Page 29 of Every Step She Takes
“What are you going to do with it?”
I shrug and aim for flippancy. “Sell it? Run it into the ground? Burn each vineyard that he loved more than me, one by one?” I suggest, not flippant at all.
“Sounds like you’re in a healthy place with all of it.” Inez nods her head up and down like an infinitely wise bobblehead. “Now the spontaneous Camino is starting to make sense. You’re searching for someone to take your mind off”—she waves her hand in circles in front of my face—“all ofthat.”
“Not someone. The Camino.”
“Uh-huh.” She clucks in disbelief. “You forget that I’ve met you before.”
“I’m changing my ways.”
She clucks again. “Just promise me that when you do your typical Mal thing, you’ll choose someone other than Sadie to fall in love with. I don’t need that kind of mess on my tour.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t think I didn’t notice the looks the two of you were exchanging at dinner.”
“There were no looks. Like you said, Sadie is straight.”
“She’s definitely gay for you.” Inez rolls her eyes. “And who isn’t? You’re sapphic catnip. You have Kristen Stewart’s face, first-season Shane’s hair, and Tig Notaro’s body.”
“Tig Notaro’s personality too,” I add.
She scoffs. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
“I’m sorry, but did you not just imply that I can turn straight girls with my mullet and dad bod?”
“Your outsides are inarguably fabulous, but the insides could use some work.”
I throw the wadded-up label scraps at her and pretend those words don’t hurt.
Ruth loved to teasingly call me herhimbo, a hot body and an empty head. She was joking—she alwayssaidshe was joking—but after a while, it became clear that she was only interested inmy body and my bank account, that in her eyes, I had nothing else to offer her. I wasboththe sugar daddyandthe arm candy, and neither felt great.
“Promise, Mal. Fall in love with someone else. Her sister’s blog has a huge following, and the publicity could really change things for me and Beatrix. I need Sadie to have a good time and write nice things about this tour. As the company’s sole investor, you should care about this going well.”
“I’m not an investor.”
Inez empties the label-less bottle into her wineglass. “What do you call it when you write a check to cover all the start-up costs for a new company?”
“Spending Daddy’s money,” I answer, andha. There it is. Perfect flippancy. “I wasn’t really the only investor, was I?”
“You think banks were lining up to give a small-business loan to a dirt-poor, Afro-Brazilian trans woman looking to open a tour company for queer women?”
“You should know that I only wrote that check for the tax break.”
“There’s no tax break for loaning money to a friend.”
“There’s always a tax break if you’re rich enough.” I reach for my pint glass only to discover it’s empty. “And I told you ten years ago, it’s not a loan. You never have to pay it back. You don’t owe me anything, Inez. Not even a spot on your tours.”
“I owe youeverything.” She tugs at her shirt with the Beatrix Tours logo. “None of this would exist without you.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Mal, you—”
“No, seriously,” I cut her off. “Please don’t mention it ever again. It makes me weirdly uncomfortable.”
Inez lifts her glass toward me. “You want people to think you have a heart of stone, but you have a heart of pure gold, my friend.”
