Unbreakable: My Story, My Way (16 page)

“I want him to apologize,” Mom said to us, “I want him to respect me. I want him to love me. You guys don’t understand what it means to go through your whole life not feeling loved. Not being respected.” But I knew. I had been through it with Trino and then Juan. I assured her that I would stand by her no matter what she decided to do.

Mom was not forgiving him, but she was hoping that he would stop seeing the other woman so they could fix their issues. Yet Mom would find out from friends or neighbors that he was still with the mistress. We found out that the mistress was married to one of my dad’s business associates. We knew her. She’d come over to our house multiple times. She had first tried to get with one of my brothers. She went down the list until she finally snagged my dad, and we all felt that she was just after the money.

Dad was sleeping on the floor in his office, which upset some of my brothers. “Well, he can get a bed,” I told them. “It’s his own damn fault.” Onstage I would cry for my parents, but I never told the fans what was going on. My parents were still living together, and I think we were all hoping they would work it out, but I knew better. Because I could do little else but stand by my mother’s side, I wrote a song called “La Gran Señora.” It is about a woman addressing her man’s mistress and telling her, “What’s mine is mine. I won’t let go. I will defend my honor. I am his lady.” The media all thought it was about me. I never corrected them because I didn’t want my parents’ issues to become public. When I started writing songs, I wrote about party girls and drinking and fictional drug lords. As I grew as an artist, the songs became a way for me to work through my personal issues and send a message. No matter how old you are, watching your parents suffer is so painful. “La Gran Señora” helped me to process that pain.

Mom and Dad started speaking, minimally, when Rosie had her baby girl Kassandra in March of 2003. Kassey became the light in that house. Everyone could gather around her, and if my parents had any communication in that first year, it was all about Kassey.

Rosie gained eighty pounds during her pregnancy, and after she had the baby, she gained even more. She was depressed and stuck. I couldn’t stand to see her that way, and I felt totally responsible. I knew that a lot of her depression stemmed from the sexual abuse, and I had to figure out a way to help her. One afternoon I walked into my parents’ house and saw her sitting on the couch, crying.

“What’s wrong, Samalia?” I asked her. Samalia is one of the many nicknames I have for Rosie.

“I’m so fat. I can’t lose this weight. My baby’s father is never going to come back to me if I stay like this.”

Inside my heart was breaking, but I knew that babying her was not going to solve anything. Plus, it has never been my style. “Well, you have a choice,” I told her. “You can either sit here and be a fatass for the rest of your life, or you can get up and do something about it. Tell me what you want. Tell me out loud.”

“I want to be skinny.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to buy normal clothes. I want to feel beautiful.”

“You have to envision it and work at it. I’ll help you, but you have to make this choice. I want to know today, are you going to do it?”

“Yes.”

Then I said the line I became so well known for in my circle: “We’ll go to TJ if you want.” We had always gone to Tijuana when we were sick because we never had any medical insurance. It is also the place people go when they want to be nipped, tucked, and sucked. “We’ll get you liposuction,” I told her. “Do you want that?” I figured if she
wasn’t going to go to a proper therapist, a plastic surgeon would work just as well. Maybe better.

“I want a gastric bypass,” she said.

“What is that?”

“I have been researching. It is when they make your stomach smaller. It works better long term.”

I asked around among industry friends and they led me to Dr. Buenrostro. That June we went to TJ and Rosie had her surgery. She started to lose weight right away. I was so excited for her and thought this would get her out of her depression, but she still seemed down.

For the next three months Rosie descended into an even deeper depression due to the shame of the sexual abuse and the rejection of the man she loved. She stopped wearing makeup, she only dressed in sweats, she rarely showered. It was so painful to see her beautiful spirit slipping away. Again I felt this was my fault. Ever since Rosie had been a baby, I’d vowed to be her protector and to make sure she was happy. When I found out about the sexual abuse, I broke down, knowing that I had failed her and my daughters. From that day forward I made a promise to them and to myself that I would spend the rest of my life making things right. But I was still failing Rosie. I didn’t know what to do.

At the same time, my parents, who never spoke a bad word about each other for forty-two years, were now calling me to complain about each other. In between those phone calls I got a message from my lawyer. My soon-to-be-ex-husband was claiming that he had contributed to developing my career as an artist and therefore deserved to be paid for it. According to his attorney, he had “become accustomed to the life of luxury while married to the star he had created and managed.” Thus he was now affected financially and emotionally. They estimated that he deserved $6,000 a month in spousal support
and $100,000 for his attorney fees. I couldn’t imagine it. Wasn’t this the man I had stood by when he went to jail? Even made his child-support payments when he was there? Did I not save him from deportation by marrying him? He had cheated on me during the most difficult time in my life and now I owed him? Ain’t that a bitch.

On the plus side, I had met a new man, Fernando, who treated me better than Trino or Juan ever had. And I was finally getting properly laid.

14

Pinche Pelón

Is it raining at your house like it’s raining at mine?

Does it thunder and lightning even when the sun shines?

—from “Is It Raining at Your House?”

_{I first saw Fernando}
that night at the Mirage with Erika in April of 2003, the same night I decided it was over with Juan. Fernando was working in the promotions department at Que Buena, and he was at the Mirage working an event. We made eye contact from a distance, and I was immediately attracted to him. He looked like a bit of a thug with a fully shaved head and a handsome face. That night we didn’t speak, but I definitely remembered him.

I saw him again a few weeks later at a warehouse shoe-sale promotion for Que Buena. He had the fine job of taking me to the dressing room and making sure that I was all right. I felt a connection from the moment he started talking. He was so funny and charming. When I was sitting at the table signing autographs, I whispered to Rosie, “Do you see the bald-headed guy? Isn’t he so cute?”

“Yeah, he’s cute,” she said. “But he looks like a
cholo
.”

It was true. He was wearing a big old jersey, baggy jeans, and white
Nike Cortez. He was so different from any other guy I had ever been with, which is probably why I was so attracted to him. Something about him I couldn’t get out of my mind.

The third time we saw each other was on July 16, 2003, at El Rodeo, a nightclub in Pico Rivera. My father had a performance there that night, and I went with Gus, Juan, and my sister-in-law Brenda to hang out and watch him sing. I was already pretty well known in Southern California, especially among the crowd at El Rodeo. Fernando approached me, we spoke briefly, and he said, “Look, I know you’re busy, but if you could just promise me you’ll dance the last song with me?”

I said, “Okay, I promise.”

As the lights started to come up for last call, I was dancing with someone else, but I stopped to look around for Fernando. He was standing there, waiting to see what I was going to do. I walked toward him and called him over. We had our first dance, but afterward we lost each other in the crowd. I was a little tipsy, and as the night was coming to a close, my brothers were trying to get me in their car.

“No,” I told them. “I want to talk to the bald-headed guy. I’m not leaving until I talked to the bald-headed guy.”

When they saw that I wouldn’t give in, Brenda went searching for him. Fernando was already in the Que Buena work van and packed up to leave. Brenda knocked on the van door and told him, “Jenni says we’re not leaving until you come talk to her.”

“Okay, where is she?”

Brenda brought him to me.

“Where are you going?” I asked him.

“Jack in the Box.”

“Great,” I said. “I’m going with you.”

I jumped in his work van with him and his friend George, who was driving. The van was packed with speakers, canopies, and a whole
bunch of other crap. I sat on a speaker as we drove to the Jack in the Box, which was right across the street from El Rodeo. Apparently it was where everyone went after the club let out. We were waiting in the long drive-through line when I saw my brothers Gus and Juan walking toward the van. They opened the sliding door and saw me chilling on top of the speaker.

“Get your ass out of the van, Jenni,” Juan told me.

“No,” I said, crossing my arms. “I’m not getting out.”

We were holding up the entire line, and people started to look at Juan and me fighting in the back of the Que Buena van. Everybody seemed to be enjoying the show and didn’t much care that we were causing such a backup.

When Juan got tired of arguing with me, he grabbed me and threw me in the trunk of his car. He was about to slam the lid on me when Fernando came running toward us. “Hold up!” he was yelling. “Don’t shut the door.” That’s how Fernando first met my brothers Juan and Gus. He got me out of the trunk, and then, as usual, I got my way. My brothers let me go in the van with Fernando, but Juan said, “If you’re hanging out with him tonight, we’re hanging out together. You follow us to my house.”

After we got our tacos, we headed out on the freeway, following Juan to his place. George was driving and Fernando was in the passenger seat. I was still in the back sitting on the speaker.

“Lose him! Come on! Lose him!” I screamed to George.

Fernando said, “You better not, George. Just keep fucking following them.”

“Don’t be a bitch!” I screamed. “Lose him, George!”

No matter how loud I was yelling, Fernando just kept repeating, “Just keep fucking following them, George.”

Poor George didn’t know what to do, but he ended up listening to
Fernando, despite my plan’s being far better. We got to Juan’s house and we all hung out and kept drinking. The more I talked to Fernando, the more I liked him. That night he finally got my number.

A few days later Fernando called to ask me out to dinner. I didn’t want to wait to see him. “Where are you right now?” I asked.

“Pacoima.”

“Good. I’m close to there. Let’s just meet up now.”

We met at Hansen Dam. We drove to get tacos and then went back to the dam with our food. We sat there talking for hours about everything and anything. I had never connected with anyone else the way I connected with Fernando. We understood each other. We both came from the hood. We both grew up listening to the oldies and knew every classic song that would come on the radio. I could talk to him about anything: my kids, my career, the evolution of different music genres, trends in the industry. He was smart, interesting, and sweet. Best of all, the motherfucker could make me laugh. Any guy I had dated in the past never got my sense of humor. Fuck, any guy I had dated in the past had never even had a sense of humor. With Fernando it was a whole new ball game. Before I knew it, eight hours had passed. This is it, I thought. This is the one.

And then . . . we didn’t talk for a month.

It was my fault. He called me and I never called him back. I was going through such a horrible time with Juan and the divorce. It was messier than I could have imagined, and it was consuming my every moment. When I finally called Fernando, I got a message that the number was no longer in service. I called the radio station and got hold of George, who gave me Fernando’s new number. That night we talked on the phone for thirteen hours straight.

We got deeper into each other’s story. I told him things I’d never shared with anyone else. Something about him let me open up.

On one of our first dates we were sitting at a Norms diner and ordered
our drinks. I asked for a lemonade and Fernando sang, “Lemonade, that cool refreshing drink,” just like Eddie Murphy in his
Delirious
comedy routine. I loved all comedy and I used to watch that Eddie Murphy comedy routine on repeat. I knew every word. Juan López didn’t get it. Trino, forget about it. But along came this guy who could quote it, with just the right inflection and at just the right time. If I could pinpoint the moment I fell in love with the motherfucker, that might have been it.

After a few weeks, he took me on the
Queen Mary
for a weekend and refused to let me pay for anything. It was so ironic. I was in the middle of a bitter divorce with Juan, who had no problem spending my money and was now demanding a big chunk of my earnings. Yet, this guy, with barely a cent to his name, would not even let me open my wallet. He opened the doors for me, pulled out the chair. He may have looked like a
cholo
, but his mother had taught him how to be a gentleman.

When we sat down to dinner, I turned to look at the ocean. The sea foam had turned electric neon blue, as though someone were shining a blacklight on it. Everyone stared in awe. Somebody explained to us that this rare phenomenon occurs when the cells and bacteria and organisms all come together in a specific way. It rarely happens on the shoreline. To this day it is one of the most interesting and beautiful sights I have ever seen. These kinds of special moments kept happening when I was with Fernando, as though the universe were telling me that I had finally found something good.