“Wait, wait. There’s good news.”
“There is? Please tell me you’ve cut that Lina out of your life. I never liked her. She . . . I feel she gives you Il Malocchio. She’s jealous. I hope her family is cursed with brittle teeth.” She muttered another insult or two.
Her vengefulness warmed my heart. I love my mom.
“My news is that they dropped her, and the director wants me back in the role. They started preproduction, but it wasn’t working out and he realized his mistake. So now the part is mine if I want it.”
She didn’t respond right away. I could almost hear her thinking. “Raquel.” She sounded hesitant. “You know you are wonderful, don’t you? You know you are a very good actress.”
“Thank you.” My mother rarely praised me for anything, least of all my job. But I knew where she was going with this, so I let her talk because I felt she needed to.
“Why do you let this man treat you this way? If he dropped you so easily before, what keeps him from doing it again?”
“We’re drawing up a new contract. It’ll be ironclad this time. I’m using just my lawyer. My agent won’t be part of the negotiations.”
“I remember you said that man, your agent, he didn’t want you to take the role.”
“He . . . it’s complicated. I don’t think he liked the idea of me playing a prostitute. He doesn’t want to jeopardize my marketability. He likes the parts I’m usually offered and likes that they make him money, and so he doesn’t want me acting in this movie.”
“But he works for you. And you want the part.”
“Exactly.”
“Ironic then, that he doesn’t want you to play a prostitute, because that’s how he’s treating you.”
I sucked in a breath, surprised by her retort. But in all honesty, I shouldn’t have been. I should’ve been used to it.
My mother was brilliant, she had a wickedly sharp mind and a tongue to match. We’d settled into a pretty good relationship, but she had no time for entitled, bossy men—or men she perceived as being bossy. Once, a visiting adjunct professor interjected while she’d been giving a lecture and tried to explain the significance of Socrates on Alexander the Great’s military campaigns. To her. In front of her class.
He was lucky he’d left the room with his balls intact; his pride had not fared as well.
I heard her release a loud sigh. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know.” I rubbed my forehead, trying to push past the initial sting of her words for the truth behind them.
“Sorry. I just—I don’t like that he works for you, and he’s telling you what to do. He is your subordinate. He treats you like you are there for his purpose, to make him money. This is not the right way. As Plato said, ‘The heaviest penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.’ You are so good at managing people, I am surprised you would put up with this. He is there for your purpose, to make you money. You should fire him, find someone who can take orders.”
Standing, I paced back to the kitchen. “It’s really okay. I understand what you meant.” I didn’t add that I’d had similar thoughts, just not quite as cutthroat. “It’s not a done deal yet. They’ve updated the script, and I want to see it before I sign or agree. But, anyway, I’m still really excited about the part.”
“If it makes you happy, it makes me happy.” She sounded far from convincing.
“It does make me happy. I’m excited.”
“When does filming start? Will you have to be on location, or will you be in LA?”
“It’ll mostly be shot in LA, but I might have to go to Cuba to do some pickups, and—”
“Wait. Wait, wait, wait. Cuba?”
“Yes. They moved the majority of filming to—”
“Raquel! Is this—are you playing a Cuban?”
Oh. Shit. My stomach lurched as I quickly pieced together what she must be thinking. “No, no,” I rushed to correct her misassumption. “I told you. The character is Italian.”
“Is this about your father?” she whispered harshly, sounding overheated and upset. “Is this about him?”
“What? No!”
“Is that why you want this part? Because I will tell you the truth, no matter what you do, no matter if you are the perfect daughter, embrace his values, he will never want to know you.”
“Mom.” I rubbed the center of my chest, her words like tiny knives being shoved into my heart. “I know. And this isn’t about Dad.”
“You should not call him Dad. He is a stranger, he is not a part of who you are, and that was his choice. Think of Plato. Think of the Republic. The family serves no purpose but to confuse and distract from our goals, to pull us in directions away from our purpose. That is who your father is. A destructive distraction so blinded by his traditional views on the world and himself as the center of it that he ruins everything he touches. If you think going to Cuba, trying to be Cuban, will make him want to—"
“Mom! Listen to yourself. It’s just a movie role. That’s it.” I tried to swallow but couldn’t, because her words had shaken something loose inside me, and I wasn’t finished though I didn’t know what I was about to say. “And I hate to break it to you, but I am Cuban. I’m just as much Cuban as I am Italian. And I’m an American. And I’m an Ohioan. If I want to go to Cuba and learn all about that side of myself, then I will. And if I want to go to Miami and meet my half-siblings, then I will.”
“You will regret it. Those people aren’t your family, and they are all the same. He rejected you. They rejected you. I will never forgive him, and you shouldn’t either. They are bad.”
“No. NO! Grandma and grandpa weren’t bad. They loved me. And I loved them.”
She was quiet, but I heard her release another heavy sigh.
“And who do you think my father is? Was he voted by all Cubans as the most quintessential Cuban person in all the world? Because, if he was, I missed the election. Not that I could’ve voted, because I don’t know what it means to be Cuban! I grew up near Cleveland. I know more German than Spanish.”
More silence, but I wasn’t finished ranting. “Dad is a person, Mom. One person. He is not representative of an entire people. So, yeah, maybe I do want to know that side of myself. Maybe I feel so lost because half of who I am was never revealed to me. Maybe while I’m in Cuba, I will look up that side of my family.”
I sensed her withdraw with each word out of my mouth, but I hadn’t been able to stop. And by the time I’d finished, I felt exhausted. But also surprised by my words. I didn’t know I’d felt this way.
Do I feel this way?
“You do what you want. You are a grown woman, not a child.” She made a sniffing sound, or something like it, but her voice was cool as granite. “I have to go. I am working and have to get back to work.”
I nodded, saying nothing, my eyes flooding with tears. Whenever I did something that hurt her, she pulled away like this, reminding me I was responsible for myself. It made me feel so alone.
“Goodbye, Raquel. I . . .”
I waited. Rolling my lips between my teeth, I looked up at the ceiling. It blurred as I waited for her to tell me she loved me. Sometimes she would, but not always.