Authors: Margo Candela

Underneath It All (29 page)

BOOK: Underneath It All

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I
spend most of my days half-heartedly checking out job boards on the Internet and helping Bina with the logistics of canceling a 336-person wedding and reception in Napa, as well as her village-sized reception in India.

Mr. Mayor has been a good boy. Coming home every night for dinner and asking Mrs. Mayor about her day, which she offers only terse tidbits about. He assiduously avoids me, as if I had something to do with him porking his press secretary. If he has to be in a room with me, he makes sure at least one other person is there, too. I don’t know if he doesn’t trust me or himself. Either way, I’m a bit flattered and grossed out. My crush is a thing of the past. Near past, but I’m over it.

I’ve been making an effort to call home every couple of days to check on my aunt’s status. It turned out her stroke was not a stroke at all but a massive panic attack. Yolie is still mad at me, especially after I sent a huge flower arrangement. She claims I was showing off and that I must have plenty of money to spare if I could afford to throw away $100 on flowers. I found this out through Noel, who got a good chuckle out of it and told me our lovely aunt was milking her “stroke” for all she could.

Lina is back home. After her mother’s “stroke” the doctor assured her that sharing her good news would not give her mother a real stroke. Lina announced she was happily married
and
pregnant and now a combination wedding reception and baby shower are in the works. Of course, I’m expected to attend. Of course, I’m looking for a way to get out of it.

Bina

“
Y
ou swear you’re coming.” Bina had blocked out a whole month for her traditional wedding and honeymoon in India and was on the verge of canceling her trip when somehow I convinced her she owed it to herself to go. Now she’s convinced that I need to go as much as she does. “Swear to me, Jacqs.”

“Bina, relax. Everything is going to be OK.” I’m in such a funk, I don’t know which way is up. Lucky for me, she’s also a little distracted and doesn’t notice I’m not saying yes, but not saying no either.

“I can’t do this by myself. I need you.”

“I’ll ask for the time off. I’m sure it will be OK.” I try to make my voice sound more interested than I feel.

“At least two weeks. There’s no point in going to India if you don’t have at least two weeks,” she tells me, for what feels like the hundredth time.

I doubt Mrs. Mayor will give me one week; two are out of the question, but I have nothing to lose by asking.

“I promise. I’ll ask today.” Maybe I will, maybe I won’t. Bina doesn’t have to know how pathetically lethargic I’ve become about making decisions.

A couple of weeks ago Mr. Mayor, with a beaming Mrs. Mayor at his side, announced his intention to run for governor next year and unleashed a media feeding frenzy. If he ever needed Vivian it’s now.

Mrs. Mayor even had me hire a PR firm, saying she didn’t want to burden me with the extra duties. I guess she figures I’ll be too busy picking up dry cleaning to sit down and write a press release on what she’ll be wearing on the campaign trail.

I’m ready to give my notice and, with my tax-free, strings-free gift from George, I have enough to survive in style for a few months. But quitting and changing my life just seems like so much work. Things are comfy here. Why rock the boat any more than I already have. Right?

“It will be so fun. Just the two of us!” Bina says, trying to rally the troops. “I’ve got to go, I’m being paged. Kiss, kiss.”

“Yeah.” I hang up the phone and resume staring at my nails.

Mr. Mayor

I
’m sitting at my desk in self-imposed exile while Anita, Lei and Danny have lunch and watch CNN in the Kitchen. Mrs. Mayor is having lunch with some of her “business” friends who are visiting from LA, so I’m eating her Zone meal and my own as well.

“Jacquelyn?” Lei knocks softly on the doorframe and peeks in. I sit up straight and try to look busy.

“Hi, Lei. What’s up?” I ask, shuffling papers with one hand and holding a fork in the other.

“Mr. Mayor wants to speak to you in his office,” Lei says impassively.

“Mr. Mayor? In his office?” First of all, what’s he doing home in the middle of the day and, second, why is he asking me to see him?

“Yes. He says please hurry.” Lei ducks out before I can get any more information from her.

I quickly touch up my makeup and smooth out my skirt. This is so wrong, I think, but it doesn’t stop me from primping before I step out of my office.

The Kitchen is deserted and it looks as if they’ve all cleared out to another end of the Mansion. How discreet.

I get to the huge double doors and knock assertively. A few seconds later, Mr. Mayor opens one door and stands aside to let me in. I notice he leaves it open.

“Jacquelyn, thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” he says, sounding vaguely like George.

I nod and sit down in one of the stiff leather seats in front of his desk.

“I hope I didn’t interrupt your lunch.” He sits behind his desk and presses his hands into a little pyramid, another of his signature looks.

I shake my head and keep my mouth shut. He smiles at me. I manage to lift up one side of my mouth, the side without the dimple. His smile gets wider and then disappears completely. This is his serious and torn-up press-conference look: good for apartment fires, budget crises or the gang shooting of a bad boy turned high-school basketball star.

“As you know, I’ve announced my intention to run for governor.”

“Congratulations,” I say, not sure if I should be wishing him luck instead.

Bosomy pictures of Mrs. Mayor from her acting days have already showed up in both
The Los Angeles Times
and the
Sacramento Bee
. Yesterday,
Newsweek
called me by mistake. I guess they didn’t get the memo that I’m merely her personal assistant; I can’t be trusted to talk about the important stuff.

“This is very difficult for me ... and Katherine, too, of course ...” He trails off with a huge sigh and slumps slightly in his chair.

I’m getting fired. Hallelujah! My pulse picks up and the fog that’s been clouding my eyes seems to lift.

“Katherine has nothing but the highest praise for your work, Jacquelyn, but she feels ... we both feel that perhaps it’s time for her to reevaluate her needs.” He presses his lips together and tilts his head. The words change but the actions are all preprogrammed. He’s going to make a great governor and maybe even president. “Perhaps it’s also time you consider your options.”

“Why didn’t she fire me herself?” I don’t blink. I don’t smile.

He shifts around in his seat. I’m going off script and he doesn’t know what to do. What a lame way to fire a person. Why doesn’t he just come out and say it? I know way too much and I make them both uncomfortable. Never mind that Danny, Anita and Lei know as much if not more than I do. To the Mayors, they aren’t real people, just shadows. After all, how threatening are the people who sort your dirty socks and drive you around all day? Plenty, but Mr. and Mrs. Mayor don’t think this way. Rich people can afford to be dense.

“Not fire, Jacquelyn. Let’s just call this a mutual termination of employment.” Harvard Law School wasn’t wasted on him. “Katherine just didn’t have the heart to do it herself.”

Doesn’t have a heart, is more like it, but great fucking taste in clothes and accessories.

“I’m sorry, Jacqs,” he says and pushes an envelope toward me and a document to sign.

Do I look so malleable that a chunk of change can buy my silence? I look inside the envelope. It’s a cashier’s check for $500,000 from a New York bank. Seems Gail is, as always, watching over the Baxter family. She can’t have me killed but at least she put a fair price on my silence.

“Well,” is all I can think to say as I discreetly tuck the flap back into the envelope and place it on my lap. It’s all turned out rather profitably. Money-wise, at least.

I reach over pick to up a pen and sign the document.

“I wish things could be different,” he says, his eyes dipping to my boobs, knees and then legs.

I’m wearing Mrs. Mayor’s chocolate-brown boots. I had only borrowed them for kicks but am now going to keep them for an extra kickback.

“Don’t we all, Kit ... Later!” I get up and stride to the door and turn around before I close it. I grip the doorknob and feel weak with an overwhelming sense of relief that I’m getting off so lightly and richly. “There is one question I do have.”

“Yes?” He stands up and smoothes his suit jacket.

“Did you give her that black-eye?” I ask point-blank.

“No, Jacqs, my mother has the dubious honor of that,” he replies with a smile, a real smile for once.

“Do me a favor and thank her for me. Bye now! And thanks.” I wave the check at him and close the door with a firm thud.

Dr. N

“
S
o there you have it.” I lean back after a solid forty minutes of talking. I take a sip of water. “All the little secrets I’ve been hording.”

She clears her throat and adjusts her glasses, clears her throat again. “And how does this make you feel?”

I stand up, holding a check to close my bill for our sessions. I hand it to her, smile and ask her the question I should have asked at our first meeting.

“I was wondering, Helen, are you married?”

She takes the check with a confused expression as she watches me make my way to the door. “No. I’ve never been married, Jacquelyn.”

“It’s probably for the best.”

Emilio

“
H
ola,
Jacquelyn.” He took my call right away,a sign, a good one for once. “The
chisme
is you’re back on the market.”

He called me a couple of weeks ago with an offer to work for his newly formed Citizens for the City, a grassroots organization he hopes will get him elected to the mayor’s office, once Kit officially vacates his seat in September.

“And so are you, or so I read.” He and some rich chick from a wine family recently went kaput. I haven’t completely broken myself of reading the society page in the
Chronicle.
I knew it would never last.

“I just haven’t found a woman who can keep up with me.”

“I’m not surprised,” I say and cringe. Flirting is OK, but I want this guy to give me a job, a real job, when I get back from wherever I wind up.

“I’ve got big plans. I need good people with me. From
la raza
.”

“Fresh meat?”

“A little less white meat, you could say. Brown meat has more
sabor
. You’re not going to sue me for harassment?”

I can tell he’s joking, but a guy in his position needs to cover his ass. It’s one thing to be a playboy columnist but quite another to be a philandering mayoral contender.

“No.” I have more than enough ill-gotten money to last me a lifetime. “I’m not the suing type.”

“Are you ready to put your education to good use?”

“I’d like to interview for a staff position, if you can wait a few months.” The prudent thing would be to lie low for only a couple weeks and then hit him up for a job, but I’ve never been prudent when it comes to job hopping and other endeavors.

“For you, Jacquelyn, I’d wait an eternity.”

“Not an eternity, but a little while. And, Emilio, call me Jacqs.”

Noel

“
T
he mortgage is automatically deducted from my bank account, so you don’t have to worry about it,” I tell Noel as we go over last-minute details. It didn’t take much to convince him to come up to San Francisco and “watch” my flat while I’m gone.

I put all my jewelry in a safe deposit box and put a lock on my closet, just in case my family comes to visit and Noel isn’t around to guard my stuff. Last thing I want is them tallying up the contents of my wardrobe and then wondering where I got the money to shop at Gucci and to, oh, take a little trip around the world. They’ll assume I was either selling drugs or a hooker. A busy hooker who sells drugs.

Marrying a white guy, getting a divorce, having a platonic affair with a married man, seeing a shrink, almost sleeping with your ex-husband before his wedding—
pfft.
All small beans compared to the stigma of being branded the family whore. Even a successful one.

“Are you paying attention? You do need to pay the PG&E and phone bills. I’ve left my checkbook here, but don’t go crazy turning on lights and making phone calls or I’ll kill you when I get back.”

“Uh-huh.” He’s distracted, as always, surveying the place as if he is imagining all the changes he can make.

“I’ve set up a system for you to sort the mail. Magazines go here. See? The label says magazines.” I had to do something with all my organizational skills and energy now that Katherine what’s-her-name doesn’t want them.

“How many fucking magazines do you get, Jacqs?” Noel asks, hoisting up the three oversized boxes I picked up from the Container Store especially for this purpose.

“A lot.” I made sure to renew all Mrs. Mayor’s magazine subscriptions a week before I was let go to roam greener pastures. “Bills here in the red bin.” I hold the red bin up and wave it under Noel’s nose. He bats it away. “Letters and invites, here. Whatever you aren’t sure of throw into the junk-mail bin. DO NOT throw anything away.”

“Relax, Jacqs.” Noel plops down on the couch and puts his feet up on the coffee table. Instead of scolding him I do the same.

“My friend Vivian will be back in two weeks. She’s staying in the second bedroom so you can sleep in mine.” I grab his chin and point his head in the direction of the proper room. “This one: yes. That one: no.”

“Is she cute?” He and Giselle got back together for a while, but she finally has had the good sense to dump him for good. It’s one of the big reasons he’s eager to clear out of our parents’ house for a while.

“Noel, she is beyond cute. She’s radioactive.” By the look on his face, this got his attention. I think this will make up for the lack of cable. And, lucky for me, she’s also going to be working with Citizens of the City, thanks to a very generous consultant package finagled by Emilio Cortez.

“You’re shitting me?”

“I’m sure the two of you will hit it off. Just not on my couch, please.” I’ve slipcovered it, just in case.

“You got it,
hermanita
. Send me lots of postcards and buy me some hash if you make it to Amsterdam ... I’ll miss you.” He folds me into his arms and squeezes me hard.

“I’ll miss you, too.” My eyes water from the pressure and the sentimentality of the moment. “I love you, Noel.”

“I love you, too, Jacqs.” He kisses the top of my head. “Hope you don’t spend most of your trip on the shitter.”

BOOK: Underneath It All

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