I just talked to Livy and told her what happened. I know she’s on her way to the airport to pick you guys up. Call me after you have dinner with Lou and Coco. We have to talk before you go to bed tonight.
Thursday 3:38 p.m. (Ash)
Obviously, you’re gone. My grandmother isn’t picking up her phone either. You have to let me explain. Call me when you land at SFO.
Thursday 1:22 p.m. (Ash)
I don’t want you to leave the studio without my seeing you.
Thursday 1:18 p.m. (Ash)
Antonia, where are you? I’m trying to find you. Don’t discount last night because of what just happened. Last night was real. The show ... that’s all an act.
DECEMBER
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 31
I have at least three dozen strips of packing tape expertly torn off and lined up on the edge of my dining room table like soldiers reporting for duty. Hair up in an all-business bun, I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor, garbage bags of compostable corn packing peanuts surrounding me like a fortress.
“Abuelita, I can’t believe you gave your red heels to Zwena and not to me,” I hear Lou whine from her upstairs bedroom.
“I know, they look great on me, eh?” Zwena gloats.
On a Wednesday in mid-October, Simon and I surprised Coco by moving her bed, stuffed bookshelf, and clothing into the extra bedroom off the kitchen while the girls were at school. I made Coco’s new digs feel familiar and homey by throwing her T-shirts and jeans all over her floor just like her formerly shared room. Simon did splurge for new linens for Lou and Coco, their twin bedding no longer matching one another, but complementing their individual personalities. As I predicted—because while a mother might not know all, she does know her daughters—for the past two months Coco has only used her new room to sleep. All waking hours are spent with Lou on the floor where Coco’s bed used to be, working out the trials of being teenagers at the bottom of the high school social totem pole. I’ve never worked so hard not to sayI told you so.
“You know how conservative your mami is when it comes to you dressing up for a party—she would have never let you out of the house in those red shoes.” Gloria blames me to get her off the hook with her granddaughter. That’s rich coming from the woman who didn’t allow my knees to show in church.
“But you can wear these, just don’t tell her. Put them on in the car and don’t forget to take them off before she picks you up,” my mom instructs Lou, thinking I can’t pack a box with my hands and hear with my ears at the same time. “And if you’re a good niña, maybe your mom will let you borrow the red shoes for your quinceañera. Miracles can happen, mi amor.”
I don’t know exactly whattheseare, but I have an experienced guess so I yell up the stairs, “I can hear you! And if ‘these’ are hoop earrings, it’s a definiteno.” I’ll consider allowing Lou to wear the red heels; they do match her quinceañera dress perfectly. And she is fifteen. I have two weeks until the blowout party to decide how ready I am for my baby girls to become women.
Not wanting to shoulder all the parenting faults, I add, “Your father would agree with me.” And lately that’s true. Simon and I have fallen into a congenial coparenting pattern over the past couple of months. On Sunday afternoons we log on to the shared family calendar and enter what we each have scheduled for the coming week on top of the girls’ schedules that I manage, a parenting responsibility I don’t want to give up until we deliver them to college. Simon puts anSnext to the rides he can cover for Lou and Coco and the events he can attend. I fill in the rest between me and my mom.
Since high school started for the twins, Zwena has evolved from passing out press-on nails to dispensing cool aunt counsel. I appreciate the complementary perspective Zwena offers Lou and Coco, her having been a teen who did not grow up in the trappings of American culture. The girls need a person they love and respect who can show them there are alternative paths to wading through the hormonal hordes of the next four years, including finding a job, believing kindness is cool, andholding a dream in their hearts. With each year I have less sway over Lou and Coco, so I am hopeful Zwena will keep them off the materialistic track with tales of her teen years spent in an under-resourced school vying for any job she could get.
Listening to the chatter upstairs, I realize I have miscalculated who should be teaching the twins that life lesson. Zwena’s voice fluctuates like doppler radar, vacillating between stories of surviving profound poverty and the ecstasy of mall shopping after receiving her first US-earned paycheck. I have no clue what the twins will glean from these divergent messages, but I do know that young people benefit from positive adults in their lives. A strong family is one thing, but Zwena is that credible outside influence for my girls. And though I am far from my teenage years of angst, I can see that Mrs. Eisenberg served as that same support for me.
I miss her terribly.
“That’s because both of you are no fun when it comes to fashion,” Zwena hollers down the stairs to me. None of us are willing to change locations to negotiate over New Year’s Eve outfits. “You know who else was no fun? James Madison. He may have written the first draft of the US Constitution, but all the founding fathers considered him Father No Fun.” Krish and I had misjudged Zwena’s interest in US government as a temporary fixation in her efforts to become a citizen. Turns out she finds the men who established the United States fascinating and doesn’t miss an opportunity to inform me that I should, too, since they established our legal and banking systems. Also turns out Zwena’s no longer interested in medical assisting; instead she wants to be a court stenographer.
“Have you girls packed?” I’m determined to switch the subject off the me-versus-all-of-them fashion mediation to something more pressing. Coco, Lou, and Simon are leaving at the crack of dawn for Disneyland. I may never make it to the Magic Kingdom, but I am pleased Simon has stayed true to his promise to take our girls to the happiest place on earth to kick off the new year. It’s a destination theyhave long deserved to visit. Best U Man is doing so well that, as Simon predicted, he has hired a receptionist and established a subscription model. He has also been depositing money into my checking account the first and fifteenth of every month without any influence from me. Turns out, after the Iconic Investors do their post-show due diligence examining founders’ personal finances and detailed business plans, 90 percent of the entrepreneurs fail to withstand the scrutiny. After all the probing into his background, Simon’s deal was actually sealed.
Additionally, I learned there is something called the “Innovation Nation effect,” where even if a founder doesn’t secure funding, the company still experiences an increase in sales. After selling out at several farmers markets in a matter of hours, I set up an Etsy shop, and I’m spending my New Year’s Eve packing lotions to fill a recent order for a bachelorette party gift bag in Boca. I like to imagine Simon’s deposits are at least one instance where my not taking the initiative to change our coupled finances when he went on his sojourn is paying off. Literally.
“And no booty shorts! Show some respect for Cinderella,” I insist, knowing there is a minimum of two pairs of those straggly denim shorts packed into their shared duffel. When Lou and Coco head out with my mom to assist with the New Year’s Eve party at the Senior Connection, I will be double-checking their packing job and sneaking in a few skirts with their volleyball shorts to go underneath.
After first searching unsuccessfully in my junk drawer for a Sharpie, I finally find one in the bottom of my purse. It’s covered in lint and dried out, but I hold it tight. The last time I used it was Mrs. Eisenberg’s final trip home from Scottsdale. I remember I had written, “the desert already misses you (and so does Elaine)” and that had given Mrs. Eisenberg a hearty laugh. She asked that I take a picture of it with her phone and send it to Elaine, an action I had taught her to do at least a half dozen times, but she still insisted I do for her. When I wrote that sign, I had no idea what a prophecy it would turn out to be. If I could go back to that day, I would have written, “this desert queen reigns supreme.”
Other than a few snapshots from our time on the set ofInnovation Nationthat I still haven’t had the stomach to upload from my phone onto my laptop, this pen and a notebook full of scribbled life advice are all that remains of my friendship with Mrs. Eisenberg. Right at eye level are textbooks from my multiple efforts to earn a degree and come up with the next big thing to pursue. I tap the pen down the spines of each textbook and think of the ideas and subsequent conversations that passed between me and Mrs. Eisenberg as we rolled through SFO together. At the very end of my shelf is the spiral-bound book of case studies from my Stanford entrepreneurs course. I hook the Sharpie to the plastic cover. Mrs. Eisenberg is now the most recent source of knowledge in my quest to ultimately reach my destiny.
“You sure you don’t want to come with Krish and me?” Zwena asks, leading my four favorite women down the stairs, each one as beautiful as the next. Over the past week, Zwena has invited me multiple times to join her and Krish for their New Year’s Eve celebration, believing spending the evening alone is bad luck for the coming year. She doesn’t like the thought of me by myself, and I can’t share with her that this is the one night where I don’t mind us not being a friendship thruple. Krish and I have been busy secretly planning the perfect engagement without a hint of suspicion from Zwena. Not the only stealthy one in our group, Zwena thinks she’s attending a New Year’s Eve party Krish is DJing for a tech icon’s fifth fiancé, and she wants me to come join her on the dance floor. I reassure Zwena she will definitely have someone to dance with while fighting with myself not to say anything more. At this moment there is a new East African restaurant not too far from here with a beautifully set table for two. When Zwena was swiping through hair tutorials with Lou and Coco last week, I sneaked her phone to find her parents’ and siblings’ contact information. I gave it to Krish, and he has arranged for her entire family to be together in Kenya to celebrate with the two of them over FaceTime, which is no small feat since it will be early morning New Year’s Day half a world away. Krish has promised me that after Zwena’s family, I will be the very next call.
“Well, enjoy your time with me, ‘Gloria,’ ‘Sylvia,’ and yourself,” Zwena instructs, taking in my stack of jars. Meanwhile I take in my radiant girlfriend in her last moments of singlehood. “Although I’m way more entertaining in person.”
“You are,” I agree as Zwena plucks a “Sylvia” and drops it in her handbag.
“Wrong one, Z,” I correct, handing over her signature shade.
