Tell Me Something True (2 page)

Someone in the crowd recognizes a passenger exiting the glass doors, and the bodies heave against her. Edgar firmly takes
her arm and steadies her, his huge presence shielding her from the others, his right hand gently resting on the gun at his
waist.

She sees Gabriella before her granddaughter sees her, and she doesn’t say anything for a few moments, not until she can quell
her tears. She is so tall, so striking, this girl, with her straight black eyebrows, pale skin, and slate gray eyes. How had
her tiny daughter managed to produce such a specimen?

“Not to brag, but you haven’t seen a more beautiful girl” is her mantra, repeated through the years at countless luncheons,
dinners, and tea parties. She knows her love for this girl borders on the pathological, but she simply doesn’t care. Eleven
months of the year she devotes to Juan Carlos—her twin soul, so old and proper inside that boyish exterior—the son of her
only son.

But Gabriella.

With Gabriella she only has four weeks to make up in every way for the other forty-eight without her, and she caters to her
every whim. The only daughter of her only daughter. She is entitled.

“There she is, Edgar,” she finally tells him, and he immediately clears a path for her to walk through the crowd.

“Gabriella!” she shouts, waving frantically.

“Nini!” Gabriela pushes through the crowd, the porter behind her lugging three bags and her laptop. “Nini,” she repeats, crushing
her small grandmother and rumpling her linen suit with her hug.

Querida Gabriella:

You were born today, July 7, at 7:32 a.m. Weight: 8 pounds, 6 ounces.

A big girl! A perfect baby girl, the doctor said.

Wow, you came into the world with a bang!

I think you wanted to make a statement. We were at a gallery opening and my water broke. Oops. In the middle of the show.
I was wearing a black dress, so it wasn’t that obvious, but obvious enough. I mean, I literally dropped a bucket of water
to the floor. I thought your daddy was going to have a heart attack as he drove to the hospital. He thought he’d have to deliver
you himself!

But you waited, my sweet. Very patient of you. I even had a chance to get an epidural (I’ll tell you what that is some-day).
And here you are. Your hair is black, your eyes are blue, but they tell me that can change. Will they be like mine? You have
your father’s mouth—a big, fat Cupid’s mouth. You look utterly beautiful to me.

You are, dare I say it? Not what I expected. I didn’t know what to expect. An alien, perhaps. A creature bent on tearing my
body apart, on changing my life beyond repair. I always wondered how these calm mamas did it: Push a living child out of your
own body. How it must hurt!

But here you are, looking up at me with those bizarrely huge eyes. I already forgot the pain!

Your name is from the Hebrew Gabriel, which means “Strong Man of God.”

And you’re a woman! Strong woman.

Like Gabriela Mistral. Like Gabriel García Márquez.

Like you, my Gabriella Richards.

Do you notice how easily you can say Gabriella in English and in Spanish? Because you’re going to have to speak both.

You notice I’m writing to you in Spanish?

Spanish only in this book! This is your book. From me to you, so you don’t forget who you are and where you came from.

So, my love, good night on this first night.

Bienvenida, querida Gabriella.

Te adoro.

Mamá

I had never been a writer. My means of expression had always been visual, out there for everyone to see. Then I got pregnant,
a totally unplanned occurrence. At first I was truly furious with your dad, even though I knew it wasn’t his fault. It was
the last thing I wanted, a baby. I mean, yes, I knew one of these days I’d be a mom. I just didn’t figure it had to be quite
now, when things were just starting to happen, when I had finally lined up shows and assignments.

And then, you started to grow inside me. It’s quite extraordinary, really. One thing is to get pregnant and intellectually
know that you’ll have a baby in nine months. Quite another is feeling that baby evolve within you.

“There is a maternal instinct,” I told your dad one night as I rubbed lotion onto my ever-growing belly, “and it’s been awakened!”

I began writing this diary the day I felt you move inside me for the first time. Quite a jolt. Your dad was away and I was
lying in bed, watching TV. And then, the barest of flutters, like butterfly wings. I thought it was my pregnant mind’s imaginings.
And then it came again, so soft but so persistent. My belly was almost flat still. But now, the truth was undeniable. Something
alive was inside me. I’ll have you know that I quit smoking cold turkey. I quit drinking, too.

I’ll admit. All my life I’ve gotten exactly what I want. But you. You made me responsible.

I bought a red diary because it’s my favorite color and because I figured it would contribute to generating a strong personality
for my Gabriella.

Marcus thought this writing kick was funny at first. Then he thought I would drop it in a few weeks. He humored me, because
he always does, but I knew he thought it was a short-term project.

Ha!

I’ll show him, you’ll see. I’ll write you. Forever. So you and I can remember everything that happened today, and ten, twenty
years from now, we can laugh together.

Or cry.

Just joking!

C
an we go see Mom?” she asks, snuggling against Nini in the backseat, letting her stroke her hair.

“Of course, princess. Whenever you want.”

“Did you fix the squeaky pedal on the piano?”

She hates the squeaky pedal that whimpers every time her foot rhythmically pumps it, bringing back memories of sagging beds
in college dorms.

“Yes. I told you I did last week,” Nini says patiently. “You can play until your fingers fall off, you won’t hear a thing
from the pedals.”

Gabriella doesn’t say anything for a moment. She wants the pedal fixed, even though the last thing she wants to do right now
is lay her hands on the keys and practice endlessly for something she can’t pinpoint.

“Is Juan Carlos home?” she asks instead.

“No, he went out tonight. But he’s taking you to some party tomorrow,” answers Nini.

“Ooh. Nice,” she says, contented. Juan Carlos knows the right people. Always. And he always knows the right parties. “Is there
soup for me tonight?”

“Of course. Vegetable soup. And shredded beef.”

“And my Diet Coke?”

“Yes. I got you a whole case.”

“Can Edgar take me to the club tomorrow?” she asks, sitting up straight in her seat. “I need to go running.”

“Of course. I also reserved a horse for you to ride, if you wish.”

“I’d love that, Nini. Thanks. Thanks, Edgar,” she adds, leaning forward toward the front seat and patting his arm. Edgar emits
a half smile, half grunt. He’s been making this drive for as long as Nini has, seeing each year pass by on the face reflected
in the rearview mirror. When she was thirteen, he taught her how to drive stick shift, making her learn in reverse first,
one hand on the steering wheel, her other arm draped around the passenger seat to easily allow her to turn her head back.
That, said Edgar, was the way the pros drove.

Gabriella smiles, settles back. Nini is a wealthy, patrician woman. Her dad is even wealthier than that, she knows. But in
L.A. there is no driver, no army of cooks and maids, and certainly, no grandmother taking care of every single detail in her
life. Since she can remember, she’s done things on her own, down to meticulously scheduling her piano practice so it wouldn’t
interfere with her father’s activities at home.

But for one month of the year, she needn’t think about a single responsible thing. Someone else takes care of her. Completely.

Heaven.

Querida Gabriella:

Today you took your first step. You’re nine months old! Do children walk when they’re nine months old? No. They don’t. That’s
what the nanny told me.

“No other child I’ve had has ever walked this quickly.”

Well, you did.

So you walk, but you don’t talk.

“Tete,” you say when you want your bottle.

And I’m sure you say “Mama” although your dad swears it’s “Dada.”

And your eyes. They’ve lost all the blue and are now a most marvelous shade of gray, like a stormy sky over the Pacific Ocean.
Big eyes. Expressive eyes. I love to take pictures of you when you’re solemn and the eyes are biggest. Even in black and white,
you can see the gray.

Te quiero,

Mamá

G
abriella, just put on something normal people would wear,” says Juan Carlos.

Juan Carlos is twenty-four. He’s her uncle Julián’s son; the only son of her only uncle on her mom’s side. Gabriella knows
he loves her, because he has to—he’s three years older and responsible for her while she’s down here. He’s taken her under
his wing even when he hasn’t wanted to, like the year he dated Marisol Vázquez, who hated her and still hates her now.

He also thinks she’s weird, because she studies piano, which in his mind is useless. And that’s cool, he always points out,
since she’s well off and should be able to do whatever the hell she wants with herself. Except that she practices eight hours
a day, and he figures if anyone is going to put that much effort into anything, shouldn’t it be something a little more practical?

“Tennis,” he says. “Tennis, I get. If you played eight hours of tennis a day, you’d be the best player in the world, and you’d
make tons of money. But all this practicing to have one hundred people go hear you? I mean, play guitar in a band or something.”

“Really, Juanca, you are so incredibly superficial sometimes, I have to wonder if we’re even related,” she snorts, although
lately she’s been wondering herself if all this piano playing is worth the grief.