In the Land of Indians, Cowboys, and Grace

I waited for Beatriz to pick me up at San Francisco International Airport.

“This place reminds me of the Flintsones,” I said getting into her VW coupe, a car she drove for work selling fine cigars in major cities out West-Seattle, Spokane, Portland, Las Vegas, and remote territories in Hawaii, which she flew out to visit once a month.

She shook her head. 

“You know that cartoon from our childhood," I continued, “with Fred and Wilma, Stone-Age costumes, and rock necklaces.  All you need are woolly mammoths to come out of those mountains,” I said, looking around at the views off the expressway.”

I was in awe of San Francisco and in love with Beatriz once again, not in a falling-in-love way but in a mesmerized one.   Beatriz was sophisticated with a button-down pink shirt, tailored pants, driving shoes, and Janis Joplin-style-beaded bangles (the bohemian vibe of the city must have rubbed off on her).  She had always been cool, smoking Churchill-size cigars, painting life-size canvases of Flamenco dancers, and listening to Latin Jazz.  It had been five years since I saw her last, and she was still tall, dark, handsome, and androgynous with Lebanese/Spanish features bold and in your face.

I had always wanted to be like her-talk in a husky, Garbo voice and have programmed into my cellphone the numbers of powerful men who smoked cigars with her and called just to chat. Power was her destiny.  When she was 19, a South African conglomerate picked her from hundreds of others to manage the most exclusive and private smoking club in D.C.  On her wall, she had pictures taken with President Clinton, Vernon Jordan, Pearl Jam, Celia Cruz; she had also once known senators and a notorious D.C. Madam.

From the time we met, I was her consigliere, advising her on everything from relationships to what to say to her boss.  My destiny was to hold the hands of the powerful, especially when they were going through tough times like my ex-husband who owned a multi-million dollar aviation company in Miami, and eventually a CEO, diplomat, oil industry executive, and high-ranking military man I dated, all going through difficult breakups or losses when we met. After I helped them back to emotional health, they left me, and I hated myself for being a sanctuary like the one my kids and I visited in the Keys with the birds and waterfowl injured by motorboats, stray bullets, and pellets.  Those animals weren’t going any where and neither was Beatriz. We were soul sisters.

My friend Elizabeth introduced us when I was getting divorced.  When Elizabeth showed up at my door in Miami for a visit, I had been lying in bed without bathing or brushing my teeth or hair for over a week. Elizabeth, who I met when we were secretaries at a law firm in D.C., was determined to pull me out of the funk of losing my husband to another woman and losing the Scarface-type house with the Chicago brick driveway, marble floors, stone fireplace, sunroof, sauna, jacuzzi, and pool where we lived with our two young children.   She set up me with a man she knew in Boca Raton, took me to dance Hip Hop on South Beach, and introduced me to Beatriz.

Beatriz and I hit it off immediately.  She taught me how to smoke cigars and wear tailored black suits and expensive French perfume.  When she came out to me, I was shocked. Her confession was difficult even for her; she had wrestled with her sexuality most of her life (we were both Cuban Americans and homosexuality was shunned by our families and close-knit Miami community).  “But, really, I’m bi-sexual because I fall in love with love, not gender,” she said. 

Now, I was visiting her in San Francisco after a dramatic breakup with a woman she adored, a woman who she drove cross-country with to start a new life and job. They were going to pursue a lifelong dream of making wine.  For six months, I talked Beatriz through her heartbreak and was now in town to meet her new girlfriend, who did not like me, but she had not liked any of Beatriz's friends so far.

Marie might have envied my friendship with Beatriz, and I envied her adventurous life, including her moves to New Zealand and Sweden after growing up in Peru. I didn't care, though, for her constant need for attention (I might have also overlooked the fact that she was a woman who was in love with Beatriz, who acted more like an emotionally unavailable man with her long silences and need for space). 

At first, I did not pay attention to Marie's passive aggressive comments made from the back seat of the car while we drove around California sightseeing. “Beatriz, you missed that turn, slow down, go faster. That was stupid, inconsiderate, moronic, uncaring…. Why don’t you love me anymore?” she dribbled.  

California flashed its mountains, vineyards, bridges, canneries, bays.... Beatriz pointed to this and that, but I thought of Steinbeck, Indians, Lewis & Clark, Dust Bowl, Yosemite, Cowboys, mustangs, Spanish Missionaries, Gold Rush, Pioneers, and being in the realms of the mythical.  I'd never been out West and was too awestruck to speak, so I hugged trees while hiking on mountains and smiled at strangers; that is until the night Marie started a fight with me.

“Did you hear what happened between Carmen and me?” she asked with a drink in hand. We were having dirty martinis in the living room of their townhouse in Berkeley.  Several months back, I recalled Beatriz mentioning a physical altercation between Marie and her friend Carmen, who she had to ask to leave the house.

“Yes,” I said. 

“It took 24 hours hours before Beatriz asked her to leave our house.  Don’t you think Beatriz should stand up for me?” Her eyes were dilated and moving fast like a brawler in a ring looking for a way into his opponent's physical and mental space. She was petite but her feminine frame was misleading when she sprung around the house and her brown eyes got crazy with fight brewing to the surface in her crazy eyes.

“I thought she did,” I said, gulping my martini.

“Not soon enough.”

"I don’t know about that."

“Yes, you do. She tells you everything.”

“Marie, please don’t start anything tonight,” Beatriz interjected, tipsy and sleepy from drinking.

"We’re friends, that's all,” I said quietly.

“Then you should tell me your opinion. Why didn’t she kick Carmen out of our house sooner than later?”

“I don’t want to get involved.”

“You already are.”

“I think you’re trying to start a fight, Marie.”

“I hate people like you, hiding behind loyalty. You think you’re so good cause you’re loyal…You make me sick,” she said, making a retching gesture.

“I’m going to bed now,” I said, shaking from her accusation. The uncomfortable situation took me back to my childhood and my narcissist's mother's flinging accusations at me as a way of starting dirty drama.  I put my drink down on the coffee table and went downstairs to my bedroom.

“Go to bed, coward. I hate people like you,” she repeated while Beatriz grabbed her by the hand and led her to their room upstairs.

That night Marie creeped down the staircase twice, making a high-pitched squeaking noise with her feet by pressing into each step to make them squeal.  Then she ran upstairs and came back down again with the same slow intensity of movement and sound as before.

I was sitting up on the bed unable to sleep and was frightened by what Marie was doing.  “Beatriz,” I called out several times, but no one answered. I remembered that Marie had said her last girlfriend was afraid she would one day jump out of the bushes and kill her with a knife, so I grabbed my tote bag and held it tight against my abdomen in case she intended to pull the curtains that separated my room from the downstairs hallway and lunge at me with a sharp object.  I was determined to fight back, and I held my breath and hoped she would just open the front door and leave, which she eventually did.  Then I packed my bags, called a taxi, changed my flight, and flew back to Maine, where I now lived. 

I never heard from Beatriz again. I let her go without resentment or anger even though I was hurt by her lack of communication. Several months later, I texted her my apologies:  “I’m sorry for leaving the way I did. Thank you for your friendship. Be careful with your girlfriend. She’s dangerous.” I knew my warnings would fall on deaf ears: Beatriz's attraction to Marie was a sexual thing, which I gathered from hearing their moans and squeaking bed late at night. I also thought that Beatriz might be in this relationship for the long run since Marie was a replica of her mother who tended to have dramatic and violent turns that made Beatriz love, fear, and detest her. 

It was the end of an era, and Beatriz no longer needed me to advise her through her coming out or relationships. And even with the explosive ending of our fifteen-year friendship, she left me with a wonderful parting gift: dreams of traveling the American West.