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I know immigrant rights and immigration reform is his cause célèbre. But I can’t believe he would concede so much, to make it into a film. He could just have his screenwriters write something else.
The other studio we met with said they’d let me advise on casting, but wouldn’t let me be part of the screenplay development. I had Sol send them an email declining as soon as we got home from the meeting. I’m glad I did. If Artemis actually agrees to my terms, it will be more than I could have hoped for.
We pull up to the bungalow I share with my friend, Jessica. Sol unlocks the car door for me, but puts a hand on my shoulder when I start to reach for the handle. I look at him quizzically, his eyes are soft, and there’s a small smile on his usually frowning mouth.
“He’s going to sign it, Lucía. He wants to be the one to make the film. He’s a smart man. He’s young, but he’s trying to shake things up over there. He’ll have it back to us before Monday.”
I lean over to peck him on the cheek. “Well, we’ll see,” I say, reluctant to count my chickens before they hatch.
“Oh, ye of little faith. Trust me. I know him. He’s never sat in on one of these meetings. They’ve never pursued a book-to-film adaptation. He wouldn’t be doing this if he didn’t want this story.” He pats my shoulder. “He’ll give you whatever you want. His lawyers aren’t going to find anything in that contract that’ll be a deal breaker. Monday, you’ll see.”
I smile at him. He has yet to steer me wrong. But I grew up knowing that nothing is guaranteed. I won’t believe it until it’s in my hands.
“Talk to you Monday, Sol,” I say noncommittally before I hop out of his car. I watch him pull away before I walk up the short flight of stairs that lead to our front porch.
I don’t go inside right away. Instead, I sit on one of the black wrought iron, cushioned chairs we keep there and survey my surroundings.
A quiet street, potted plants on my stoop, neighbors waving as they walk by—these are all things I dreamt of when I was growing up.
I love Los Feliz. It’s full of history and character. This is the neighborhood where the artists, the real ones, live. Our house was built in the 1920s. It’s been renovated, but many of its original features, including the stained-glass door that creates a kaleidoscope of color on the foyer’s parquet wood floors, remain.
I started practicing yoga when I got my first job. Every morning, I greet the sun on the back porch. I commune with the sound
s around me. I focus on the positive things in my life and spend time making those the narratives I carry with me all day.
When I sat down to write Throw Away the Key, I hoped that I could shed some light on what it’s like to grow up feeling like an American, loving America, but not being loved in return. I also wanted to pay tribute to my brother, Julian, by telling his story. That story is just one of many in a book that spans the first twenty-one years of my main character’s life. But I borrowed heavily from my own experiences throughout. I let my bitterness and rage bleed into the pages of this book. It’s covered in my fear and vulnerability; bound together with the hope that someone would read it and be moved. It was such a cathartic experience, pouring out onto paper what lives in my heart every day.
When I’d finished writing, Jessica edited and proofread it for me. We bought a cover from someone Jessica met on Facebook and uploaded it to online retailers, sold paperbacks of it in Jessica’s store, Amour, on Hillhurst Avenue in the trendy Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles.
The reception it’s received and its success have exceeded my wildest dreams. It’s also made me money. I couldn’t believe it when I started getting my royalty checks from online retailers. I went from living one paycheck away from disaster to being able to write my mother a check for almost fifty thousand dollars overnight.
Amour is a wildly successful store and boasts a clientele that reads like the who’s who of Hollywood. She sells all of her handmade jewelry, ceramics and furniture there. One of O Magazine’s editors is a client and picked up the book. She read it, loved it, and next thing I knew, it was being featured in their magazine. Then, Sol found me and things really took off. I had already sold over two hundred thousand copies when he negotiated a six-figure advance and a nice royalty-share for a paperback deal with a huge traditional publisher. And everywhere I went, I saw copies of Throw Away the Key. It was incredible.
Then, I started getting calls to do television interviews and magazine features. The attention frightened me and I turned them all down. My life has been focused on survival. I’ve never had the luxury to dream beyond that. And survival has meant living off the radar.
Attention means questions and there are many that I can’t afford to answer. I also worry about my mother and how this might impact her.
Lucía Vega is not my real name. It’s the name I chose when I decided to publish my book. And now it feels like I’m living vicariously through her. Lucía’s not undocumented. Lucía’s a published author, with a nice house in Los Feliz and a tattoo of the word Libertad—Spanish for freedom—next to her left breast, right over her heart. Lucía’s confident, smart and brave. When I step into her shoes, I feel like I can do anything. Be anything. In writing this book, I also wrote the ticket to my own emancipation. I’m free, at least while the world thinks I’m Lucía Vega. I’ll protect Lucía and her existence fiercely. Ana Maria De La Vega Rios—the undocumented, scared, tired girl—doesn’t exist in the reality I’ve created.
Reece Carras symbolizes everything girls like Ana aren’t supposed to dream about: Power, money, autonomy . . . sex.
But girls like Lucía Vega? They can dream about those things and they can go after them. It’s a pipe dream, but today it was close enough to touch.
My stomach grumbles and I glance at my watch. It’s getting late. Just as I’m getting ready to go inside and scrounge for dinner, Jessica pulls up in her little bright blue Mini Cooper. She’s my roommate, my friend and my inspiration. She lives her life exactly as she likes. She’s thirty-five and has been widowed for more than ten years. She’s French, came here as a student, but got married before she even graduated. Her husband died less than a year later. He left everything to her. The house, all his money—and he had a lot of it. She’s lived here ever since.
She’s never been back to France. It holds bad memories for her and she won’t talk about her life there at all. When her mother died last year, she refused her sibling’s pleas to attend the funeral. She was stone-faced as she talked about it, but I heard her sobbing in her room later on. It’s a subject that she never talks about. I have some of those too, so I don’t push.
She doesn’t need to work for the income, but she’s an artist and loves it too much not to. Amour is where she sells all of her creations, and now she has a small section for books, too.
I watch as she hops out of her car. She looks like the quintessential California girl. Blond, tall, skinny, except for her surgically enhanced breasts. Her face is Botoxed, filled and peeled to make sure that not one line creases her skin. I think she looks amazing. So does every man who lays eyes on her.
She’s a modern-day Lothario—loves them then leaves them and never looks back. She’s not cruel, but she doesn’t do attachments anymore. She always tells me that she likes her independence too much to settle down again. I think it’s because she still misses her husband.
“Bonjour, my little soufflé. Why are you sitting here looking around like you just moved here?” she asks cheerfully as she plops down into the chair next to mine. We’ve become so close. We are family to each other. She loves effusively and is generous with her affection. I love her.
“Just thinking, enjoying the nice evening before I go inside.”
“You were pretty pessimistic this morning, did the meeting at Artemis not go well?” She slings a sympathetic arm over my shoulder.
