Carmen sat in her apartment staring out the balcony window. The television was on but she hadn’t watched a single minute of it. She was immersed in thought. Vincent had not called in 2 days, nor had he returned any of her calls. She wondered if he had been too overwhelmed by Anthony’s actions at the pub to speak to her. This thought made her even angrier with Anthony, though she did feel a semblance of peace knowing that he was now her puppet and no longer in a position to give her any more shit. His task was one which she had thought about for a long time, but until recently had never had the audacity to enact.
She considered trying to call Vincent again, when there was a knock on her door. She excitedly thought that it must be Vincent since few people had access to the building entrance, and even fewer would be knocking at this time of night. She eagerly jumped up and ran to the door. Without looking through the peephole, she threw open the door. Immediately her enthusiasm turned sour. There stood her mother, wearing an apologetic and sympathetic smile and holding a bottle of wine.
“Hi, Carmen. I think we need to talk.” Carmen did not say a word, but stepped aside to let her mother through the doorway. Isabel walked to the kitchen and put down the bottle. She took off her coat and laid it upon a bar stool. Carmen followed her and sat down across from her at the kitchen’s island.
“Mother, I really don’t have anything to say to you right now.” Isabel gave her the most motherly look Carmen had ever seen the woman give.
She sat down. “I understand, sweetheart. But I have a lot that I want to say to you. Maybe it’s best if I do most of the talking, anyway.” She opened the wine and poured a glass. She offered it to Carmen, but her daughter held up a hand and shook her head. Carmen did not want to impugn her emotions later by drinking now. Isabel nodded with acceptance and continued. “First of all, I hope you know how sorry and embarrassed I am by what you saw the other night. It would be a cliché to say that it was not what it looked like.”
“It looked like you making out with one of my oldest friends after you both came out of the bedroom,” Carmen interrupted with a dismissive tone. Isabel again conceded her anger with a nod.
“I understand you’re angry and hurt, but please hear me out.” Carmen relaxed her body a bit and let Isabel proceed. “To say it was not what it looked like is insulting, yes, but I want you to understand that what you saw is not something I am proud of nor would I ever do it again. I’ve been dealing with a lot – we all have – and I had a moment of weakness. I was wrong.” She paused to gauge Carmen’s face then kept speaking, “But I want you to know that I love you and Anthony more than anything in the world, and I would never intentionally do anything to hurt either of you.”
Carmen’s eyes betrayed her and she looked away upon speaking her comment. Isabel picked up on this. “Have you talked to Anthony?” Carmen looked back at Isabel with questioning eyes. The words seemed to imply much more than they let on.
“I saw Anthony Tuesday, but don’t worry, he knows nothing,” Carmen said. Isabel nodded again. Carmen knew the nod was meant to show gratitude, but again felt as if her mother was also sizing her up a bit. She became uncomfortable. “Mother, I understand you have needs, and I know you were eventually going to find someone else, but I don’t want to talk about this anymore. You slept with a younger man – not only a younger man, but a hugely inappropriate, younger man – and I saw it. I’ll get over it. But right now, I just want to forget about it and move on.” She started to rise from her stool when Isabel quietly asked, “Have you been to the Hyperion lately?”
Carmen’s body froze and her eyes darted to her mother’s face. The question was innocently spoken, but the look on her mother’s face and the implications of the words hung heavy in the air for a moment. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I had a talk with Frank the other night, and he mentioned he was supposed to meet you there, but you never showed. It was the same night you came to my place and saw...” Her voice trailed off.
Carmen felt herself becoming angry and frustrated ... and scared. She looked down at the countertop. Words would not come to her lips.
Finally Isabel broke the silence. “If what I suspect is true, I have greatly misjudged you, Carmen. I always hoped you were the intelligent, optimistic, slightly naïve young lady who would forever be trying to change the world. But, I guess I haven’t been around enough have I?”
Carmen became enveloped in resentment and regret. Only minutes ago she held a moral high ground over her mother, and now she felt like she was being dragged through the muck. Tears started to form in her eyes. “Mother, I’m –“
“Don’t.” Isabel held her hand up to stop Carmen’s apology. “Don’t say it, because I don’t want to hear it. If you apologize now, I may change my mind about what I’m about to say.” Isabel forcibly lifted Carmen’s chin so that the two were looking eye to eye. Carmen reacted with a look of shock; while it wasn’t painful, her mother had never touched her so forcibly.
“Dry your eyes, Carmen. Tears are not your strong suit... yet.” Carmen, as if in a daze, stopped crying and wiped her eyes. Isabel walked behind her and continued. “Compose yourself, pour a drink and join me in the living room.”
Carmen looked confusedly around and after a moment, obeyed her mother’s command. When she walked into the living room, she saw Isabel sitting on the couch, legs crossed but relaxed and comfortable. Carmen took a seat in the stationary chair across from her mother. They sat in silence, looking at each other for several minutes. Carmen could feel her mother’s eyes studying every move she made and every emotion that crossed her face. At first, it was almost unbearable, but after a couple minutes, Carmen was surprised to find that she was growing angry.
Finally, she was unable to keep silent any longer. “Well, Mother? What do you have to say?”
Isabel smiled mysteriously. “Okay, enough games; time to come clean.” Isabel took a drink and continued. “If you had to describe your family three months ago, what would you have said about us? Would you have said that I was a loving, caring woman who was the strong but obedient wife to a man of power and influence? Would you have described your father as a savvy businessman who came from nothing and single-handedly rose to a position of prominence? Would you have described us as a more modern version of the classic 1950’s archetype of the American Dream? Well, if you did describe us as that, you would have been correct... at least to most people’s beliefs. But as you now know, that wasn’t exactly the reality, was it?”
Carmen looked confused and concerned by her mother’s words. Isabel just smiled and took another drink.
“Reality is a strange thing, Carmen. Technically, it’s the actuality of what takes place in the world; it is the absolute truth regardless of perception. But, you know as well as I do that reality is really a completely subjective thing. It is never the same for any two people, because it really does rely entirely on perception. Three months ago, your reality was infallible. It was a fact. But, the other night, your reality was altered entirely. And why do you think that is?”
Carmen stared at her mother as if she had lost her mind. “Because I caught you fucking my friend, Mother. We’ve established that. My reality changed because you got caught. Now, my reality is that my mother has become a tramp, a sad, clichéd middle aged woman in a mid-life crisis. So, drop the mysterious woman act, because I don’t want to hear it anymore.” Carmen started to rise from her chair.
“SIT DOWN!” Isabel snapped. Carmen froze and looked into her mother’s commanding eyes. “Sit down and listen to me.” Carmen obeyed without thinking. Isabel collected herself and continued. “Yes, you saw something that I hadn’t planned on you seeing. But, your reality is still not the same as mine. The reality is that what you saw was not your mother having an illicit affair with a younger man. The reality is that you saw your mother convincing a young man to do her bidding. You saw your mother exerting her influence on a simple-minded fool so that she could use him to whatever end she desired. You think this is a mid-life crisis? You can’t even imagine how wrong you are.”
Isabel waited for a response from Carmen. After a moment, Carmen spoke. “What are you saying, Mother? You’re using Matty? For what? >He’s got nothing you would want. Don’t feed me some lies in order to romanticize this little affair of yours. I’m not stupid.”
Isabel shook her head. “No, you’re not stupid. You’re naïve.” Isabel took another drink. “Carmen, your father was a nobody when I met him. He was no different than Matty: an eager but ultimately insignificant associate of the Ferenzo family. But, unlike Matty, he possessed a raw charisma that he couldn’t quite tap into. So, I convinced Don Ferenzo to utilize Carmine more, to give him a chance.”
“And how did you do that, Mother?” Carmen’s words were soaked in sarcasm.
Isabel looked at her frankly. “I fucked him, Carmen.”
Carmen’s eyes widened at her mother’s statement. There was no hint of sarcasm in what she said. “Sex is a powerful weapon, Carmen. For years women have used it to get money, promotions, husbands... Why not use it for power and influence? I slept with anyone and everyone I needed to in order to get what I wanted. And if sex didn’t work; blackmail and deception usually did. The trick is to not let people know what your endgame is.
“Men get possessive. They want what others have and are unwilling to share what belongs to them. So, after I established Carmine as a player in the family, I told him about my tryst with Ferenzo. I didn’t tell him the whole truth, mind you. No, I told him a slightly different story about how I was taken advantage of. And that was all the motivation Carmine needed to go through with my plan. He arranged for Ferenzo to have an accident.”
Carmen was unable to speak as she listened in horror to her mother’s story.
“So Carmine took over the family, after I convinced a few others to back him. He immediately realized how overwhelmed he was and turned to me for guidance. It wasn’t long before he was practically running the city. The only thing I demanded of him was loyalty and respect. And for the most part, he was able to hold his end of the bargain, right up until the very end.”
Carmen swallowed hard. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Mother, why are you telling me this?”
Isabel smiled. “Because I can’t do this forever. Seduction and manipulation of this kind requires a semblance of youth and innocence. Now, I can still do it, but I know it’s getting to be the time for me to pass on the secret. I didn’t really think you would be the one to follow in my footsteps, but you’ve proven me wrong,” Isabel said with a hint of admiration and pride.
Carmen jumped to her feet, “You are wrong! What makes you think I can do anything like that? I’m not some slut who can go around fucking people for personal gain!” Carmen started to walk away.
Isabel stood. “Fucking people doesn’t always require sex, Carmen. You certainly fucked Anthony, didn’t you?”
Carmen stopped in her tracks. She turned slowly and glared at her mother. “That’s not the same. He deserved that, and I still regret it.”
“You regret getting caught. Don’t lie to yourself. And so what if he deserved it? Do you think any of the guys I manipulated were innocent people?”
Carmen shook her head. She started to tear up, but fought it back. “I could never do that. I could never be that cold. You had people killed.”
Isabel rolled her eyes. “Ha! Those people knew what kind of life they were involved in. They knew that at any time they could be killed. But your brother? Your own brother? You destroyed his life without even blinking. Oh no, my dear, you have already proven that you are cold.”
Isabel walked to Carmen. She put her arms around her. “Carmen, I know this is a shock. But you are strong. Take some time to let it sink in. Take some time to think about what I have shared with you. If you listen to me, this whole city can be yours. Your empire. After all, you are your mother’s daughter.”