“Relax. It’s only business,” he says. But nothing in his response, or his knowing smirk, makes me feel reassured. He steps toward me again, so close that I can smell the chemicals in his hair gel mixed with his expensive cologne. Gross.
“I don’t do business at hotel bars, Mr. Johnson,” I reply, mustering all my strength to stay calm. I’m twisting my necklace so tightly that I worry it might break, sending fake pearls flying.
A sudden anger flashes across Griggs’s face, but he quickly rearranges his features into a controlled poise. “How’s your son doin’? Aidan, right? He’s up at University of Georgia?”
“Yes,” I say curtly. As a general rule, I occasionally engage in idle chitchat about my personal life with club members, but that rule doesn’t apply to Griggs Johnson. “He’s fine.”
“Janey told me he’s earned himself a full-ride scholarship. That’s quite a feat.”
Not for the first time, I’m wishing Janey could keep her damn mouth shut. I nod, pasting a smile across my face.
“Maybe you should think about that son of yours before turning me down.” He lets his eyes rove over my chest and up to my face. “Haven’t done a whole lot of research into it, but I’m guessing a felony conviction might get that scholarship yanked right out from under him.” Feeling myself begin to shake with a strange combination of fear and rage, I pray that he doesn’t notice. “Wouldn’t that be a shame?” he asks casually.
But we both know there’s nothing casual about his words. Griggs Johnson just threatened my son because I refused to have a “business” drink with him at a hotel.
“What exactly are you saying, Mr. Johnson?” I reply, my voice shuddering.
“I’m saying people can lie—but video footage doesn’t.”
And with those simple words, my worst fears are realized. Reginald clearly did not take my secrets with him when Griggs had him fired. And I don’t know exactly what Griggs was looking for when he searched through Reginald’s office, but he found the only thing in the world that I need to hide.
He watches me, grinning, seeming to relish the game he’s playing with my life. “Think about it,” he says. But I won’t think about it, not for a moment. I’ve committed my entire life to protecting my son. And I have no intention of stopping now.
He inspects my face, clearly hoping to find weakness, fear, all the things I’m desperate not to reveal. Then, maybe because he’s not finding the evidence he seeks, Griggs leans in so close that I smell the bourbon on his breath, and then he slowly reaches around to cup my ass.
“After all,” he whispers into my ear, “it’s just a drink.”
Before I can form a word, before I can respond to the audacity of this horrible man threatening my child and then causally groping me in my place of employment, Griggs Johnson brushes past me. He nonchalantly saunters into the Azalea Room, leaving a red-hot sting where his hand touched my body and a simmering fury in my soul.
CHAPTER 5Luisa
The moment I step foot into Mami’s house, all the glitter, streamers, and balloons I’ve managed to avoid in the office find their way into my day.
It’s my twenty-ninth birthday, a fact that I—fortuitously—kept from everyone in the newsroom. The last thing I wanted was some well-meaning co-worker littering my cube with garish decorations, singing “Happy Birthday” in garbled Spanish, and forcing everyone to eat that too-sweet supermarket buttercream-frosting cake. Mercifully, I didn’t have to contend with said decorations as I emptied out my desk.
On the stove sits Mami’s mouthwatering paella, and beside it a bowl of sliced green plantains ready to be recast into fried tostones. The Spanish sounds of chisme and laughter glide through the patio door like the soothing notes of a favorite song. I take a deep breath and amble through the screen door and down the daffodil-lined path that connects the house with the converted barn where our family-owned beauty salon is.
This salon is the only piece of home we managed to rebuild after our first one was ripped out from under us. Like the daffodils, which come back every year, Abuela says our salon is a reminder that “la vida continúa,” and even after a tragedy, good things can happen. For Mami, this salon was a way back to her confident self.
After my dad died, the other woman—orLa Otra Mujer, as we still call her—and my mom almost came to blows at the velorio over the swift claim she made on Papi’s estate. La Otra Mujer and her daughter wanted half of everything. Followingthe funeral, Mami decided the Island was too small for Federico Aurelio Martín’s two families, so she sold her hair salon and relinquished two decades of loyal clients. Then, she was forced to sell my childhood home, a stunning colonial in the hills of San Germán—ironically called Casa Consuelo, as in, there was no consolation to be had. Three months after Papi’s death, we collected half of his life insurance benefits and followed one of Mami’s friends to Atlanta.
It took us a long minute to find our place in this sprawling city, with its dozens of distinct neighborhoods and noodle-like highways. Eventually, we came to appreciate its rich civil rights history and progressive art scene. We ate our way up the Buford Highway corridor, bursting with international flavors from every corner of the world, and in the process discovered a little suburban enclave called Norcross. On that fateful day, we were bound for an antique store in the town’s historic center—treasure hunting being our family’s team sport. Instead, we ended up following the train tracks past a road lined with magnolia trees and white cottages. At the end of the street, we found a dilapidated Victorian home for sale, like something out of a Southern Gothic novel, sitting on a one-acre lot with its own massive red barn in the back. Mami remodeled the barn and reopened her salon, christening it The Barn Salón de Belleza. Abuela and our Spanish-speaking clients took to calling it La Barna.
This house was an unexpected gift—the ultimate antiquing project, and a much-needed distraction from our collective grief. This house brought us back from the dead. I’m just hoping the miracle will repeat. And since it looks like I’ll be forced to move back in, I’m hoping that, once again, inhabiting this house will bring me back from the bardo state I’ve landed myself in.
“La bendición,” I call out, the door to La Barna slamming shut behind me. The acrid smell of hair chemicals replaces the delicious food aroma from only a moment ago.
“Mija,” Abuela exclaims from her perch in a La-Z-Boy chair, “you’re gonna break the hinge one of these days.” She’s reading one of those trashy novels she likes. This one is calledPirata del Deseo, and it features a risqué, half-naked pirate on the cover.
I lean down and plant a kiss on her cheek.
“Que la Virgencita y San Antonio te bendigan,” she says, peering at the upside-down statue of Saint Anthony behind the register. I roll my eyes. Abuela offers him a candle daily in the hopes that he’ll find me a husband, as if saints have nothing better to do these days than play matchmakers. I wonder which saint finds new jobs for the recently unemployed. I’ll light that candle myself.
“Happy birthday, hermanita,” Carola sings from behind her styling chair. With one practiced move, she unfastens the salon cape from her last client of the day, then turns to sweep me into a hug. I hug her back, inhaling the familiar scent of hair dye and essential oils lingering on the fabric of her dress. Carola followed in Mami’s footsteps: wife, mother, purveyor of all things beautifying. Which means I’m usually the third wheel in our relationship.
“There’s the birthday girl!” As if on cue, Mami steps out of the laundry room, looking ever like the Puerto Rican version of Sophia Loren in a waist-hugging dress and bright red lipstick. She kisses me on both cheeks, then drops an armful of freshly laundered towels in my hands. “Fold these, nena. Neatly, please—into squares, not rectangles. I don’t want to find them all bunched up every time I open the drawer.”
I swallow a protest and start folding, aware that my squares are nowhere near as neat as she wants them to be. The moment I step out, my loving but controlling mother will refold them herself. Today, I have no patience for her neurotic demands. “Can we talk for a minute?” I ask. “In the back room?”
