Santa Monica Page 5

  Regina could hear Lindsey Leyner’s screech above the other voices, rabid with excitement. She’d make sure Lettie brought the clipboard straight to Lindsey after the workout.

  “I made a special playlist just for y’all!” said Zack, and Rihanna’s “SOS” blared over the yard’s invisible sound system. Regina smiled to herself, feeling her mood lift as her adrenaline began to pump. Zack knew Rihanna was her favorite way to begin a workout.

  “Let’s do this thing!” said Zack, beelining his gaze to Regina and giving her a wink so fast it was almost imperceptible. Instantly she felt strong and light. The most powerful woman in the yard. In all of Santa Monica.

  “Down on the ground for mountain climbers!” said Zack. “Regina, show ’em how it’s done.”

  He pointed at Regina and the yard full of highlighted heads turned to look at her. She dropped to a push-up position and began scurrying in place, thrusting her knee to her elbow and back again. Sweat sprang to her forehead and she yelled “YEAH!” into the blaring music, crawling in place, furiously, with impeccable form, as if her life depended on it.

  4

  Leticia

  “THE WOLFE IS READY TO ATTACK!” YELLED LETTIE’S HALF-BROTHER Zacarias, pointing toward Regina, who was bouncing from one foot to the other, lifting each knee so high it almost hit her chin. “That’s what we call perfect form, people!”

  From her spot at the edge of the exercise area in Miss Melissa’s big yard, Lettie shifted the stack of towels she’d just spritzed with lavender oil from one arm to the other and watched Regina’s lips pinch together to keep from smiling. This was the effect Lettie’s dopey half-brother had on all the ladies he coached, though it seemed to Lettie that Regina fell for Zacarias’s stupid flirting most of all. It made Lettie want to grab Regina—her first boss here in Santa Monica, the one who’d introduced her to all the other bosses Lettie now cleaned house for, many of whom were also here in this yard—by her pointy shoulder and tell her to STOP, that Zacarias was a man-whore who did not deserve her giggles.

  “Forty mountain climbers!” Zacarias shouted. “Knees to elbows every time, GO!”

  Lettie watched the twenty women drop to the ground, as if they’d been stung by a whip. Her medio hermano, she knew—delinquent as he was—had total control over these women, who in turn had total control over whether Lettie and her six-year-old son, Andres, starved.

  “I said, knees to elbows, ladies!” Her brother wove through the rows of panting women. “I need to see contact or I’m gonna keep counting!”

  “Slave driver!” called out Lindsey Leyner from the ground. Lettie would recognize her least-favorite boss’s shrill voice anywhere. It followed her around every Tuesday when Lettie cleaned the Leyners’ giant glass-and-steel house, reminding her to dust the tops of the ceiling fans, to use only baking soda and vinegar in the kitchen, to use scented detergent for her exercise clothes only.

  Lindsey Leyner delighted in giving orders. Yet here, under the spell of Zacarias, Lettie saw, the whip-thin, loudmouthed woman wanted only to please him, to twist her body and strain her muscles any way he commanded.

  Lettie envied Zacarias’s power. And his luck—him born to a rich gringo American daddy while her father was some lazy Oaxacan puto who had vanished before she was born. Sure, Zacarias was a bastard like her, but his father, a real estate bossman in Florida, had, unlike almost every other piece-of-shit man (including Manuel, Andres’s father), done the right thing and adopted Zacarias when he was a baby. He’d even paid Zacarias’s mother, Gloria, enough to keep her liquor cabinet full and food on the table for her children: Lettie and the three others, each of whom Gloria made with a different man. Zack’s white papa had also made Gloria sign a contract promising she’d never come after the boy, who would be raised like a prince in America. Not that Gloria would go to that much trouble for any of her children, Lettie knew.

  In America, her half-brother was no longer Zacarias but Zack, and corrected Lettie angrily when she used his proper Mexican name.

  She thought Zack sounded ugly, like a bad cough or a person choking on a chicken bone.

  “Jumping jacks!” her brother boomed. “No one stops ’til I say stop!”

  Before Andres’s accident, as her brother called it, as if he weren’t responsible, Lettie had been more agreeable about his nickname, but as the medical bills kept arriving, PAST DUE stamped across them in blood-red ink, and her brother failed to pay them off, she stopped calling him by his precious American name. No favors for Senor Zack, nuh-uh.

  “One-minute breather!” he called to the women, quieting the music. “Not a second more!” This breather was Lettie’s cue, Regina had instructed earlier, to offer the guests towels for wiping their sweat. Lettie hurried to the group and threaded her way through the rows of pink-faced women, handing each a flower-scented cloth.

  “Thank God!” said Lindsey Leyner, snatching a towel, the giant diamond on her finger flashing in the sun. “I’m drenched.”

  “You’re the best, Letts,” said Regina, pressing a towel to her bright cheek.

  Lettie was careful not to trip as she wove among the women’s long legs and slender arms, sticking out in all directions as they stretched their muscles.

  “Back at it!” said Zacarias, with an ear-piercing whistle. The loud music started again, and Lettie watched the women toss the towels she’d carefully sprayed and folded right onto the ground as they charged back into their exercise.

  “Toy soldiers!” yelled Zacarias.

  The women pumped their arms and kicked their legs high.

  A hungry army, Lettie thought, marching nowhere.

  She left the workout area to straighten the stacks of postcards on one of the tables by the back door of Melissa’s house, relieved to be free of the women’s wild dance.

  It was a kind of torture they craved, the wealthy American women. They took pride in denying themselves basic comforts. Most of the women she worked for had banned one kind of food or another from their households. No meat. No wheat. No dairy. No sugar. No salt. No nuts (every Mexican cleaning lady knew the white moms were at war with peanuts). An endless list of no-no’s that trapped Lettie in a web of fear. What if she made a mistake when buying the long lists of groceries her bosses texted her, accidentally poisoning one of the families in her care?

  What were these women punishing themselves for? Why did they insist on never-ending penance? Even the monks in Oaxaca, Lettie remembered her abuela telling her with a cackle, hid tamales in the folds of their brown robes to eat when they thought no one could see.

  Zacarias had tried to explain it to Lettie, how by exercising themselves into pain, the women he trained became better people. You should try it sometime, he’d told her. You’ll be glad you did. It was in these moments, when her half-brother spoke of exercise as if it were a type of magic, that she felt he would never understand her. That he did not care enough to try. That the only thing they had in common was their mother’s blood.

  His voice sailed across the yard. “You call those burpees? Because I sure don’t! Come on, ladies—show me what you’ve really got!”

  “Hell yeah!” screamed Lindsey Leyner. Lettie watched her least-favorite boss leap off the ground and fling her arms toward the sky, muscles jutting from her scrawny arms.

  Zacarias had told Lettie how these women were strong enough to lift a small car. Twice as strong as their husbands. Did they have the strength, Lettie couldn’t help wondering, to choke those men with their own hands? Lettie knew she had wanted to strangle Manuel, Andres’s father, a few times—had even watched him sleep, drunk and snoring, her cheek where he’d punched her throbbing, wondering if her hands could fit around his thick neck.

  Would she have been strong enough to do it?

  “Let’s hit those abs!” Zacarias shouted, slowing down the music. “Regina, show ’em how a plank is done. Sixty seconds starts . . . now!”

  Lettie’s first boss hovered over the soft green grass, her strong arms suppo
rting her body without a tremble. If any woman could overpower their husband, it would be Regina, who seemed to be made of steel compared to Gordon, Regina’s sweet and doughy husband.

  “Thirty seconds to go, Reg. You got this,” Zacarias said. “Don’t clench your teeth.”

  Lettie imagined Regina instantly relaxing her jaw. She was a teacher’s pet, as little Andres would say.

  “Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen,” Zacarias counted down. “Say it with me, ladies.” The crowd chanted.

  He’d done it, Lettie thought. Put them under his spell.

  “Four, three, two . . .”

  Lettie wanted to cover her ears. She’d heard enough. Instead, she forced a smile, reminding herself that Regina was paying her five hundred dollars to work this event—money Lettie would hand straight to Ms. Ochoa, her immigration lawyer. Whatever was left—if there was anything—would go to Andres’s overdue medical bills. Just yesterday, Lettie had received the second notice demanding she pay her lawyer’s bill in the next three weeks or lose her chance to have Ms. Ochoa fight for her in court. Without that money, she was certain to be deported, and what would come of Andres then?

  “Aaaaaand—ONE!” yelled Zacarias. “Shout out for Regina, y’all, our planking queen!”

  Regina hopped back to her feet and waved a fist in the air. The women cheered, and again, Lettie could see that Regina, who usually wore a face as serious as a nun, was happy.

  “That’s strength,” Zacarias crowed. “The real deal. Now everyone. Do as the Wolfe just did. Plank position!”

  The women dropped to the ground, imitating Regina. Lettie wanted to laugh: Did they know how silly they looked? Like the hyper, purebred dogs who jumped up on Lettie at many of her bosses’ houses, desperate for attention.

  She felt her phone vibrate in the back pocket of her jeans.

  “Wind sprints!” Zacarias commanded, and when Regina shot toward the back of the yard, away from Lettie, Lettie plucked out her phone and glanced at the screen.

  It was a message from Andres, sent from the phone of her tía Corrina—ReeRee, as Andres called her—who was watching him until Lettie finished work.

  can I do screens, ReeRee say no.

  Yes its OK love you, Lettie typed back, adding a kiss-blowing face before returning the phone to her pocket—quickly, so that Regina would not notice and wonder if Lettie was really working. A pang of missing Andres cut through Lettie’s chest. She was away from her son so much—working, always working, leaving him in aftercare (which was free, thanks to some forms her favorite boss, Melissa, had filled out) at John Wayne Elementary until it closed at six P.M., or with Corrina in the garage Corrina’s rich boss had fixed up for her to live in, or (when Lettie was desperate) at Zacarias’s apartment.

  Lettie had not always felt guilt when leaving Andres while she worked. It was why she had come to the United States in the first place, after all. To work and work, so her son would have a decent life. So he might have a chance at not working all the time. This goal had once guided her like a reassuring light, keeping her from feeling sad when she had to pry little Andres from her hip in order to go scrub some rich family’s floors, or fold their mountains of laundry, or disinfect the stinky gray mats at the gym where Zacarias worked and had gotten her a night job cleaning—one of the few reasons she still had to appreciate him.

  Then, she’d made the mistake that changed everything. That had changed work from the thing she was doing for Andres’s future to the never-ending punishment for one stupid, thoughtless sin.

  “Grab a partner!” commanded Zacarias. “Don’t think about it, just pair up with the person next to you.” Lettie watched the women clutch hands and link elbows, like girls in a schoolyard.

  Her phone buzzed again, but now Lettie was afraid to check it; Regina was in clear view, hopping from one foot to the other while punching the air like it was her worst enemy. Next to Regina, Mel seemed to be barely moving, her face the color of a fever. (Was she okay? Lettie wondered.)

  Lettie calculated the number of hours until she would pick Andres up from Corrina’s; at least two hours to clean up after the party, then she had to stop by Color Theory to wipe down the exercise machines before driving an hour across the city to her aunt’s apartment, where Andres would be waiting, restless and grumpy.

  At least five hours until she was with her boy.

  The guilt curled thick and stubborn in her gut, like bad food.

  Nearly a year ago, around Thanksgiving, just before Andres’s sixth birthday, Lettie had made a mistake—she would not let herself call it an accident. She had been caught taking three packs of Pokémon cards at Cosmic Cove Comics. Andres’s classmates traded the cards at lunchtime, marveling over the make-believe creatures that were both cute and ugly, competing for the best collection. The animals reminded Lettie of her abuela’s stories about the half-man, half-animal beasts that roamed the desert at night. A warning, Lettie understood now, meant to keep children from wandering into the wasteland and dying from thirst and sun.

  In the store, she’d slipped the cards into the buttery leather purse her boss Melissa had given her, so Andres could trade with the other boys—most of them white boys who Lettie knew had piles and boxes and crates of cards.

  She’d only wanted Andres to be proud, to be able to impress the little gringo boys.

  Still, how could she have been such a fool?

  Seconds after Lettie had tucked the cards into Melissa’s old purse, she’d felt the clamp of the store owner’s hand on her shoulder.

  And now, because she’d stolen eleven dollars’ worth of cards with silly creatures on them, Andres might lose her—the only person who would sacrifice everything to keep him safe in this unforgiving country. Lettie’s hearing was scheduled to take place in less than six months. Then, ICE would probably send her—an illegal—straight from the courtroom jail back to Mexico. As if her seven years of work here, on American soil, work that had kept her body sore, her hands calloused, counted for nothing. As if she did not deserve to call this place home. Santa Monica, a city named after a saint tucked beside a city named after angels—shouldn’t it show her more mercy?

  What was a home but a place where you are needed? And so, it was here, in Santa Monica, that she had found her home. These rich ladies needed her—much more than they needed Zacarias, a “real” American. Lettie was the one who carried their secrets on her back.

  Who else but Lettie knew that Antoinette Wexler’s bedside drawer contained not only a purple vibrator—no big deal, lots of her bosses had those—but also a stack of dirty magazines: women doing things to other women with bright pink tongues. That the giant bathroom of Lindsey Leyner (who hadn’t given Lettie a raise in three years) had a secret cabinet stuffed with bottles of pills. That tall, thin former supermodel Sukie Reinhardt’s toilet was often splattered with diarrhea from the laxatives she swallowed with her no-dairy, no-sugar frappuccino. Lettie knew which women had the starving kind of eating problem, and who had the throwing-up kind, who “froze” their fat off and who had a doctor vacuum it out from under their skin. Whose breasts were fake, and whose face had the most “work,” a word she’d heard her bosses use with a winking kind of smile, never imagining this word, one that meant survival for Lettie and Andres, could have such a different meaning for her bosses.

  “Feel the NEW YOU awakening!” Zacarias yelled from the yard, as the women lay on their backs with their legs curled up, hands clasped behind their heads, flexing their chests up and down. “This is our happy hour!”

  It was Lettie, not Zacarias, who made these women’s messes vanish—empty bottles of alcohol the color of gems, sheets stained with the seed of a man who was not their husband. She wiped their children’s snotty noses, and, on occasion, their behinds. She had seen their teenagers’ bad report cards, the balances of their credit cards, and the curse-filled texts they sent their husbands and ex-husbands and lovers and so-called BFFs. She had pulled nests of long blond hair from their clogged bathroom dra
ins and found precious diamond earrings alongside vape pens under sofa cushions. She had comforted these women as they cried. About real problems—cheating husbands, miscarriages, bankruptcies. And make-believe—five pounds gained over the holidays, not receiving an invitation to their neighbor the movie producer’s party. But was their need for Lettie big enough to make them help her when—if was no longer a possibility—she asked for money, a terrifying task that seemed more inevitable with every medical bill and court summons that arrived in the mail?

  Finally, Zacarias released the women. “You did it! You rock! You’re all a better YOU right now!”

  The women’s groans were replaced by laughter as they pushed sweaty strands of hair from their faces. They looked so happy now, their heads tilted up at Zacarias adoringly. Like flowers drinking in the sun.

  “Towels, Lettie, more towels!” Regina called, then added, “Please!” as Lettie hurried to the patio.

  She handed out the towels to one woman after another, each parroting, “Thank you, Lettie,” in sugary voices. She was spinning inside the circle of women, all taller than she—a wall closing in. The women smelled clean, like oranges and fancy shampoo, even after all that sweating.

  Lindsey Leyner stepped forward and snatched another towel from Lettie’s arms.

  “Thanks for all your help today,” she purred. “You’re the best.”

  That skinny bitch was acting like they’d never met. Lettie wanted to kick her least favorite boss in her no-cushion ass.

  “Good exercising, Mrs. Leyner,” she mumbled.

  Arms emptied of towels, Lettie ducked out of the circle of women and back into the sunlight, where she spotted Regina by the refreshments table on the patio talking to Zacarias, flushed in the face and giggling like a schoolgirl. That brother of hers was as much of a slut as their mother. How many of the squawking birds in that backyard had Zacarias seduced? Not that Lettie cared. But she did care about Regina, who had opened the door to a new life for her and Andres. Regina, who frowned so often her forehead had a deep wrinkle. She’d told Lettie, proudly, that she refused to have the Botox shots. To set a good example for my daughters.