Page 19 of Love, Lines, and Alibis
12
Friday, February 23rd
On Friday morning I woke up to a splitting headache, dry mouth, and the notes of “The Imperial March” drumming incessantly by my ear. I groaned as I lifted my cell phone from where it had been lying on my pillow. I saw my mother’s name on the screen even though I had recognized her ringtone. Something had to beverywrong for her to be making the call, and I needed to double-check it was actually her.
Don’t get me wrong, Mayor Valls does call me—sometimes—when she needs to confirm my attendance to an event or instruct me about my wardrobe for another event. It’s just never her calling from her own phone anymore but her press secretary, or her first assistant, or her second assistant, or her intern, or someone else in her seemingly limitless entourage.
But she waspersonallycalling me that day at the unseasonable time of 6:47 a.m.
“Hi,” I answered as assuredly as I could mutter.
“Hungover?” she asked. Unlike with the rest of the family, and to better integrate in American society, my mother and I had ditched our pre-US-move communication language, in this case Catalan, and now solely spoke to each other in English. And let me add, how the fuck did she know I was hungover?
“No, but you woke me up. It’s a bit early.” I tried playing it cool even if I was still lying in bed.
“Early? I’ve been up since 5 a.m.” I rolled my eyes. She would have never woken so early when we lived in Barcelona, but then we moved here and she transformed into this political animal who woke up early, never drank, never said the wrong thing, had a fake smile perpetually plastered on her face, and was always working.
“I gather you haven’t checked the news,” she said.
She had repeatedly talked to me about how disappointing it was to have a daughter who was only interested in reading the Arts & Entertainment section of any newspaper or media outlet. So I had added Travel & Fashion after that to my news regimen and she was still not happy. I suspected she wanted me to read about local, national, and international politics, but I didn’t want to undermine my undeniable talent for constantly disappointing her.
“As I’ve said, you woke me up, mother,” I told her. “I haven’t even peed yet—let alone read anything.”
“Check theLos Angeles Voice.” It sounded like an order.
“Anything in particular?” I asked as I fired up my laptop. Other people sleep with their significant others or their fur babies, but I have to do with my devices. I typed the name of one of the city’s main newspapers into the browser.
“You’ll know when you see it,” my mother said. “Go to the restroom, have a coffee, and read the article I’m calling you about. I expect you’ll report to me in five minutes and tell me what you’ll do to fix this.”
She hung up.
Don’t think I’m a terrible daughter or anything if I tell you that I didn’t follow those terms and I didn’t call her back. For one thing, I didn’t want to be yelled at—yet again. Apparently, I can be quite the dissatisfying daughter.
On the other hand, this time she may have been right in scolding me. After reading the article Iknewshe was referring to, I realized this wasn’t exactly like the time I’d turned up high to a campaign event and had eatenallthe chocolate chip cookies of the press buffet or the occasion in which I’d worn platform sneakers, low rise jeans, and a daring Vivienne Westwood corset to a black-tie political function. In any case, I wasn’t looking forward to whatever nagging was coming my way.
But, of course, evading Aurora Valls is no easy task.
“Still haven’t had time to pee,” I answered the phone when my mother called again a mere twenty minutes later.
“I don’t care,” she said. She hated it when I made what she consideredvulgarcomments—and talking about physiological needs always fell in that category for Aurora Valls.
I waited patiently on the phone. If she wanted to confront me about the story on the cover of theLos Angeles Voice, she’d have to phrase what had inconvenienced her so much. But that would also fall in the category ofvulgarchatter.
“Did you read the article?” she said, tentatively.
“I did,” I replied. “I saw that your strategy has been successful. Not only is theVoicenot saying anything about the problems you’re facing with two of the council people at city hall, you’ve managed to distract everyone with this juicy tale of the murder of Dashing Henry.”
“If only that juicy tale stopped at mentioning David’s involvement!” my mother fumed. She didn’t even try to conceal the fact that she’d leaked my ex’s name to the newspaper.
“Allegedinvolvement. But don’t tell me you were expecting they’d just publish whatever story your people fed them without reporting it themselves?” I filled my voice with as much scorn as I could affect at such an early hour and given the somewhat serious circumstances.
“I wasn’t expecting said reporting would lead to them writing about my firstborn and dragging her into a salacious story about murder! Especially considering said daughter issupposedto be broken up from a relationship with David Ramos for two years now,” she said, still eluding the sticky subject. “PR is going to reach out to you to come up with a strategy to counter this.”
“Not interested, especially when there’s nothing to counter. The article is completely fabricated when it comes to the association of David’s name with the murder of Henry. But absolutely accurate when it comes to hisconnectionto me,” I said. Finding the right code word could be so thrilling sometimes.
“I was hoping for a different version of the events,” my mother said, not even trying to conceal the frustration in her voice.
“You got the actual facts,” I said.
