Olga Dies Dreaming(48)
I hear from my friends that you are on a reality television show now working for rich white people. Planning parties for them. Like a secretary. Or, maybe worse, a maid! Someone sent me the tape and I almost don’t want to watch. Is this a business? Is this a job? Or are you trying to be famous? Because the world needs to see another Latina girl sweeping the dust from white people’s feet? I’m struggling to understand how this happened and what about this path was appealing to you.
Your father was beaten and put in jail to raise his people up. I gave up my life and family to liberate the oppressed. Even your brother has committed himself to this cause. It’s hard for me to understand how you’ve wandered so far astray. When you see your brother out there, fighting for his people, while you flail your arms to get a few dollars and a little bit of attention, how do you feel?
Mija, it’s not too late to choose which Olga’s path to follow.
Pa’lante,
Mami
SEPTEMBER 2017
THE LIFT
“Thanks for coming back,” Olga said to her brother as she climbed into his truck.
He barely waited a beat before he pulled right back onto the Montauk Highway. Olga hadn’t even asked him to come up the driveway; she met him out by the side of the road, just near the Blumenthal estate.
“Listen, sis, I’m not sure why you couldn’t call a fucking Uber, but I’m your brother, so you call, and I guess I come? Even when I’m already thirty minutes out of this fucking—holy shit! Olga! Olga, have you been fucking crying?”
The late evening sun, blindingly bright, had illuminated the saline outlines of dried tears just beyond the rims of Olga’s gold-edged Ray-Bans.
“Cry!” she said, looking straight ahead. “Cry? Prieto, I didn’t cry when we put our grandmother in the ground, you think I’m gonna cry because of this fucking pendejo? I was bored waiting for your ass, so I smoked a little weed with the valets.”
Prieto glanced at her again. She pulled down her sunglasses and widened her eyes. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Please,” Olga said. “If I ever cry again, I promise it will be about something more important than some dumb shit Dick Eikenborn said.”
Prieto just shrugged again.
“It’s fucking Visine, okay?” Olga said. She put her sunglasses back on and stared straight ahead into the road, feeling her irritation beginning to bubble up just as she’d calmed it.
In fact, she had been shaking with rage following her fight with Dick. She could barely walk down the driveway after he pulled away. The adrenaline had caused her muscles to spasm. She had to stop a couple of times to simply calm herself enough to proceed and, during one of these brief pauses, she was shocked to find water trickling down her face. They had been involuntary, the tears. Which is why she didn’t admit to them. Also, they were tears of anger, as she thought over and over again, who the fuck did Dick, who had never actually earned, outright, a single thing in his entire life, think he was to speak to her that way? Every single thing she had done with her life she had figured out for herself. Going to an Ivy League college. Every internship. Her first job. Her second job Reggie King had helped her get, but how many other bitches did Reggie meet and then never talk to again? Her business was all her, too. She designed the logo. She built her fucking first website. Her first clients? No one brought those people to her door, she sought them out. She closed the fucking deals. She got her own shot at TV. She pitched her own press. No one had fucking helped her get to where she was, and here this corny motherfucker who can’t tie his own shoes without calling for his assistant was telling her that she acted like a fucking maid? Because she was trying to be a decent human being? Because she has actual fucking skills and knows how to get shit done?
“What the fuck are we listening to, Prieto?” she blurted out, the music suddenly piercing her thoughts. “I can’t do three hours with your golden oldies of freestyle, dude.…”
“What? You don’t like Lisette Melendez?” He turned the dial louder. “Where’s your pride, sis? Freestyle is one of the great Puerto Rican art forms. Did you know that—”
“—freestyle music is where Marc Anthony got his start? Yes. You tell me every time we listen to this shit.”
“Come on, you don’t like this one?” Her brother pushed to another track, raised the volume, and began singing “Dreamboy/Dreamgirl” at the top of his lungs, which Olga could not help but laugh at.
“This should be your next campaign video! Congressman Acevedo: Reppin’ the Old School, Reppin’ YOU!”
They both cracked up, and her brother lowered the volume and changed the music to an old Brand Nubian tune.
“Sis, you did me a real solid with Reggie today, so as a thank-you, I’m gonna put on some music more to your liking.”
“I should be pissed you didn’t tell me he was gonna be there. What the fuck?”
“I couldn’t take the chance you wouldn’t show.”
“Did you know he was gonna come at you like that?” Olga asked.
“Suspected … after that op-ed, I’d have been shocked if he didn’t. Look, it’s his right to ask, but as you can see, no one in that Hamptons crowd gives a shit about P.R.”