Adventures of a Salsa Goddess Read Online Free PDF Page A

the rest of the day trying to do as little as possible. I unpacked my carry-on suitcase, finished reading the paper, and went out to my balcony, where I must’ve dozed off, since the downstairs buzzer woke me at six.
    I opened the door to a stunning woman with a pierced navel and a blue and gold shooting-star tattoo soaring over her belly button. Her wild auburn, strawberry, and cherry hair was gelled into crazy two-inch spikes, and big silver hoop earrings dangled from her ears.
    “Can I help you?” I asked, thinking it might be the apartment manager or a neighbor wanting to share some of that famous Milwaukee gemutlichkeit .
    “Sam, don’t you recognize me?” she said, throwing her arms around my neck and giving me a hug, which was followed by one of those awkward it’s-good-to-see-you-and-I-want-to-look-you-over-to-see-how-three-years-have-changed-you-but-don’t-want-to-be-impolite-and-stare moments. I couldn’t get over how different she looked.
    “Lessie, wow, you look fantastic!” I said finally, not wanting to bring attention to her weight loss directly.
    “You do too!” she assured me cheerfully. “You haven’t changed at all except, what happened to all your hair?”
    I’d had shoulder-length straight blond hair my entire life up until three years ago when, in a post-ex-fiance-David-break-up-frenzy, I’d had my hair chopped off the very day that we were supposed to get married. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the fact that he loved my long blond hair and had told me that several times a week for the entire three years we’d been together.
    “I have the same question for you,” I said, looking at her short spiky locks, which seemed to change color as the sun hit them when she walked across my living room.
    The first time I’d seen Lessie had been in the bathroom of our dorm during our freshman year at Brown University. I’d noticed her hair immediately. She’d had magnificent hair, the kind that was capable of launching a thousand ships—waist-length, thick as molasses, golden blond, and perfectly straight. Lessie had always been pretty, but I’d never seen her wear makeup and her weight had always been a problem. Every year she’d added another five to ten pounds, and by the time we’d graduated, she must have been close to two hundred. But Steve, her fiance, at six foot five and probably fifty pounds lighter, had loved her exactly as she was. After graduation, they moved to Milwaukee, Steve’s hometown, and were married six months later. Three years ago, just before David and I had broken up, Lessie had come to visit me in New York just after she’d filed for divorce and when she’d still looked like the Lessie I’d known in college. It was the last time I’d seen her, but we’d been in constant contact via e-mail and telephone since that visit.
    Lessie, a high school art teacher, stood in the center of my living room and looked around, hands on her narrow hips. She wore a cropped white halter top, white Capri pants encircled by a hip-hugging silver chain -link belt, and white sling-back sandals. I glanced down at her hipbones jutting out through the thin material of her cotton pants.
    “When I lost all my weight after my divorce, the biggest thrill of my life was discovering I actually have hipbones just like everyone else,” she said. “But I have to be careful, if I so much as think about ice cream, I gain five pounds.”
    Men don’t know how easy they have it. If one of their buddies whom they hadn’t seen in a few years had lost a lot of weight, they’d either avoid the topic altogether (impossible among Venetians) or say something like, What the hell happened to your fat ass and beer gut? Women on the other hand must follow the unwritten rule of never calling attention to physical imperfections, former or present, because when we look into the mirror, we see every facial hair, trace of a wrinkle, and cellulite molecule beginning to form on our thighs. But bald,