“Hot in more ways than one,” Lou pesters Coco, causing her sister’s face to bloom into cayenne red. Turns out that first dance morphed into Coco having her first boyfriend. I would have bet one hundred to one that Lou would have been the first to fall for a Trinity boy, but if it was going to be Coco, at least she chose someone who is a star on the track and in the classroom.
“Oh, Dad’s staying for a movie after dinner,” Coco announces, like this is what we do as a family every Friday night. “He says the newAvataris on Hulu.” I look at my girls, confused. Arroyo women don’t do blue creatures living in fabricated worlds. We fawn over formulaic rom-coms with guaranteed storybook endings in Central Park.
Before I can protest the plan, the girls skip out of the kitchen, and Simon and I are left alone with a pan of sautéing onions. “Did I hear what news?” I ask, wondering if Simon’s gotten himself a bigger place so he can spend less time at mine, or if Best U Man is actually making money and he’s ready to pay his accumulated back child support. I’ve kept receipts and know exactly how much he owes me.
“Your millionaire TV boyfriend Dwayne Washington is being replaced as a judge onInnovation Nationfor the new season,” Simon ribs, making the assumption, two years later, Dwayne Washington is still my CEO crush. He is.
Even through Simon’s early phase of searching for some esoteric spiritual utopia, we still enjoyed curling up on the couch with a bag of OREOs and watching eager upstart entrepreneurs vie for funding onInnovation Nation. In retrospect, Simon’s willingness to watch the show with me and debate which newbie founder we would bet on if given the chance should have served as a clue that his yearning for the pious life would be short lived. Sitting next to me he’d fantasize about taking the cash and traveling the world while hogging the cookies. The girls and I were never mentioned as globe-trotting companions, nor were therules of the show, that the money is to be invested in the product, not the president. I could have saved myself a lot of heartache with some earlier analysis of Simon’s viewing behavior.
“Where’d you hear that?” I ask, breaking into a case of cold sparkling water, a luxury that rarely occurs in our house. Simon is really going all out for the last track meet celebration. I think about the divorce papers in my bedroom and Krish and Zwena’s constant needling about them collecting dust. Maybe after dinner I’ll send the girls to their room to finish their homework and finally give Simon the papers.He has to be expecting them.
Simon points with the spatula he’s wielding to his open laptop. “Check out CNN, it’s top right.”
“I wish they’d replace Dwayne with Libby Starr, she would kill it on the show. But they’ll probably end up replacing him with any one of a million dull White tech dudes.” The carbonation soothes my throat following an afternoon of cheering on Lou and Coco in their final middle school races. Though I hollered like my babies were competing in the Olympics, let’s just say I’m certain track and field is not going to be anyone’s ticket to a college scholarship.
“Go ahead and read. They already picked the guy.” I sit myself down in front of Simon’s computer to the headlineCongress Gridlock, Again, with a picture of four angry politicians barking at each other and one in the background who looks like he’s napping, or dead.Again, is right.As if dysfunction in Congress could be considered headline news anymore.
“You’re half-right about the new judge. The guy’s a venture capitalist from Palo Alto, so he’s definitely boring.”
Well, before you decided to drishti your way to dharma, you would have been working side by side with said boring banking bro. And we all would have been better off for it.I’m dying to say that out loud, but I don’t want to sour Lou and Coco’s special night.
“But at least he’s Black, so the show can keep up appearances.”
Okay then, move over Dwayne, maybe I will have a new on-screen boyfriend.
“Guess he used to be a professor at UCLA, but recently he’s made a name for himself investing in companies with founders who are not, as you say,dull White dudes.”
This résumé sounds unnervingly familiar.
“Though his last name sounds kinda Jewish.” Simon speaks into the open fridge before I get to that part of the article.
I freeze with my right index finger over the scroll bar. “Eisenberg?”
“Maybe. I’ve never heard of him, have you?” Simon holds up a half lemon from the back recesses of the refrigerator in triumph, like he’s struck gold. “Show nailed it with the double diversity. Network probably felt the pressure to find another smooth-talking Black guy more than someone well known.”
“You probably weren’t reading Bloomberg News on your personal pilgrimage, but lots of venture capitalists are investing in people of color,” I dig, feeling oddly defensive of Ash. “And yes, I’ve heard of him. Youngest tenured professor in economics at UCLA, so obviously smart.” Simon comes up behind me and scrolls the page down to a picture of Ash leaning against a white oak standing desk, a requisite piece of abstract modern art hanging on the wall behind him.
“I don’t think it’s his brain that’s going to keep viewership up.” We are both staring at Ash’s self-assured demeanor, one ankle crossed over the other, shoulders rolled back, hands in his pants pockets, radiating amaster of the universesmile. This is what Ash must have meant when he told me he would be traveling back and forth to LA the next couple of months. I think he was wearing that same tie when we had coffee at Green Beans the other day.
“I recognize a ratings magnet when I see one. He’s a good-looking dude,” Simon admits, like he’s either expecting me to counter that Ash isn’t nearly as handsome as he is or comment on how highly evolved Simon has become.No toxic masculinity here.Either way, though rusty,I’m schooled enough in male speak to know Simon’s aiming for me to make it all about him. I’m not playing along.
“Well, I’m going to give him a chance. I like what his work stands for. We need more CEOs of color.” I close the laptop, hoping Simon will pick up the hint that this is the end of our conversation. After the night of our near miss sex-up, I’ve been attempting to only small talk with Simon over text or when the girls are with us. We have returned to the low-hanging language of our marriage, only discussing logistics as pertains to our girls. Safer that way, while I figure out what we are and if I want any part of it.
“I was thinking, for Christmas, maybe we could all go on a trip somewhere. We never did take the girls to Disneyland. I think it will be good for us.”
My mouth opens to jump all over Simon that we were supposed to take them to Disneyland for Spring Break of seventh grade. Instead, I treated them to a school-free week bingeing Disney+ when Simon headed to his own version of Neverland the week after I made our reservation at the Grand Californian. Luckily, I was attuned enough to Simon’s shifting sense of family commitment not to pay in full up front for a 15 percent room discount.
“Toni, did you hear what I just said?” Simon nudges my shoulder, I assume looking for validation of his generosity when I don’t immediately react to the offer of a long-awaited vacation.Good for us, or good for you, Simon?Does he really think a couple of days with Mickey Mouse can assuage his guilt for leaving his daughters and fix what has been broken between us? Walking down Main Street with churros in our hands, will Simon miraculously grasp that I was not heartbroken that we didn’t go on vacation? I was heartbroken that Simon so flippantly discarded our life partnership for his solo adventure when all I ever tried to relay to him was that what I needed from my husband was support to restart an adventure of my own.
Or is it that, down deep where no one wants to excavate, I am angry at the both of us for not listening closely to one another about whatwe needed to flourish in our marriage and in life? Our interactions had devolved to reacting to each other’s words and actions, not proactively supporting them. In my feelings of lack—lack of time, lack of support to grow into the person I wanted to be, lack of Simon really understanding who I am—I lashed out at him and where his interests were gravitating. With every lash, rather than having a conversation with me, Simon spent more and more time away, until he chose to completely walk away—for two whole years. While there is a possibility of us being some sort of family again, I don’t know if our marriage can be repaired. What I do know is that I have people in my life now who will listen to me and help point me in the right direction of my dreams.
“I need to go make a call,” I say, rather than remind Simon of exactly why we never made that trip, which might send him into defensive mode. Lou and Coco will come in swinging to shield their dad, and I will be the one to blame for destroying dinner. I point toward my bedroom, nipping the perfect family vacation planning fallacy in the bud.
“Make it quick, your mother will be here in a few and dinner will be ready in ten.”
When I finally told my mother the G-rated version of how I discovered Simon had returned, she did not look up from washing the dishes in her sink. I had taken her out to buy a second curling iron and new set of blush brushes for her client friends at the Senior Connection, and she repaid me for the ride by forcing me to sit down and try out her new twist on arroz con dulce. Turns out the twist was a tablespoon or two of rum.
Wiping her hands on her apron, she faced me, taking time to compose her thoughts. Her usual MO is to think after she speaks.
