He laughed, and, burying his head in my hair, he answered: “You don’t want to see me in a swimsuit.”
“Actually, I’m seeing you without one right now, and I think you look pretty damn good.”
“I’m too skinny…”
“Nobody is too skinny,” I replied, kissing him.
“Nobody is too fat,” he said, kissing me back.
“So what’s the problem?”
He made a dramatic pause, and finally confessed, “Well, I have all this hair on my back…”
Yes, Simon had hair on his back. Long, soft, delicious hair that grew—I can’t believe I’m saying this—in the most beautiful and artistic pattern. Like every other woman in America, I’ve always replied “Eeew” to the idea of a man with hair on his back. But once I had a taste of it, I realized that I want it every time.
I remember letting my hand wander from his neck down to the small of his back, and saying “Oh my God!” every time I completed the journey. I’m telling you, it was delicious.
“Have I complained about the hair on your back?” I told him while stroking it one more time.
He replied with a kiss that almost made me pass out in ecstasy. That’s when I felt at ease to ask a second question, the one that was really driving me crazy.
“Okay, one more thing,” I asked playfully. “What is it with the sixteen and a half inches?”
This time he didn’t hide his face in my hair—instead, he just looked away.
“It helps me sleep.”
“Well, I figured that much out, but why?”
He paused, still looking away from me, and finally spoke.
“I stress myself. I start thinking about what would happen if I screwed up a job and they stopped hiring me…I start thinking that I’m going to lose everything and I’m going to be broke again…”
“Simon. It’s not like you’re simply talented. You are a freaking genius. You will never have a hard time finding work.”
“This is a very flaky business. Today you’re in and tomorrow you’re out.”
“Well, if being ‘in’ is killing you, maybe you would be happier being ‘out.’ What was the happiest time of your life?”
He thought about it for a second.
“When I was working at Hearst Castle.”
“Were you rich? Were you famous then?”
He laughed. “I was living from paycheck to paycheck.”
“So what’s better, then, to be miserable with more, or to be happy with less?”
Simon took a deep breath, and his body relaxed so much next to mine that it felt as if we got even closer.
“I want to be happy, like I am right now,” he whispered in my ear.
I held his head against my chest lovingly.
“But why those sixteen and a half inches?” I insisted.
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“It’s a long story,” he finally said.
I instinctively knew that it was time for me to shut up and stop asking.
“Well, I don’t have time for long stories right now, so let me tell you a short one. It’s called sacapuntas.”
He laughed and kissed me, and I kissed him back. And while kissing him—long, sweetly, and deeply—I hoped he could read my mind, so he could understand that it didn’t matter if he was too skinny, or he had hair on his back. That it didn’t matter what those sixteen and a half inches were about. I was willing to accept him with no further questions. And I believe that he kissed me back understanding this.
CHAPTER 30
People say that time flies when you’re having fun, but I have to disagree with them, because that night—the most memorable night of my life—felt like it lasted forever.
It was Saturday, but Simon had a photo shoot that afternoon, and the sound of his crew hammering in the studio woke us up. I was still half asleep when I saw him rolling out of bed, and stretching his naked body by the window—not to flash the neighbors, but just to own the world and the sunlight pouring in. I dozed off again while he threw some clothes on, but I felt his kiss on my lips before he stepped out of the apartment.
Yes, it was a beautiful morning for Simon, and it was a beautiful morning for me too, for about fifty seconds. I finally got out of bed with a big smile and a glow that you could see from outer space, but then everything came crashing down as I found that Simon had left a check on the night table with a Post-it note.
“Thank you very much,” the note said.
For a moment I couldn’t breathe, and my vision got blurry. I sat down again and looked at the note one more time.
“Thank you very much.”
I didn’t look at the amount. I ripped the check in pieces, threw them on the bed—or the floor, who cares—and got dressed in a hurry, feeling so nauseous that I was afraid of vomiting right there. Such irony! To think that the most beautiful night of my life was followed by the most horrible morning I could remember.
In Cuba they say “Guerra avisada no mata al soldado,” which roughly means that if the soldier has been warned that the war is coming, he shouldn’t get killed in it. That damned Lillian had warned me that sooner or later I would have sex for money, and Madame had warned me not to fall in love with a client, so why the hell did I let this happen? If I was warned about this “war,” why the hell did I get shot, and right in the middle of my heart?
How could I allow myself to fall in love with a crazy guy who got off on squeezing himself between a pillow and me? And this time I had no one to blame. I couldn’t blame Bonnie, or Lillian, or Ino, or my mother. I couldn’t even blame Madame, and, worst of all, I couldn’t blame Simon either. He was a customer, and he had done what a customer was supposed to do. I thought of every time I’d made Madame swear that I wouldn’t have to have sex with my custom-ers, and I felt even dumber. I’d thought I could play this game without getting hurt. How could I be so stupid?
I was so convinced that this was a “date” and not a “job” that Alberto wasn’t there waiting for me in the limo. So I had to face the “walk of shame” to the subway all by myself, and tormented by all the echoes of my Cuban Catholic education: A woman who has sex out of wedlock is a whore. A woman who enjoys sex is even worse than a whore. Men are out to get you. A woman must defend her virginity at any cost.
I was so upset that I couldn’t think straight. If I could, I would have told myself, “Wait a minute, B, you were not a virgin to begin with, he wasn’t out to get you—you were out to get him—and, technically, you might not be a whore, but you’ve been walking a fine line for the last couple of weeks.” But this was too much reasoning for a woman in my state. All I could think of—over and over—was that I felt something magical that night, but clearly Simon didn’t.
I thought again of how my AA-ex used to say, “When you are hysterical, you are historical.” Maybe that was the case. Maybe I wasn’t reacting to Simon, I was reacting to a whole life of guilt and remorse. A life filled with the fear of being used and the fear of being ignored.
To torture myself from a different angle, I started contemplating Simon’s thoughts:
a) He probably thought that I was a real whore—not a tourist in the industry.
b) He probably thought that I’d made love to hundreds of men, the same way I did to him.
c) If his maid—I was sure he had one—cleaned the bedroom after I left, he would never get to see the ripped check, and he would probably think that I even cashed it.
d) If the maid didn’t throw the ripped check in the garbage, and he actually found the pieces, he would probably laugh, thinking that I was a stupid and sentimental whore, just like Cabiria.
Great. In Simon’s opinion, I was a whore and a loser.
No matter which way I looked at it, the more I thought about it the more embarrassed I was. I felt stupid, lonely, cheap, rejected, and needy (and I so hate feeling needy). Just when I thought that my life was changing—that I was changing—reality was slapping me all the way back to square one. How could
I think that someone like him could fall in love with someone like me?
I hated Simon. I hated him for not reading my mind. For not knowing what I thought he should have known. For not feeling what I thought he should have felt. For not doing what I thought he should have done. I cried like a baby—and, worst of all, I felt like a baby. What I didn’t understand at the time was that I was acting like a baby too. And I had a whole weekend ahead of me to cry and scream like a child until I turned blue. Yep, there’s nothing worse than a whole empty weekend ahead of you when the only thing you have to do is punish your psyche. That damned Lillian was right: Fridays were the new Sundays. I should have stayed home and watched an old movie on cable, instead of going out to destroy my barely sprouting self-esteem.
By noon that Saturday, things had deteriorated considerably. I couldn’t read, I couldn’t watch TV, I couldn’t go out, I couldn’t stay home, I couldn’t stand up, and I couldn’t sit down. I was a mess.
I could have called a friend, but the only one I could call out of the blue was Lillian. Unfortunately, I was still pissed off at her for warning me about what—in fact—ended up happening. I even wondered if she had jinxed the whole thing with her stupid warnings. I still had the temptation to call her, but the fear of hearing anything close to “I told you so” kept me from doing it.
I tried to think about all the positive things that had come out of this—my brand-new window office, the victory over Bonnie—then it dawned on me: maybe God was punishing me for blackmailing Bonnie. I was lost in these and other miserable thoughts when Madame called me.
“Mr. Five in a Row has been calling the whole morning. What happened?”
She tried to be casual and matter-of-fact, but from the tone of her voice I knew that she suspected something.
“I can’t talk about it, and I can’t see him ever again,” I said.
“Let me guess…” she replied.
“Please don’t,” I cut in. And then I started to cry.
Madame waited patiently while I sobbed on the phone.
“He paid me,” I said when I was finally able to talk.
“But, honey, he was supposed to pay you,” she answered, trying to comfort me.
“No, not after last night! You don’t understand!” I almost yelled at her.
She probably realized at that point that nothing she could say could get me out of my misery. So, in her usual fashion, Madame moved to the next thing.
“So what do you want me to tell him?”
“Tell him that I’m busy. I cannot see him ever again.”
Then I had the stupidest idea that had ever crossed my mind, but, being the train wreck that I was, I couldn’t help going for it.
“Do you have another client for tonight?”
“Listen, B,” she said, concerned, “from the way you sound, I don’t think that you should?—”
“Madame, please, I want to be busy tonight. I need to be busy tonight.”
There was a minute of silence. She wanted me to think about what I was asking for, but I couldn’t think. I just pleaded one more time.
“Please, Madame!”
She didn’t say a word.
“Please,” I begged one more time.
Every reasonable argument would have been ignored in my state of mind. Nothing would convince me: my passion horse was running out of control and ready to flip me over.
Reluctantly Madame explained the situation.
“There’s a new customer, but I don’t know him well yet. You shouldn’t?—”
“But I want to,” I interrupted her.
“Shut up for a minute, will you?”
I finally closed my mouth, embarrassed at being such a pain in the butt.
“This is the deal. I only work with people who’ve been highly recommended. This guy has a referral, but his referral is out of the town, so?—”
“So what do I have to do?” I jumped in.
Madame—sick of me by then—said something in Russian that was probably the equivalent of “Enough already!” and continued.
“Okay. You’ll have to ask him the safety question.”
“What safety question?”
“If he’s a law-enforcement agent.”
“Oh! That safety question,” I said, trying to sound like a seasoned hooker. “Of course, of course, don’t even worry about that.”
“Are you sure that you’re going to remember that? Because you sound like?—”
I interrupted her again. “I know what to ask,” I said with a nastiness that was totally uncalled for. “I’m not stupid.”
Turned out I was wrong.
I was stupid. Extremely stupid.
CHAPTER 31
According to my friend Carmen—who grew up in the Bronx—you know when a woman in the neighborhood has been betrayed by her man because she puts the speakers in the window and blasts songs by La Lupe for the whole barrio. La Lupe is the Cuban Billie Holiday, the Caribbean goddess of despecho.
Despecho is a very interesting word. It means “heartbreak” in Spanish. I’m not sure how it was created, but the roots of the word might hold some significance. The particle des- translates in English to “un-” or “undo.” The second part, pecho, translates to “chest.” Someone not only broke your heart but also completely messed up your chest, so you’ll never be able to hold your heart in it again.
It doesn’t matter what type of love trouble you’re in, there is always a song from La Lupe that describes the type of treachery that you have been subjected to. Here are a few examples:
He used you for sex.
He used you for money.
He used you in general.
He lied.
He let you down.
He faked his feelings.
He left you to hook up with your best friend.
He left you to hook up with your worst enemy.
And probably the worst of all:
He left you for no particular reason.
The problem with “He left you for no particular reason” is that you cannot even blame a third party for the abandonment, so you’ll always carry a little voice inside of you that tells you, “You did it, bitch, it’s all your fault. He left you because of who you are,” and that is the worst possible form of despecho.
That dark afternoon, as I was sitting in the subway on my way home to get ready for my new customer, I was listening to the despecho playlist in my iPod, trying to control my tears, and repeating the advice that my aunt Fronilde used to give in this type of desperate circumstances: “Un clavo saca otro clavo”—One nail can pull out another nail. If you broke up with a boyfriend, finding a new one will help you get over it.
That night, I wanted to prove to myself that I didn’t care about Simon. That I was strong, that I could pretend that I was a real whore. “Come on! Go make some money! Turn a trick!” I told myself. The truth is that nobody in my state of mind should be allowed to make any type of decisions or drive heavy machinery.
I was lost in these absurd thoughts when I noticed that a skateboard-wielding teenager next to me had fallen asleep on my shoulder. I got so pissed that I stood up quite abruptly, and—without my shoulder to lean on—he fell over to his side.
“Shit,” he said, still half asleep, as I moved across the car to sit on my own.
“Enough with these people drooling all over me,” I mumbled. I kind of felt bad for the kid, but after what I just went through with Simon I couldn’t put up with one more sleeper on my shoulder.
I got home and tried to take a long bath, but I couldn’t relax into it. Then I tried to exfoliate, but I did it so forcefully that I almost removed a layer of skin. As hard as I tried to pamper myself lovingly—like Madame had instructed—I just couldn’t get into it. I didn’t enjoy getting dressed or putting on makeup, or putting on perfume. I knew that these were bad signs, but, just like a kamikaze pilot on a suicidal mission, I couldn’t stop myself.
In the limo, I couldn’t talk to Alberto. I felt angry and
jaded.
“Are you okay, Miss B?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” I said, wiping off an angry tear. He kept checking on me through the rearview mirror, but I avoided making eye contact with him. I needed my full attention to torture myself.
I was grinding my teeth all the way to the fancy hotel where my client was waiting for me. As I walked through the lobby, it should have been obvious to me that the magic and excitement of my previous adventures had vanished.
I knocked on the door of the room, and Adam—a good-looking guy in his forties—opened. He was well dressed, in a business suit, and said something about being in town from Sioux Falls for business. I can’t describe him, because I didn’t care and, frankly, I didn’t even see him; all I could think of was Simon and what he thought of me.
“Would you like a drink?” Adam offered.
“Sure,” I said. I needed some liquor to give myself courage to accomplish my stupid plan of “pulling out one nail with another one.” And that’s why that night I decided to drink something stronger than anisette.
“Do you have any vodka?” I asked.
“Sure, I can mix it with orange juice, cranberry…”
“On the rocks,” I interrupted him.
“On the rocks?” He seemed surprised to hear me asking for such a manly drink.
“I’m not in the mood for sipping Cosmos tonight,” I said with my best femme-fatale voice.
Allegedly, when you mix sugar and alcohol you get stupid and you pass out fast. But when you drink pure alcohol, before you pass out drunk you actually can achieve moments of clarity. In the Amazons, the shamans get drunk or high before they start channeling spirits and sharing the wisdom of the gods with the rest of the tribe. I’m not encouraging alcoholism or drug use here, but if this is all true, then—at least—I made one right decision that night when I asked for vodka on the rocks.
“Absolut or Grey Goose?” he asked.
“Absolut.”
He served me one of those little bottles from the minibar in a glass with ice, and I downed it as if it were water.
“May I have another one?”
B as in Beauty Page 23
