Tell Me Something True (26 page)

“I don’t get it,” he said tersely now. “Am I supposed to feel sorry for you because you got written up in the local Cali newspaper
and the
L.A. Times
isn’t writing a Sunday piece on you? Maybe, if you were as serious about your work here as you apparently were there, we
wouldn’t be having this discussion.”

“And just what do you mean by being serious?” I asked defensively.

“I mean exactly that,” said Marcus, setting his glass down. “You don’t finish your projects. You don’t even present your proposals
properly. You’ve fought with your two past agents. You act like you’re in Cali and all you need to do is waltz in and give
out your name and voilà! You’ll get an exhibit. Or a book. Or a fashion shoot. Whatever. Do you have any idea how many people
from all over the world are here, busting their chops, trying to do what you do, while you’re taking yoga classes?”

I felt assaulted.

And furious at him because I knew he was right, but right there, right then, I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of
agreeing, even as I saw my dreams drifting from my fingertips as I led the life of a Hollywood wife.

“I have a little girl,” I said angrily, my voice low, spitting out every syllable. “You have no idea how hard it is to be
inspired when you have to be on top of her every move and take her to classes and take her to the park and try to be a decent
mother that doesn’t dump her kid in day care or leave her with the nanny all day because I have no family to give me a hand.
You took care of her for a little over a month. I’ve taken care of her for four years! All this time, I’ve left everything
else aside, and I’ve lived for her. And now, for the first time since she was born, I was able to live for me. Just for me.
I was able to have a day to myself, to my things, to my thoughts, without having to worry about someone else’s well-being.
I could breathe, Marcus!”

I could see the disappointment in his eyes. Like the disappointment in my father’s eyes.

I had fulfilled no one’s expectations. Never gone on to do the grandiose things everyone always thought I would do. Things
I could accomplish, things I had the talent for, forgotten. Why hadn’t Marcus pushed me? Why hadn’t he seen what was happening
to me?

“I’m not a cretin, Helena,” he said tiredly. “Of course, it’s hard to work and raise a kid. Of course, you need room to breath.
So come up with a plan. We have the money to work things out, so take your time. But don’t give me this guilt trip. You chose
to be a parent. Unfortunately, parenting is part of the package.”

Just then, Gabriella ran into the room.

She had been in the garden and her little white Laura Ashley dress was a muddy mess and her long, curly hair was tangled with
flowers and dirt and grass.

“I’m gardening!” she announced loudly and with propriety, and in that moment, she was so amazingly alive and beautiful that
I couldn’t help but laugh, and I went to her and picked her up and buried my face in that hair, which smelled of soil mixed
up with shampoo.

“Come, Mami. I’ll show you how to do it!” she said confidently, scrambling to be put down. Gabriella grabbed my hand to lead
me out to the garden, and I quickly snatched the straw hat I kept hanging from the back of the door, the one I automatically
put on every time I went out into the sun.

The late afternoon sun was low as it hit the bed of roses, and when I crouched down to examine the plants, I had to laugh,
because Gabriella had actually planted new seeds that stuck out from under sparsely placed soil.

“Say cheese!” I heard Marcus shout out, and when I turned around on my heels to look up at the camera he held, I brought my
hand up to my head, to keep my hat from falling, and the smile was still on my face, for the moment at least, erasing the
discussion that took place only five minutes before.

T
hey make love in his parents’ room, in a bed that, he says, hasn’t been slept in in over three years, the time his father
has been in prison.

His father is due to be released in ten months, he tells her now. In ten months, he repeats, with awe at the proximity. They
convicted him on money laundering—the drug charges never stuck—when Angel was barely twenty-two, fresh out of college in Paris.
He came back after five years to find himself in the eye of an incomprehensible storm that featured his father on the cover
of every newspaper, as the headline of every nightly newscast.

Gabriella remembers that time, but doesn’t say anything now; he has never spoken to her about these most intimate, yet most
public of happenings, his family travails exposed daily with a level of detail that, back then, was risible and embarrassing.

The house, she now recalls, infamous for its architecture—a replica of the old-money Club Colombia, where her mother belonged,
but where his father was denied membership due to his dubious background. He chose to build his own club instead, and proceeded
to host the most scandalous and outlandish parties; parties where he would fly in on a private plane, for one night only,
the top orchestras in the world; birthday celebrations where party favors were Piaget watches and Gucci ties.

In one particularly scandalous round of testimony, a famous pop musician relayed how he was asked to play the same hit song,
over and over and over again, just for Luis Silva and his wife, from midnight until three in the morning. The musician got
paid, $200,000 in laundered cash for his efforts, and avoided prosecution for himself by testifying. His words effectively
killed his income, however. In an international private party circuit dominated by dubious funds, he became a rat, not to
be trusted with discretion.

Gabriella racks her brain now, trying to bring up references to Angel during this time. She remembers the mother (“very elegant,”
Nini had conceded one day, making reference to a steady supply of Chanel suits), but not the son.

“For the record, Antonio was wrong when he said I don’t get high on my own supply,” he tells her, out of the blue. “Mi papá,
all the stuff he did… But from the beginning, he told me I couldn’t be like he was. He told me nothing of his business. That’s
why I was sent to Switzerland to boarding school. It wasn’t a security problem. He just wanted me as far away as possible.
And that’s why I don’t get high, on
any
supply,” he adds with a small, humorless laugh.

“He wanted to make sure I got the message,” he says dully. “So one night, when I was fifteen—when I didn’t want to leave Cali
because I was hot shit here—he took me to see this friend of his, he said.

“Only they weren’t friends anymore. The guy—he’d worked for my father, doing odd stuff, you know? Collecting bills, making
sure the properties were fine, that kind of crap.”

Angel stops to look at her, then pushes his hair back, a gesture she knows him to do only when something troubles him.

“And this guy.” He swallows. “He started doing heroin. He was one of these people, they start using, and they can’t handle
it. They literally can’t stop. It just takes on a life of its own.”

Gabriella is listening intently now, because Angel’s measured voice has a touch of agitation she’s never heard in it before.

“So apparently, he’d been fucking up. You know, we’re driving over there with Julio, and my dad is saying this guy has been
fucking up, he’s taking drugs instead of collecting my dad’s money, he’s become a liability.

“And you know, my father never spoke to me about any of his affairs. I knew, but I couldn’t know. It was a completely taboo
subject with everyone around us. So I’m sitting in the car, and I’m thinking why the fuck am I here?”

He is talking to her almost like a teenager, and when he looks at her, she sees in his face the questions he had that night,
almost ten years ago, his puzzlement, and his apprehension at being part of this unlikely scenario, all mixed up with the
trust he had for his father and Julio.

“And we got to this guy’s house, in the middle of the night, and it was an okay house. I mean, it wasn’t like this, but it
was a decent house in a decent little neighborhood. And he was up. He was up watching TV and drinking whiskey, and you could
tell he was on something. And he was not happy to see my father. He was—” Angel shakes his head at the memory. “He was completely
taken aback at seeing the three of us there.

“And my dad walks in and sits down on the couch in front of this guy, and he introduces me,” Angel nods now, puts out his
hand in a silent handshake. “He introduces me, tells him I’m his son and how proud he is of me.

“And this sap is smiling, but I can tell he’s shitting his pants, he doesn’t know what’s going on. You see, I knew the power
my father had over people, but I’d never seen it this close, this directly, at least not like this.”

Angel stops now and leans over to the bedside table to reach his pack of cigarettes. When he lights up, she sees his fingers
trembling ever so slightly, and she doesn’t say a word, afraid to break the unexpected reverie, and waits silently until he
inhales deeply and she feels his heart slow down again under his naked skin, under her hand sitting motionless over his chest.

“So anyway. My dad takes out this little plastic package of stuff, and he says that this is heroin. He looks at me and tells
me that this is the best heroin that money can buy. That in the States, this tiny little packet, this packet that costs him
fifty bucks, sells in the streets for a thousand. And then, he gives the package to this guy, and he tells him very nicely,
very politely, because my dad could be very polite when he wanted to, ‘I want you to try this out for me, my friend.’ ” Angel
picks up his pack of cigarettes and extends them toward his imaginary antihero.

“He tells him, ‘I want you to show my son what great stuff this is.’

“And the guy, he says no!” Angel says, surprise still tinting his voice at the thought of somebody refusing his father.

“He was terrified. He thought the shit was spiked or bad or who knows what. So my dad talks to him, swears it’s all clean,
swears he just wants him to have a good time and to show me what a good time there is to be had.”

Angel licks his lips slowly.

“And he reminds him of how
good
this stuff is. The best in the world, he said. ‘Angel, it doesn’t get any better than this,’ he told me.

“So the guy finally takes it, because as scared as he is, he can’t resist it. That was part of the lesson, you see? And he’s
drooling by now, he’s dying to get his hands on it, and it’s been taking him every ounce of self-control not to jump on it.
So finally, he opens a drawer and takes out his little paraphernalia—the plastic tube, and the needle and the spoon—and he
mixes the stuff up, warms it underneath a lighter, and he rolls up his sleeve and he shoots himself up.”

Angel grimaces at the thought.

“Have you ever seen anyone shoot up, princesa?” he asks pensively.

Gabriella shakes her head no, because she hasn’t, except in films, and her Hollywood life is starting to look really meaningless
in this context.

“It’s really disgusting, to watch that needle penetrate the skin and—
push
stuff into you. Especially if you don’t like needles, which I don’t. But I watch, because my father is watching and making
sure that I’m watching, and I don’t flinch and I don’t close my eyes and I try not to grimace because I don’t want him to
slap me or something. I just stand there and watch this guy shoot up, and when he’s done, he completely relaxes, and he—you
could just see the relief, the intense relief in his face. Like he’d just had the best orgasm of his life.

“And I’m thinking, okay, this wasn’t so bad, and now I get to go and watch some TV and forget this weird little evening.

“And the guy smiles very peacefully, and then my father tells him very softly, ‘Do it again.’ And the guy says, ‘No, thank
you, Don Luis,’ like he had a choice.” Angel’s voice rises slightly.

“So my dad repeats what he just said: ‘Do it again,’ and he sounds pissed now, so the guy does his whole routine all over,
and shoots up in his other arm, and this time, he doesn’t look so happy anymore. And then my dad says, ‘Do it again,’ and
this guy, this grown man, he starts to cry.”

Angel stops for a moment, takes another drag from his cigarette.

“I think that was worse than the injecting,” says Angel. “It wasn’t just tears rolling down his face. He was bawling. It was
the most pitiful thing. He was begging my father to let him stop, and I couldn’t understand what was going on. I started to
go to him, because I wanted to make him stop, too, but Julio grabbed me and pushed me against the wall. And the guy, he did
it all over again, but this time his hands were trembling really badly, he couldn’t mix it right, he couldn’t tie the damn
tourniquet. He couldn’t find a vein in his arm, either. So my dad did it for him. He was really gentle, and really good at
it. He found a vein in his foot, and he put the guy’s hand on the needle, and he said, ‘All you have to do is push it in.’

“And he did. He sat there looking at my father, and he pushed that shot of heroin into his foot—and he leaned back again and
sat there very quietly, with the needle still in his foot—he didn’t even take it out.”