Telenovela Chapter 2: La Usurpadora

“Lady, I swear, you don’t need proof of ID. I’m obviously her damn sister. My friggin’ face should be the ID. Do you notice it matches the one on the hospital bed in there?” Lucia was staring at the nurse guarding the nurse’s station. The hospital was an off-white with green trim; it made Lucia think someone was aiming for the color palette of peace-lillies. 

“Ma’am, that’s…” the nurse looked at Lucia’s face. Her old-school white uniform and hat seemed oddly unnerving despite how ridiculous they looked to Lucia. “You’re either in that room in a coma, or I need an ID.”

Lucia reached into her purse; the night had already sucked, and this was just adding to it. 

She had taken the least expensive flight, which had also been a red-eye. She had been dropped off by Evil Twin’s assistant, Greg, who wouldn’t shut up. 

Finally, Lucia found her ID in the bottom of the purse. 

“This is an American driver’s license. I need something from Mexico.”

“I’m going inside that room now. If you don’t like it, get your supervisor. When he gets here, I’m going to tell him I came out of the coma just to complain about your service.”

She went past the nurse and into the room.

The light of the machines was enough to illuminate the room. The lines’ patterns and numbers on the machines Lucia didn’t understand, but they looked steady. Lucia stared at Evil Twin, lying in the hospital bed. 

The room was cold, and in the corner Sancho was lying uncomfortably in a chair with a blanket over him. 

She wondered what the hell he was doing there. He should be off finding his next overdramatic hot lady to go horseback riding with. 

She looked back at Evil Twin. Even unconscious, she was beautiful. She looked helpless; her usual overly eccentric personality replaced by stillness and the sound of shallow, assisted breathing. Without realizing what she was doing, she held her hand out towards her sister’s hair, moving some of it out of her face. Her hand froze.

“Is that makeup?” she whispered.

“It was Greg,” Sancho said, sitting up straight and yawning. “He insisted on it. He said she would have wanted it that way.”

“I certainly believe that,” Lucia said.

“He did.”

“No, that she would have wanted it that way,” Lucia said. “What are you still doing here?”

“You know that boyfriends kind of do this sort of thing, right? It shouldn’t be that uncommon.”

“Unless there is paparazzi behind that walk-in shower curtain, you can drop the act.”

“You know,” he said, standing and throwing the bundled-up blanket at her chest, “I was waiting for you.”

“Keep your voice down,” Lucia said.

“Why? Afraid I’ll wake the paparazzi in the shower? Screw you. I promised her I’d stay here until you got here, whether she could hear me or not, and I fulfilled my promise,” he said, walking away from her. “I’m out.”

He headed towards the door, and Lucia looked back at her sister.

“Thanks,” she mumbled.

“Don’t mention it,” he growled. “I’d hate for it to ruin my image, right?”

He closed the door aggressively.

“You know,” Lucia said to Maria, “his acting is impeccable. I almost thought he had a soul for a moment there.”

****

Lucia woke to the smell of creamer and coffee. She cracked her eye open and saw an orange suit.

“Greg?” she said. 

“You remember me, Capullita?” Greg said past his red-framed glasses. He held out the coffee.

“Hard to forget,” she said, sitting up and accepting the coffee. Hazelnut. Of course it was. “Hazelnut is Maria’s favorite.”

“Yes it is,” Greg said. “But I need it to be your favorite now.”

“I’m assuming I’m still too sleepy to understand your Spanish right,” Lucia said. It was already hard enough; after she moved to the US, she didn’t exactly get the best practice. 

“I doubt it,” Greg said. He handed her a dress. “Change into this, and then we’ll get to work on the makeup.”

Lucia looked at the dress in her hands. 

“Greg, this is awful revealing,” she said. “And that cut along the side is way too high up.”

“I got one of Maria’s more conservative dresses,” Greg frowned. 

“I believe that, but I have my own spare set of clothing in my bag.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to work, Capullita; I saw those already,” he said.

“…You went through my clothes?” Lucia said.

“It’s my job.”

“Greg, I’m not following.”

“You aren’t?” Greg asked. He tilted his head. “I thought that was the whole reason you were here?”

“To steal my comatose sister’s clothes?”

“For Operation Usurpadora,” he said. 

Lucia froze, mid-sip of coffee. She knew that phrase, but she hadn’t heard it in a decade.

“No,” Lucia said, shaking her head. “Hell no. That’s something from middle school.”

Lucia got out of the chair, threw the dress down on the blanket, and grabbed her backpack. No way.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in,” Greg said. 

“No, don’t come in,” Lucia said.

The door opened, and a woman in a blue dress came in. Her hair was blonde with red streaks, a whiter, Castilian Spanish complexion, and hazel eyes that made even Greg stare for a moment. 

“How is our new star doing?”

“Your new star is resigning.”

“That acting is perfect. Save the drama for the telenovela though.”

“I’m not doing it.”

“Look,” Greg said, “Maria asked me if she ever was put in a coma to get you to take her place.”

Lucia looked right at him. 

“She prepped in case she went in a coma?”

“She’s a telenovela star, darling. She saw it happen all the time.”

“That’s stupid logic,” Lucia said, narrowing her eyes. “But I believe it. It was my sister.”

“We seem to have skipped introductions,” the red and blonde woman said, holding out her hand. “I’m Lupita Rodriguez. Director of Meadow of a Thousand Loves.” 

Lucia shook her hand. Maria had been on that show for a decade, and Lucia knew very well who was standing in front of her. Lupita was the one who had paid for the hospital stay.

“Thanks for your help with my sister,” Lucia said, looking from Lupita to Maria. “I am glad she is here. I couldn’t afford it.”

“That’s something worth talking about,” Lupita said, crossing the room. She moved the dress and took the chair. “You see, there is an issue. It turns out I can’t afford it any longer either.”

Lucia froze. 

“I can’t… I can’t either.”

“The sad thing is, there is a way I think that you can,” Lupita said. “Maria is supposed to be paid per episode to help us finish off this season.” 

Lupita crossed her legs in the chair and leaned back. 

“This is the final season too. Every actor is also receiving a severance package for the final season completion. I have a problem, Lucia. We are already halfway through the season. The writers have finished writing everything. The sets are already made. Rewriting everything would put us behind schedule, and we would have to fold early. I think Sophia can still be in the show.”

Lucia stepped back slightly. Sophia was her sister’s character on Meadow. 

“In fact,” Lupita said, “I think that she can be on the episode airing Friday night.”

“I don’t,” Lucia said. 

“I had Greg here look you up a little more,” Lupita said, ignoring her. “That apartment complex seems rather… quaint. Do you know how much Maria gets paid for this last season?”

“No, but I imagine it will infuriate me.”

“Fifteen thousand per episode,” Lupita said, looking at her phone. 

“Per episode!” Lucia shouted. “She asked me for money last week!”

“That’s part of the issue we have with the hospital bill,” Greg said. “Maria lived rather extravagantly.”

“She has no savings at all?” 

“Enough for this week, but that’s it,” Greg said, looking down.

Lucia thought about it, looking at her sister lying there. Helpless. Defenseless. Her twin sister, with her since birth.

“Nope,” Lucia said, turning towards the door.

“You don’t want to see how she lived? You aren’t curious?” Lupita asked. “How those people you write about live? The thrill? The exuberance?”

Her old apartment flashed in her mind. Cold coffee. Broken heater. 

Lucia turned towards Lupita, sitting in the chair. But her eyes passed by the chair, looking at the dress. She thought about how crumpled the extra clothes were in her bag. 

“And I get the leftover money?” Lucia asked. “I’m not not considering it.”

“I think I can find an extra thousand in the budget per episode,” Lupita said, her eyes following Lucia’s gaze towards the dress. “For some nicer clothes too.”

Lucia’s brows came closer together.

“And with eight episodes left, that sounds like quite a bit of money,” Lupita said. “But that money has to come with some stipulations.”

Lucia’s eyes narrowed.

“What?”

“No one can know about Maria here,” Lupita said. “The producers would pull all their money if this ever came to light.”

“But… money,” Lucia said, getting used to the idea.

“You would be replacing your sister off-camera too,” Lupita said. “Extravagant dresses, fine dining, parties — does that sound so bad?”

Lucia’s mind drifted back to the apartment with no air conditioning.

“I’m not not considering it more now,” Lucia said.

“I think you could do this,” Lupita said, her smile stretched dangerously. “And I think you would enjoy it. I think if you can hold off on your watered-down TVNotas articles, then you might make some real money.” 

“Screw you,” Lucia said automatically.

She stayed still for a moment; her eyes looked back at her sister. Watered-down paparazzi articles? Is that really what she was reduced to? Maria would never give her any insight, or any leads to go with. It was a tight-knit circle for Meadows, and it always had been.

Lucia’s lips curled into a smile impulsively. A twin sister taking her sister’s spot on the show? That was far from watered-down. That could make a career.

And she would be the only one who knew about the story. She would love to see her name on that byline. 

“You have a deal,” she said, reaching out her hand.

“What deal?” Lupita said, winking. “I don’t know what you are talking about, Maria.”