Today I’m Inga. Today I’m from Sweden. Inga likes wearing white. White pants, white skirts, white blouses, white jackets. Boots, of course, white. Her hair should be platinum blonde. Well, shit, that is not going to work unless I go to the drugstore and buy something and make sure I don’t burn my hair. That also means I need a Brazilian. I don’t want to shave myself, I want it done right. Carlos will understand. So I text him about it. He quickly responds that he is in a sales and marketing meeting. I tell him he’s going to like it. He takes a while but responds okay. It’s his credit card. I don’t like to abuse it. I only use it when he has authorized me. The kids are at daycare. Today I will be Inga – Alice Giovanna Ferguson is taking the day off. He is going to love it.
There’s an art to being Inga. There’s an attitude about life. There’s a happiness that feels eternal, and there’s also a lascivious side. I may have to go to a tanning salon as well. Carlos won’t mind. It’s part of the package. He is going to love it. Unless he has to work late, again. This recurrence of events is beginning to annoy me. Who is in those late work sessions? What are they doing? Marsha, the designer, may be there. Goth Marsha, with her tattoos, weird haircut, army boots, black everywhere. She is cute, I do not worry about her. Then there’s Sheila from marketing. She’s skinny, with perky boobs. She is Carlos’ type. I’ve seen the way she looks at him. I can imagine the way he looks back. I do not like it.
I pick a pair of white pants. I remove the pullover I wore to take the kids to daycare and become Inga. I squeeze into the pants. I do not wear any panties. They will give me lines. I hate lines. I take a deep breath, I’m in. They feel good. I find a particular bra that Carlos bought me. It lifts, has some lace, it’s black, so it will show over the white blouse. I like it.
I get my Brazilian done, then go to Giorgio and have my hair done much lighter. He warns me that if I keep doing too many things it will fry my hair and he will have to cut it all off. I don’t want that. While I sit covered in aluminum foil, Giorgio repeats his usual overused jokes and some of the other ladies laugh. All I can think about is my crotch. How they apply the wax, how they look at you, tell you something funny or stupid to distract you and rip, then produce a cute smile. It burns, it tingles, but it feels good. The things we do for our men. Well, not really. I do this for me. For Inga, for whatever is left of Giovanna after all the shit that has come down. Carlos has been good to me and the kids. But after all the crap that my ex pulled, I wish I could trust. I want to trust Carlos, but I surely cannot trust myself. If only I could explain all these things to him.
When I talk to Giorgio, he laughs and rolls his eyes.
“Giovanna, what’s up with the accent?” he asks, with this mischievous face, like saying, I know honey what you are up to.
On my way home I pull down the top of my VW and turn the radio up as loud as I can and sing what comes out. Men in other cars look at me. I don’t care. That’s the thing that Luca never understood. He would get so jealous. He would scream “No seas una perra, you don’t do this type of thing here in Spain.” He was so wrong. I’m not in Spain anymore.
I arrive at the house. I clean the kids’ rooms and vacuum the place. I send a text to Carlos saying that Inga wants to see him. I send him a selfie where he can see one side of my face and my hot blonde hair. I unbutton my pants way down, but not all the way, and send him another selfie. He responds, “Mmmmm.”
Carlos brings home white carnations. He knows they are Inga’s favorites. While we have dinner with the kids, Giovanna takes over in automatic pilot. The kids love the new hair. Carlos is quite good to them. Megan loves him and asks a million questions, while Jean-Michel plays with the Wii. After kids’ showers, we read to them in bed.
Finally, we’re alone. We go into the garage where Carlos has set up a painting studio. He pulls out a little video camera and starts to ask me questions. How long have I been in the States? I answer in Inga’s accent. What’s my favorite type of music? At one point he gets close to me and unbuttons my pants and places his hand in.
“Smooth as a baby’s butt,” Carlos says.
“You’re such a pedophile,” I say.
He goes lower. I’m so wet, but I gently pull his hand out.
“Slow down cowboy.”
“Inga, Inga, Inga.”
Today I’m plain Alice. I hated that name since I was a kid, so in Junior High, I decided to go by my second name, Giovanna. I asked my mother why was I named Alice. It was my father’s idea, and whatever the great Dr. Ferguson said, it was law. So why Giovanna and not Sibeli, my mother’s Turkish name? She grew up watching Italian romantic comedies.
The problem with Giovanna is that everyone wants to shorten it to Gina, or Gio, or Vanna, or even Anna. I found it so repugnant that I spent half my adolescent years telling them NOT to shorten my name. Period. At least when I went to study in Spain they would not shorten the name, and just called me Giovanna. I miss Spain, I miss the friends I made there, the language, the history. I love that men give you piropos and whistle at you. Other American girls felt insulted, but not me. I loved it.
Plain Giovanna likes flower dresses, blouses buttoned to the top and comfortable cotton underpants, and low shoes and sandals. I put Inga’s blonde hair in a bun, tie a scarf around it, and head to work. I’m one of the receptionists at a dentist’s office. I answer the phones, set up and confirm appointments, and greet people as they arrive at our lobby. I wish I could work full-time, but my doctor told me not to push it. Before I met Carlos, I couldn’t even talk, and I went through six months of vocal cord therapy until I finally regained my voice.
They say I have a radiant smile that illuminates a room. But other than a smile, Giovanna is all work and precision. I answer the phone with a smile and say the name of the practice.
Mid-morning Carlos calls on my cell. I don’t answer personal calls during office hours, and he knows he is not supposed to call me here. Then it rings and text again. This is exasperating. I ignore it. A woman calls wanting to set up an appointment, but while I’m telling her the times we have available she passes the phone to someone else.
“Giovanna, it’s almost impossible to get you.”
“Carlos. You know not to call me here.”
“This is kind of an emergency. You got to join us. We had a new record sales and Bill wants to take the top sales and marketing staff out to the most expensive restaurant you can imagine and I want you to be there.”
“Such short notice. I’m not ready.”
“You’ll be fine. Just pull a Tatiana and you’ll be awesome. Call me when you get a break.”
Now I’m angry. To pull a Tatiana? He loves Tatiana, but I cannot do half Tatiana. It’s the whole package or nothing. That is the clothes, the accent, the flirtiness. Tatiana is from Brazil. But I’m not Tatiana today. Today I’m that plain girl from New Jersey, trying to answer the phone and freaking out because I’m running out of my medication and I have not set up an appointment with my psychiatrist yet.
We talk during my break. He is really happy and rambles on a million miles an hour about what we can get if he gets the bonus he thinks he is going to get. Put a down payment on a house, so we won’t have to rent anymore. And maybe we could be more. He wants me to get that babysitter girl, give her money for pizza and everything.
After I bring the kids from daycare and call the sitter, I look in the closet for what to wear. I’m getting really depressed because I see Inga’s clothes, I see Tatiana’s clothes, but I don’t see anything I want to wear. I undress and notice that one of my boobs is beginning to sag. Two children, breastfeeding can do a number on you. I grab them. Maybe he could invest in a boob job, besides, he’s the one who will get to enjoy them. I’m not in a good mood. Maybe I’d just piss Carlos off and become Harper. She’s my butch persona that wears ripped blue jeans, worn-out black leather jackets, black Converses, boxer underwear, and T-shirts with no bra. Ha, that would do it. But Harper is not a party animal. Harper likes to write poetry, chain smoke, cuss like a sailor and when I get in the mood I give her a Bronx accent. But not tonight. Nobody is home tonight but little me with a lot of anxiety, running out of my antidepressants. In the bathroom, I take another Adderall. Who am I kidding, I’m just shooting amphetamines. I’m a nervous wreck and I just want to kill Carlos.
Carlos brings me red roses. Candy apple red is Tatiana’s color. I want to love them. I want to tell him how much I appreciate them, but I’m in a mental fog, angry, and feeling depressed.
At the restaurant, Carlos’ boss, Bill, comes out to greet us. Bill the CEO, Bill the master salesman. Bill is good at manipulating people so they do all the dirty work for him and he always comes across as the good guy. The stories that Carlos has told me would make a great novel.
“Gina, you look as always, just gorgeous.”
There goes the fucking Gina name. I want to tell him it’s Giovanna, not Gina. But I hold my breath. I flash a smile. I don’t want Carlos to look bad among his peers.
I’m used to restaurants like this since I was a kid when my dad, the head of surgery would take us out to show off his beautiful wife and family. There’s a private room in the back. Only the top people, the creme de la creme are invited to this quick get-together. There’re none of Carlos’ staff there, but there’s Sheila. I wonder who she is sleeping with now. She’s wearing a miniskirt so short, not even Inga would wear it.
“Giovanna, Giovanna,” she calls out in that girly, annoying voice. “It’s so good to see you. How are the kids?”
I tell her that they are doing great while studying Carlos across the room talking to some of the other top people in the company. I also notice a guy I have seen in photographs in the office. That must be the VP of Sales for the West Coast, who wanted to take over the whole company a few months back. One of the waitresses comes to them and the guy shamelessly flirts with the poor girl. Carlos looks around the room, locks eyes with me and winks.
“I can’t believe the transformation you’ve made on Carlos,” Sheila says.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“He used to be such a playboy. A different woman every month – the pilates instructor that looked like Michelle Pfeiffer, the marathoner, the triathlete – and then poof. Overnight, he shows up to company gatherings with kids and the most exquisite, exotic woman I have ever met, you.”
“Oh, gee, please.”
This is why I hate Sheila. She really knows how to blow smoke up your ass.
“So he never asked you out?”
She slightly blushes, takes a sip of her wine, and looks at me. She winks several times and says “No.” Takes a long pause, studying the room. “We’re in such critical positions within the company, we have to butt heads all the time that if we ever went out, we’d kill each other. Speak of the devil.”
Carlos puts his hand around my waist, slightly going down and tapping my ass.
“What do you think this really is? Are the numbers that good, or is this more a show of power to tell the West Coast who is in control?”
“Both,” Sheila says. She touches my hand, winks, and moves away. […]
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L. Vocem’s work is forthcoming in River Styx, Bellingham Review and Tint Journal, other works have been published in Acentos, Westchester, Touchstone, Tulane, riverSedge, Litro, Carve, Azahares, Zoetrope and others. He’s a finalist in the 2023 Rash Award in fiction, Editor’s Choice Award 2020 Raymond Carver Short Story Contest, First Finalist 2018 Ernest Hemingway Prize, and Shortlist London Magazine’s 2018 Short Story Prize. He lives in Johns Creek, Georgia. He’s the 2025 PEN/America Bare Life Review Grant Winner. Read more at https://lvocem.com