Page 30 of Marisol Acts the Part
Mom coos sympathetically. I can practically feel her pushing my hair away from my face the way she would if she were here in person. “I’m sure you’re as beautiful as ever.”
While her optimism is appreciated, it’s definitely not true. I shudder as I sneak one last glance at myself in the shop window. I look like I’m AI-generated. Unnatural. My skin has lost its tan from the California sun, and the natural blush in my cheeks has been sucked dry to match the draining bone-white color of my hair.
Not good.
All I can do now is hope Rune feels the same way and has me change back to a more natural brunette by the end of theweek. With the heavy stage lights and pounds of makeup we wear on set, I’ll be pale as paper in the finished product.
“Everything going okay with your dad?” Mom continues when I don’t respond, too focused on not getting hit by someone riding a bike along the sidewalk.
“For the most part,” I reply once I’ve safely stepped out of the cyclist’s path. There’s nothing to update her on because…well, Dad and I have barely seen each other. With him pulling extra hours at the theater leading up to tech week for their next show and my erratic filming schedule, the most I’ve seen of him this week was the day he picked me up from the airport.
“That doesn’t sound very—”
Whatever Mom says next is lost as I notice a small black shadow jump out from behind a trash can and scurry inches in front of me.
I let out a bloodcurdling scream.
“Mari?! Mari, what’s happening?! Do you need me to call the police?” Mom shouts frantically. I can vaguely make out the sound of her tapping on her screen, probably already queuing up nine-one-one in case I’m in danger. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was booking flights to New York as we speak.
“A rat ran in front of me,” I choke out, my throat tight as I fight off an onslaught of terrified tears. “I think it touched my shoe.”
Get it together, Mari. You can’t cry in the middle of the street over a rat.They’re nuisances, like Jamila said, but everyone knows they run this city.
But it washuge,and gross, and it definitely bumped against the toe of my mule before slipping into the sewer drain, and that is beyond disgusting. I whine as I glance down at thesmudged tip of my shoe, stained with soot, or dirt, or whatever grime rats are coated in. I’ve only had these for a week, and now I’m going to have to burn them.
Mom sighs on the other end of the line, done with my dramatics. Which, fair. She’s had to put up with my nonsense since the day I was born, but at least I wasn’t almost giving her a heart attack. “Is it gone now?”
“Mmm-hmm,” I say with a sniffle, triple checking that none of his friends are lingering beside the trash can before I break into a run, desperate to get into the building as quickly as I can. “I’ll call you back later,” I tell Mom as I jam the key in the door. “Love you, bye!”
I’d feel guilty about ending the call before Mom can finish telling me she loves me back if I wasn’t so relieved about finally being within the confines of four walls, having avoided the wrath of any lingering rats.
Unless this building has mice…which are basically tiny rats that bite.
And I definitely saw mousetraps in the kitchen pantry yesterday….
Ugh.
One silver lining to this day: the shelving units I bought to organize my closet-room finally arrived. I heave the large box sitting beside the wall of mailboxes into my arms, grunting from the weight of it. Lugging the box up to the fifth floor definitely covers my cardio for the day and takes my mind off the thought of mice hiding inside the walls.
I hear a snap as I set down the box beside the apartment door, the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end as I glance down at my hand, praying I didn’t screw up mymanicure. But, sure enough, three of my acrylics have broken off. Great. Absolutely wonderful.
Fighting back the urge to sob, I finally unlock the door and kick my package inside. Bruiser is waiting for me at the entrance, happily yipping and licking at the stain on my mule—gross—while salsa music blares from the kitchen. I can hear the distant sizzle of oil in a pan, the aroma of sautéed onions wafting toward me. Weird. Jerome is the resident chef—and only halfway decent salsa dancer—but his weekly drag show is on Friday nights. Yesterday he said he wouldn’t be home until at least two in the morning, and that was assuming he didn’t stick around for drinks with the rest of the queens.
On my guard, I quickly scan the room for a weapon, but the best I can find is an umbrella. Still, I arm myself with the confidence of a three-hundred-pound weightlifter with a battle axe and slowly step into the kitchen, prepared to attack.
It turns out we’re not being robbed by someone who loves salsa music and leaves behind home-cooked meals. A stout older woman is at the stove, swaying to the beat of the music and humming along as she stirs something in a massive pot.
Bruiser abandons me for the unfamiliar visitor and patiently sits at the woman’s feet until she notices her presence, cooing as she offers Bruiser a piece of some shredded stewed meat. Bruiser happily takes the meat and skitters away to our closet-room, leaving me to fend for myself.
“Excuse me?” I call out tentatively, unsure what to say to someone who either a) broke into our apartment to cook, or, more likely, b)is a total stranger.
The woman whips around, and her face lights up likea Christmas tree at the sight of me. She drops the wooden spoon in her hand to bustle over to me, letting out a drawn-out “oooh” as she tosses off her Puerto Rican flag–patterned apron. “Mija, let me look at you!” she says before reaching for my hand and forcing me to twirl in a circle for her like she’s my fairy godmother.
“Que bonita!” she exclaims as my head spins from both the twirl and trying to keep up with what’s going on. “You have your papi’s eyes,” she says, patting my cheek with a wrinkled ring-clad hand. My eyes find hers—a mirror of not only my own, but Dad’s too—and she gives me a wink.
“Calm down, Ma,” Dad calls from somewhere down the hall. “You’re gonna give the girl a heart attack.”
He emerges from his room still dressed in his work attire: a white dress shirt tucked into royal blue slacks. It doesn’t seem like the most comfortable ensemble to wear for his line of work, especially when most of his day involves sewing period ball gowns from scratch and mending hemlines. But as he told me earlier this week: Why would anyone trust a designer who can’t dress themself?
