Big Chicas Don't Cry(15)

Grabbing my cell phone, I headed to the parking lot and called Erica.

But instead of encouraging my indignation, she just laughed her ass off when I told her what I’d said to Umbridge.

“You suck,” I told her.

“Come on, Selena. Think about it. They want you to be the expert on every kind of Latino from Cubans to Puerto Ricans to Mexicans. Like all of the Latinidad in the world can be limited to one language and one culture. Meanwhile, they have no idea that you’re just making up shit as you go along,” she said.

I sighed. “Because Seth was right. I am a ‘whitina.’”

My ex’s name had slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it. I winced in preparation for Erica’s reaction. We’d all sworn never ever to mention him again.

Seth and I had dated for almost all of my senior year in college. I was head over heels in love with him, and I did anything he wanted me to do—even if it meant dropping a class because he wanted me to always have lunch with him or cutting down on visiting my parents and Gracie on weekends because he wanted us to hang out with his fraternity friends. I honestly thought we were going to get married. That is, until I met his parents.

They’d come into town for his birthday, and we all went to dinner at a very expensive restaurant in Beverly Hills. Within the first thirty minutes, I knew they were racists. Later that night I had a full-on meltdown and asked Seth if he was with me because he knew his parents would be pissed that he was dating a Latina.

But it was so much worse than that.

“Of course not,” he’d said with a laugh. “Besides, you’re not Latina Latina. You’re, I don’t know, a toned-down Latina. That’s different.”

I’d been so gutted that it took everything I had not to cry in front of him. Not just because I realized how blind I’d been, but because he was an awful person, and I had wanted so hard to be just like him and his friends. I thought of my welita and how she had once told us how a woman in the grocery store had laughed at her broken English. Welita had said that if she’d cried in front of her, then the woman would have known the power she’d had over her. She’d always told us that people who hurt us don’t deserve our tears.

So instead of crying, I broke up with Seth right then and there. And I swore I’d never give a man the power to hurt me.

“No! Not at all!” Erica insisted. “Fuck that guy and his fucking racist nicknames. All I meant is that it’s not your fault they wanted you to be their token Latina at the agency. That’s on them. You have every right to call out their prejudiced assumptions because they deserve it.”

I almost admitted to Erica that I wasn’t always so brave.

Not because I wasn’t proud of my Mexican heritage. Sometimes I was just too tired to defend it. Even in the first grade, I learned it was much easier if you didn’t talk with an accent and didn’t bring egg burritos to school for lunch.

Then, in college, I suffered a whole new identity crisis. I was constantly scolded by strangers who would look at my brown skin and not understand why my Spanish was limited. It didn’t matter to them that we spoke English at home because my dad was trying to learn the language. Instead, they told me in English, “Your parents should be ashamed of themselves.”

I couldn’t win either way.

As a kid, I was ashamed about not being white enough. But as an adult, I was ashamed for not being Mexican enough. In fact, I was so not Mexican that a privileged white racist asshole felt comfortable enough to date me.

Old hurt made my eyes water. Not what I wanted at all. I wasn’t about to let anyone at Umbridge & Umbridge see tears. I cleared my throat and changed the subject.

“I hate my job,” I told Erica.

She sighed. “No, you don’t, Selena. You just hate your boss. Just like I do.”

I winced, remembering Erica’s story of her awkward first day with her new editor.

“Fine. I don’t totally hate this place. But something is going to have to change soon, or else I’m going to start looking elsewhere.”

Erica was right. The joke was on them. They had no idea I was making it up as I went. As long as they paid me a nice salary, mileage, and a Christmas bonus, I could put up with their bullshit for a little longer.

At least I was going to try.





Chapter Eight


MARI


I had just started to make myself a sandwich when the rumble of the garage door opening stopped me. Letty and I looked at each other in confusion.

Of course, it had to be Esteban. But he usually never came home in the middle of the day. So, just in case, I wrapped my fingers around the butter knife I’d been using to spread mayo on a piece of sourdough bread.

“Esteban, you’re home,” I said with some relief as he appeared and then let go of what would’ve been a very useless weapon.

“I forgot some files here,” he said as he walked toward his home office. I followed behind.

“You should’ve called. I could have brought them to you so you didn’t have to make the trip,” I told him.

He walked inside the office and grabbed some manila folders sitting on his desk. Esteban kissed me on the cheek before heading out the door. “It’s fine. I know you’re busy. Don’t you have your homeless coalition meeting today?”

“No, that’s next Friday.”