These empty dreams
from the make-believe bedrooms their parents left them
are the after-effects
of television programs
about the ideal
white american family
with black maids and latino janitors
who are well train—
to make everyone and their bill collectors
laugh at them
and the people they represent
By way of a consolation prize, Tammy offered Olga a less “narrative-driven” opportunity with their sister network on their hit morning news program, Good Morning’s fourth hour: Good Morning, Later. It was a confection of a show. Their only attempts at news coverage were occasionally reading presidential tweets on air and then quickly moving on to celebrity gossip and how to artfully dress a backyard table for an Instagram-worthy Fourth of July blowout. It was, therefore, the most popular program on morning television.
Five or six times a year, Olga would head to the studio for an entertainment segment in which she would offer banal bits of advice on how to keep your guacamole from going brown or what kind of waistline a petite bride should choose to elongate her torso in wedding photos. Today, after kicking Matteo out, she’d headed over to the studio where they readied her naturally curly hair into sleek, blown-out waves and glossed her lips to a perfect rose pink. She then taped a segment called “Digital Etiquette: Are Manners a Thing of the Past?” Predictably, the snarky text from her brother, who found her public identity as a mistress of upper-class etiquette amusing, arrived shortly after she walked off set. When does the segment on “sucia chic” air, hermana? ’Cuz that’s where your expertise will really come in handy! She texted him back a middle finger emoji, which she knew he’d receive with good humor since he, of all people, understood leveraging a public persona. Her brother: the charismatic politician, the darling of the local news networks, and a favorite foil for the city’s more conservative tabloids. While the man Prieto presented to the cameras and his constituents was not a total fabrication, it hung more firmly on a few carefully chosen facts while diligently avoiding others. They were good secret keepers for each other. And though she felt that he, like herself, couldn’t quite understand how she ended up in this profession, she knew that he was proud of her. “A bright, beautiful Latina on the national stage,” he would say, “is a role model to young Latinas everywhere, no matter what she’s doing.” （She never told him about Spice It Up, though who knows what her mother wrote to him in her missives.） Typically, following one of these segments, her phone blew up with messages, and today was no different. Besides her brother, cousins, tíos, and tías, they were mainly past or current clients, excited to see her on a staple of morning television. This gig would never make Olga a household name, but it had enabled her to raise her fees. The women of the Upper East Side, Dallas, Palm Beach, and even Silicon Valley all felt just a bit better about their choice in party planner knowing that they could tell the ladies at SoulCycle or Pilates that yes, the wedding is overwhelming, but at least they have that fabulous girl from Good Morning, Later helping them out, so things are under control. Those kinds of bragging rights carried a premium. In the aftermath of the Spice It Up debacle, Olga realized that she’d allowed herself to become distracted from the true American dream—accumulating money—by its phantom cousin, accumulating fame. She would never make that mistake again.
Mixed among the texts was a message from Meegan and another message from a number she did not recognize. Meegan reached out to say that Mr. Eikenborn had called; he had something that she’d been looking for and he hoped she would drop by his offices around lunchtime. The unknown number simply said: Got your number off one of the cards on your desk. Had I known I’d fucked a D-list celebrity last night, I would have asked for an autograph before you chased me out. Drinks this week?
She knew he’d been looking through her things.
A MAN NAMED DICK
Dick Eikenborn had biked eighteen miles that morning, shaving two minutes off his personal best, and rewarded himself by posting a series of shirtless selfies, including one almost dick pic, to his secret online dating profile. He didn’t actually use the profile to meet anyone but enjoyed seeing the reactions the photos elicited and reading the more provocative messages that some of the women sent. If they were, in fact, real women. That germ of possibility had never entered his mind until Olga placed it there, where it festered and grew, quietly diminishing the pleasure of every digital wink. Indeed, while he knew Olga was a woman able to eviscerate an ego with a pointedly chosen turn of phrase, in this particular case she had cut down his fantasy in such a casual manner, he knew her observation wasn’t intended for injury, and was simply offered as matter-of-fact. Which made its claws all the more tenacious. The irony, which had not escaped him, was that posting to the app, and even the taking of the selfies, had all developed out of his frustration with Olga herself. Olga and her inability to show passion anyplace other than the bedroom.