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“Soon, I hope.”
“Fine.” Salvador pouts and slumps lower in his chair.
Holly rolls her hand in a tell-me-more gesture. “Describe this itch.”
“My show.” He shakes his head. “It’s shit, right now. I’m stuck. At the worst possible moment.”
“I thought you were putting the final touches on it?”
“Those are the most important ones!” he cries. “All the subtle little modifications. The fits and the accessories. They make or break the designs! It’s hopeless! I’m desperate for inspiration.”
“And you think you’ll find it in Adderall?”
“I’m sure as hell not finding it in espresso.”
She nods. “You’re struggling with your fear of failure again, aren’t you?”
“It’s no fear!” he cries. “Right now, it’s a foregone conclusion.”
“This is what we talked about, Salvador. You know that’s not rational. Look where you are in your professional life. What you’ve accomplished. By the age of thirty.”
“Thirty!” His laugh is frantic. “You want to me list all the designers who were the shit at thirty and nonexistent by forty? A designer’s life span is shorter than a hamster’s.”
“Any form of celebrity can be fleeting.”
“Don’t you get it, Doc? I can’t afford one wrong turn. There are no second chances in my business.”
“Is that it? Or are you really afraid of being exposed for the impostor you think you are?”
“I’ve been an impostor my whole miserable life,” he grumbles.
Holly has heard this before, but she senses that he needs to get it off his chest again. “Tell me about that.”
“Growing up in East LA and being all this?” He sweeps his hand along his torso and groans. “All the other boys obsessed with basketball, cars, and chicas. And little fifí me, who’d rather stay home watching Project Runway.”
“You never felt accepted.”
“Accepted?” His laughter is brittle. “I had to be an impostor just to stay alive! At school, I faked machismo. At least, my version of it. But the bullies, they saw right through me.”
Holly’s heart goes out to him. But she stays quiet, permitting him the time and space to express himself on his own terms.
“From day one, I knew how different I was,” he says. “How fluid.”
“Sexually?”
“That, too. Most people don’t believe me, but I actually prefer women. For company and sex. Who knows? If I’d heard of nonbinary when I was growing up, I might have identified as that. Instead of the freak the other kids saw me as.” His voice cracks. “Accepted? At fourteen, I would’ve killed to have just been left alone to my dreams and my designs.”
“I’m sorry, Salvador,” Holly says. “What about your family?”
“My sisters didn’t get me. Even Papi. He tried, but I was like an alien to him. I just embarrassed him.” He swallows. “Only Mamá. She always got me. We’re alike that way. We both live for beauty.”
“I admire you, Salvador. I do. The strength it took to get where you are.” Holly extends her hand to him. “But this fear of being exposed. After all you had to go through. It seems to be a huge trigger for you.”
Sitting up straighter, he stares helplessly at her. “How does that help me? Trigger or not, I’ve got a gun to my head. This new show. What I need now is another ketamine trip. Either that or to go back to the street stuff.”
“Don’t do that, Salvador.”
“Will you help me?”
