Page 31 of Seven Minutes In Heaven
Jake chuckled. “Trust me, Claire. There’s nobody in Hollywood who knows what to do more than my mom does. Especially when it comes to her ex-husband.”
And the man Claire had agreed to marry. Even when she started seeing the Carter men, she held no fantasies that she would get to meet Carmen, the only other woman they shared.
***
Jake’s car rolled up the gated driveway, palm trees shading the interior and Claire’s delicate skin. She had seen a doctor for the first time the day before, and the second thing out of his mouth was that she needed to watch her pale skin in the upcoming Californian summer sunlight. Claire had put on an extra helping of sunblock that morning when she left her house, wearing a loose-fitting dress to hide the small bump she now carried. Her mother had yet to say anything.
“You’re the first person I told,” she muttered, as Jake parked the car in front a of Spanish-style villa. A fountain spurted nearby, but Claire couldn’t be bothered to care. Carmen Carter’s house looked so much like Arthur’s – albeit smaller and cozier – that Claire might as well have been walking into her future home all over again. “Then I told a doctor. Now I’m tellingyourmother? Carmen Carter… I can’t believe it. This is how I’m meeting one of the heroes of my childhood.”
“Dominguez,” Jake corrected her.
“What?”
He hesitated before getting out of his car. “She changed it back to Dominguez after the divorce. You should see her Wiki page. It’s a mess.”
Claire waited for him to help her out of the car. Her flats kicked up a little dirt from the driveway. It had been weeks since Claire last wore her signature pumps. Soon she would be wearing flat, open-toe sandals or tennis shoes.Soon I’ll barely be able to walk.She definitely had to pee.
Nerves hit her once they were inside the foyer, since Jake had a key and barely rang the buzzer on their way in. A maid in a light pink uniform met them by an open living room. She took one look at Claire and said, in hasty Spanish that Claire barely understood,“You’ve got a lot of balls, Mr. Carter.”
“That’s Juanita,” Jake said. “She’s been working for my mother since the marriage.”
“So she’s the only one allowed to talk to you like that?”
“You understood what she said?”
“I’ve lived in SoCal my whole life,” Claire said. “My Spanish better be good enough to know she was taking you to task for bringing me here.”
“I warned my mother, but… yeah, it’s gonna be a trip today. C’mon. She’s in her study.”
Few recent photos existed of Carmen Dominguez. The last time she was widely photographed was ten years ago, when she was caught walking out of the Los Angeles courthouse with her divorce lawyer and shedding the last of her public tears. Headlines that claimed she was too heartbroken to live circulated the internet and tabloids.I remember standing in line at the supermarket and reading them. I thought she was the saddest woman in the world.Claire knew so little back then. She was barely a high schooler. What had she known?
She certainly didn’t know how much a woman could age in ten years. Now that Carmen no longer lived in the public eye, she had no reason to watch her weight or follow the latest anti-aging regimens. The woman sitting in the study hardly looked like the woman hanging in Arthur’s office.
Her hair was brown and loosely curled; her midsection was a good ten sizes larger than Claire’s. Eyes as bold as they were lined looked up from her book and in her son’s direction. A spark of happy recognition entered them before she realized who he had brought with him. Had Jake really warned his mother that they were coming? Because Claire might as well have stabbed Carmen in the chest. Betrayal. The woman who had stolen Arthur, even though Claire barely knew who he was when the infamous couple divorced.
I didn’t know who Jake was.He had been in high school too. What was he like back then? As much of a quiet loner as he was now?
They weren’t holding hands. Jake kissed his mother’s plump cheeks before bringing Claire forward for the introductions.
“This is my mother, Carmen Dominguez.” Jake had one arm around Claire’s waist and a hand on his mother’s shoulder. “Mother, this is…”
“I know who she is.” A light accent charmed her warm voice. Her Peruvian heritage had been legendary back in her heyday. Did anyone know about it now?Oh my God, my baby is going to be a quarter Peruvian, isn’t it?Claire hadn’t thought about any of that until now. Later, she would discover that the Dominguezes were only “mostly” Peruvian, and that Chilean and Colombian was prominent as well. Carmen could trace her ancestry all the way back to 18thcentury colonization. Her own father wastheGeraldo Dominguez, a Peruvian businessman who got where he was because of the wealth his family had amassed over the generations. Carmen had started over again when she came to the United States in the early ‘70s, but rumors abounded about the wheels her father supposedly greased.
The early ‘70s… was this woman really in her mid-50s? She looked older from a distance, but up close, Claire could have sworn that she was only in her thirties, lines, graying hair and all.
“This is your father’s fiancée.”
Claire took a step back, swallowing the lump in her throat. “It’s an honor to meet you, Ms. Car… I mean, Ms. Dominguez. I’m a huge fan of your movies.”
“Are you?” Carmen sat back down. While she did not invite her guests to sit, Jake took initiative and suggested that they sit on the loveseat nearby. The maid brought in coffee and was subsequently never seen again. “EvenA Beautiful Blue Place?”
Claire forced a smile. “I remember that one. The one shot in Venice Beach. You played a call girl who falls in love with the bellhop at the hotel she always uses.”
“Yes. The very first movie I made in America. Well, the first one I choose to acknowledge.” Probably a good idea, since the very first ones solidly fell into the sexploitation category. So didA Beautiful Blue Place,but at least it had a plot beyondCarmen shows off her tits.“You’ve seen it?”
“At least fifty times.” Claire turned down the coffee. “They used to show it on TCM all the time when I was a kid.”
“The kind of movie for a child to fall asleep to, hm?”
