Mentoring the Mistress

Not long after I filed for divorce, I took a trip with my sister and her twins, Faith and Grace, who were four at the time. My job, riding shotgun, was to keep the Disney movies playing. Since my children are out of the Disney stage, I’m a little out of touch with the current animated superstars, so they attempted to educate me. My sister described the little fish Dory in Finding Nemo.

“What did Dory say, girls?”

“Just keep swimming, just keep swimming!” they yelled in unison.

Just keep swimming. It’s the perfect divorce mantra.

On the same trip, we made the requisite toy-store stop at one of those outlet mall junk stores that sells the toys the big guys can’t unload. Grace picked up a Barbie doll called “Erica,” the spitting image of the other woman, the one I'd dubbed the "moderately intelligent Latina" after I discovered my husband's AdultFriendFinder stating he liked Latinas and that intelligence was only "moderately important" to him. Erica even had the same waist-length kinky, streaked hair.

I tried talking my niece out of Latina Barbie. I offered to buy her the store, but she was hung up on “Erica.” So I grudgingly paid for the trashy doll. We got out of the store, and Erica’s clothes promptly came off. And then I was ordered to put her dress back on. Great, I get to see Erica’s Latina titties. I was happy to note that they were better than the set my husband’s new hottie possessed.

“Now brush her hair,” Grace ordered.

“Oh, sweetie, I hate to tell you, but her hair’s tangled. I’m going to have to rip out a few chunks.”

Of course, Erica’s at the bottom of the closet by now, facedown and naked. Her hair’s been cut off with a pair of fingernail clippers. She’s wondering what happened to all the love and attention she was promised at the time of purchase. And Ken’s busy writing his next AdultFriendFinder ad.

A couple of weeks after Erica, I stumbled across a book on the paperback table at Barnes & Noble. Becoming Latina in 10 Easy Steps sounded like the self-help I certainly did not need, but a morbid sense of curiosity mixed with a demented sense of humor demanded the purchase. The author’s recommendations: date Mexican men, learn to cook Mexican food, and mentor an at-risk Latina.

I suppose I could go out with a Mexican man (Rafael Nadal is Latin, would he count?), and I already cook a mean fajita. The suggestion that caught my fancy, however, was the mentoring.

Suppose I meet and mentor my husband’s Latina. I could introduce her to my three teenagers, the crazy dogs, the parasite-riddled cat, the pet snake, and the Lithuanian exchange student. Then I could show her the toenail clippings he leaves on his nightstand for me to discard. I could teach her how to change the sheets when he comes in so drunk he wets the bed. And then she could retrieve his underwear from the front yard after the dachshunds pilfer through the gym bag he left in the garage and literally air his dirty laundry in front of the whole neighborhood.

I could set her alarm for six o’clock every morning to make the kids’ breakfast and pack nutritious lunches. Meanwhile, his ass is still snoring . . . and most likely not in her bed. He’s been out all night with some other little Latina who’s the backup to the backup gal.

I’d say she qualifies as an at-risk Latina. But I'll pass on the mentoring and the attempts at becoming Latina. Being me is good enough for me.