife ought to respect each other. That’s what my God teaches. Poor Mom.
At the next stoplight, I snap open my cell phone and press the speed-dial for my mother. It’s only 6:20 in Albuquerque, but I know she will have been up for more than an hour already, scrambling eggs with chorizo, heating tortillas on the open blue flame of the stove, tidying the house, and picking out Dad’s tie. My dad will have left for work by now in his big silver four-door truck with the Republican bumper stickers.
“Baca residence,” she answers, trying to sound cheerful. I ask how she’s doing. She says, “Oh, fine,” but there’s a sigh in her voice. “How are you?” she asks. I tell her I’m fine. She asks about Brad. “Fine, Mom.” She asks about the weather. I answer, and return the question. “It’s snowing here, too,” she says. “It’s getting to be Christmas. We’ve started selling out of biscochitos already.” I remind her not to eat any. “I know,” she says. I ask if she’s going to dialysis today and she says, “Yes.” “Don’t forget your shots,” I say.
My mother’s lower abdomen is tie-dyed with bruises from the insulin injections. She pinches up a fresh spot of skin several times a day, jabs the needle into her flesh without flinching. By day’s end, the tiny red drop of blood marking the entry point will have blossomed into an angry purple flower. She never complains. Never. “I won’t forget, m’ija,” she says. The light turns green. I tell her I love her, say I’m in traffic and have to go. We hang up.
I turn up the stereo again, and begin to move a little. The traffic is brisk, so no one can focus on me. I want a man who makes me feel the way Toni Braxton sounds. I thought that man was Brad. It wasn’t. It has been years since I felt the tingle of lust. I know I shouldn’t, but I miss it. The lack of it makes me feel old. I catch myself midthought, make the sign of the cross, and ask the saints on the laminated cards in my glove box to forgive me. I think they will. I approach a yellow light and gun the engine. I blast the stereo even more, and barely get through the intersection before it turns red.
My phone rings. I turn off the stereo and answer without checking the caller ID, thinking it might be Mom again. “Hello?”
“Becca, it’s Usnavys.”
“Hi, sweetie, how are you?”
“Good. Look, you got a second?”
“Sure.”
“Would you be interested in being on an antismoking panel we’re putting together with the Department of Public Health?”
I swerve to avoid hitting a Buick that has cut me off. I almost honk. The old man inside flips me his middle finger, as if I were the one in the way.
“Sure, I think so. Look, Navi, I can’t really talk now. I’m in the middle of traffic. Can I call you later?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Call me later. We’ll talk. I want to ask you about some other things too, guy things.”
“Sure. Bye, hon’.”
“Bye.”
Guy stuff. It’s so easy for her to talk about guy stuff. I watch people like Usnavys, Sara, and Lauren, the way they express themselves, the way they raise their voices, curse, cry, and slam their palms on the table for emphasis. I can’t do that. So many things my friends carry over to me about their personal lives could have, I think, been better left alone with them. I don’t want to know about their abortions and eating disorders. Their problems make me feel heavy inside. That’s why I haven’t told them what’s happening with Brad. I don’t want to weigh them down. And that’s why I haven’t confronted Brad, either. I don’t know how, and I’m not sure how much I really want to learn. Thank God for work.
8:30 A.M. I have timed my commute to the Ella offices in the warehouse district of South Boston, just over the bridge from downtown, and depending on traffic it takes between half an hour to an hour. Today was quick, even with the snow. Toni had something to do with that. I love this disc. It was a gift from Amber, believe it or not. She got all of us CDs at the last gathering, each chosen, she said, to balance our karmas. She suggested I find an Ayurvedic restaurant to complete the balance, and explained that this type of restaurant serves food the cook believes the patron needs, vegetarian. I made a note to look into the phenomenon for a future issue of the magazine. Sounded interesting. Amber and I have more in common than you might think at first, especially our eating and exercise habits.
I admire the crisp silver of downtown’s buildings against the dingy gray sky. Boston is marvelous, a fresh-aired city of grays and browns, with plenty of red brick to balance it, and flowers and greenery in the summer. In the autumn, clouds slide across the sky in fast-moving sheets. It’s not like home, where the clouds are so big and so far you can’t imagine touching them. Anything is possible in Boston. I belong here.
I turn off L Street onto the side street next to the renovated warehouse building housing my magazine. Shawn, the parking attendant, waves and smiles as I steer past his booth into the underground parking lot. I slide the Cherokee into my assigned spot near the elevator, exit, check the locks, then head up.
8:45 A.M. I surprise the receptionist, who is talking on the phone in a voice too friendly to be business.
“Good morning, Miss Baca.” She smiles, hanging up midsentence and trying to hide the soggy white paper cup of coffee she’s nursing. We have a policy against eating or drinking at the front desk.
“Good morning, Renee,” I answer.
I’ll let the coffee thing go—today. She looks tired. She’s a college student, and was probably up late studying. But I’ll check again tomorrow. If she’s still breaking the rules I will write up a warning. You must be sensitive and compassionate, and most of all kind, but you must set limits and make it clear that you mean business. Women managers walk such a fine line. When you are assertive, you are called a “bitch.” When you are demanding, you are called a “bitch.” The better the job you do, the more people use that word.
I close the door to my office and take a deep lavender breath. I read once that Nelly Galan, the TV executive, keeps aromatherapy machines in her office, spraying out the scents of success every hour. So I bought one, just in case there’s something to the theory. At the very least, my corner office smells fresh. In addition to lavender, this recipe has Roman chamomile and sweet almond oil. My office is filled with light, too, and appointed in a minimalist, modern fashion that has grown on me. My desk is made of glass, and my computer is sleek and black with a large flat-screen monitor. Plants warm it somewhat. And the pictures; I have framed photos of Brad, my friends and family on a shelf behind my chair, where people can see them. I log on to my system with the password I use for all work-related machines: exitos4u. It means successes for you.
I use the extra time to catch up on my E-mails and other correspondence and make sure Dayonara is handling the files properly. I learned the hard way to double-check things after my first assistant botched the filing so badly I had to have an accounting firm come in and sort the mess out. You try to help someone out, give them a chance to get their foot in the door, and it’s amazing how some don’t realize the
opportunity in front of them. Dayonara is doing a very good job, though. We checked her references very carefully. Everything is always on time, and it’s put in the right place. I have never missed a phone call since she started, nor a message, never had an appointment lost.
The Ella offices have expanded quickly, and we now occupy more than half the third floor in the renovated warehouse. We’re in discussions to take over the entire thing starting early next year. As I walk across the tidy lobby from my office to the conference room, breathing in the scent of the holiday greenery draped along the walls and doorways, my heart swells with pride. I was sent to college to find a husband, if you can believe that, in the 1990s. I learned a lot at college, especially about what was possible for a woman in the world today. My father has never told me how he feels about my business, but my mother has. “You have made my life worthwhile,” she told me in a low voice the last time I saw her. “I’m proud of you.” She had tears in her eyes, wiped them away as soon as Dad walked in the room.
I built this, I think, looking at the elegantly exposed red brick walls with the framed four-foot blowups of all twenty-four published Ella covers hanging on them, and notice with pleasure that the plant people have come and finally delivered the Christmas tree for the main lobby. We’ve had the top Latina talent grace our covers, from Sofia Vergara to Sandra Cisneros, and, once a year, the top Latino talent for the “men’s” issue. This year we got Enrique Iglesias—my dream man—posing with his mother. I went to the photo shoot in New York a couple of months ago, and, come to think of it, I felt lust then. It was the last time. If he’d asked me to come home with him, I might have. Who wouldn’t?
We try to avoid just putting models on the cover, because the mission of the magazine, as I created it, is to elevate the image of Hispanic women, to inspire and empower them to be the best they can. All of us have been exposed to too much information telling us the most important thing we can be is sexy or subservient. It’s time for a change, and you can tell by how well my magazine has done that Hispanic women are ready to hear it.
I pass the tall, potted plants, the sitting area with its luxurious rose-colored velvet furniture. I admire the Christmas tree, decorated with red and gold glass balls and blinking pink lights. I look at the curved marble of the front desk, the wall of windows with the view of the downtown skyline. I wasn’t sure at first when the interior designers came to me with their drawings for this front room. I wanted something more conservative, something Victorian with French country undertones, like my apartment, but they were insistent, telling me people would be expecting a young, feminine yet strong and exciting atmosphere. They were right. I’m glad I finally trusted the designers to go with this look. Sara’s the one who convinced me. I do not gravitate toward anything colorful on my own. “Very Latina,” Sara assured me when I showed her the plans. “But still very Boston.” Renee sits up taller as I pass, and smiles at me. The coffee cup is gone. Good girl.
I make it a point to know everyone’s name in the company, even the janitors’. Look people in the eye, shake hands with conviction, and address everyone by their proper name. Treat people respectfully, no matter what job they do, because you never know when you might run into them again.
As I enter the room I am pleased to see all eight of my editors seated around the black conference table, chatting quietly. Seven women, one man. The women wear fashionable, modern suits, and have their hair in neat, stylish cuts. The man, Erik Flores, is swishy, as Usnavys would say, and might as well be a woman. I wonder sometimes if he doesn’t buy his clothes in women’s boutiques. Today he wears a salmon-colored jacket with a fitted waist, and a lime green turtleneck. He’s tall and handsome and a fantastic beauty editor—and completely off-limits to girls.
“Good morning,” I say to them.
“Good morning,” they answer. A few begin to shuffle papers around in front of them.
“How were your weekends?” I ask as I settle in at the head of the table.
“Still feeling mine,” says Tracy, our notoriously party hearty arts editor, with a dramatic groan and fingers to her temples. Everyone laughs.
“Get some more coffee,” I say with a grin.
“Any more and I’ll burst a vessel, chica,” she says, tilting her Ella mug toward me. It is stained brown inside from months of overuse. “Third one of the day already.”
“That stuff’ll kill ya,” says Yvette, my photo editor. I agree, but say nothing and smile.
We have had a very low turnover, by magazine standards. I want people to have positive associations with my magazine, and with me, from the plant lady to the freelancer to the long-time subscriber to the woman who picks us up for the first time at the doctor’s office.
My personalities editor, Lucy, gets up from her spot and moves so that she sits next to me. She looks as if she’s been crying, puffy and red around the eyes even though she tries to look happy. Her usually neat and plucked eyebrows are a mess. She hangs her head as if to hide them. It’s not unusual for my employees to come to my office in order to spill out their personal problems, and I indulge them. I know, from last week’s episode, that Lucy’s boyfriend left her for a much, much older woman. Lucy is twenty-six, and the woman her man found is fifty-four. I can’t even imagine her pain. Down the road, not too soon, I’d like to assign a feature on older Latinas and younger men. I’ll wait until she’s healed a bit, even though I don’t think it’s appropriate for my employees to tell me about their crazy mothers and abusive boyfriends, or whatever. I think it is even less appropriate to castigate a person in pain. Good manners, George Bush senior once said, sometimes mean having bad manners just so those with bad manners in your presence won’t feel bad. So I listen.
“You okay, sweetie?” I ask Lucy softly. I put a hand on her shoulder and squeeze, lightly. She thinks I’m a good friend. She smiles up at me and nods. “I’m glad,” I say, then take my seat.
Though it’s only early December, we are scrambling for one last story for our Valentine’s issue. A story fell through, and we ship next week. I like all of the ideas my editors put forward today except for one. The new fashion editor (our last one left to spend time with her new baby) has proposed a racy spread on sexy lingerie, with the top Latina models from the Ford agency posing on a Miami beach. She spent the better part of her career so far working at the Spanish-language version of Cosmopolitan, a magazine full of crass language, lascivious ideas, and photos that border on pornography.
“That’s an interesting idea, Carmen,” I say, leaning forward with my hands open on the table. My fingernails are of a conservative feminine length; filed into neat ovals, with the palest pink nail polish, almost white. My wedding ring is the only jewelry I wear on my fingers today. Never close your hands together in a business setting, especially if you are about to reject someone’s ideas; you want to appear open, and body language has as much to do with someone’s perception of you and your message as your words. I smile, and note that Carmen has scooted back in her seat, arms crossed protectively. I don’t want her to be afraid. I just want her to think more like an Ella editor, and I tell her so. I continue: “Valentine’s Day is certainly a time when many women want to look sexy. But we need to keep in mind that some of our readers are teenage girls. I don’t want us giving them the wrong message, okay?”
“Oh, please,” Tracy says, rolling her bloodshot eyes. “Girls start having sex in fifth grade now, Rebecca. They get periods when they’re nine. It’s not like we’ll corrupt anyone. You listened to pop radio lately?”
I smile. I actually respect Tracy more than anyone in the room, because she has the guts to speak her mind. I need people like that in this organization, because I know I don’t always have the best ideas.
“That’s probably true,” I say to Tracy, thinking of Shanequa, who told me she’s been sexually active for four years. “But I don’t want to be part of the problem.”
“Fine,” Tracy says. “I respect that. But you know what we’re up against
out there. It’d be stupid to come off prude in this market. Especially at Valentine’s Day.”
Carmen’s eyes flash with admiration, and amazement.
Tracy’s right, of course.
“Okay,” I say. “How about we try to come up with something less sexual and more celebratory of love in general, but still sexy. Okay?”
Tracy shrugs, Carmen nods.
“Does anyone have any other suggestions?” I ask.
“Naked men,” Tracy deadpans. “Men in g-strings.”
“Oooh,” Erik answers, reveling in his swishiness once again. “I like that.”
Everyone laughs.
“Any real suggestions?” I ask.
“We could do something sexy, but not revealing,” Carmen suggests, with a quake to her voice. “Let people know you don’t have to take it all off to get your Valentine’s attention.”
“That’s good,” I say, pointing my pen in her direction. “I like it.”
“Nah,” Tracy jokes. “Take it all off. Get the men to take it all off, for once.”
“How about,” I say, ignoring Tracy now, “we do a red and pink spread? Carmen, why don’t you contact the top Hispano designers in New York, L.A., and Miami, and have them come up with their best red and pink outfits for different kinds of Valentine’s dates, like a date for a couple married thirty years, all the way to a date for a couple in high school. And you can still use the Ford models if you like, for some of the shots. But I’d like to see real people, too. Attractive people, but real. Maybe contact the acting agencies about finding older people, and a big variety of people.”
“That’s a really good idea, Rebecca,” Lucy says. She always compliments me.
