Unbreakable: My Story, My Way (26 page)

The following day I got a call from Pete Salgado telling me that not one but all four networks wanted my sitcom. Ten years earlier when I was driving around dropping off my demo tapes and having doors slammed in my face, I said that one day people were going to believe in the little Mexican girl from the LBC. As I climbed the ladder of my career step by step, I saw that come true. But I never imagined that four of the mainstream networks would offer me the chance to be the first Mexican woman to star in my own sitcom. This was it. This was my exit route. As I told my family, I was still in shock. I said with tears in my eyes, “They love me. They really love me.”

Three days later I had one of the most beautiful and joyful days of my life on October 6, when I threw Jenicka her quinceañera. I got to give her the quinceañera I never had, with three hundred people at a beautiful hall in Montebello. Jenicka is the one child who has never made me cry. She is this incredibly bright, sweet, beautiful person, and you can’t help but feel joy when you are around her. That’s how I felt that whole day as we were surrounded by so much love. In the
midst of one of the saddest periods of my life, I was reminded that God always provides a light.

On Wednesday, October 3, I announced the news about my sitcom and my divorce on my radio show. I was not going to give the media the control or benefit of telling my story. I was going to tell it my way. I chose to keep the details of my divorce private. I said only, “The television and news reports about the cause of the split are not true.” I admitted that I wished I had never married him and that he had done something terrible to me and I wouldn’t stand for it. But I refused to go any further into the details. To defend Esteban would be a lie. To tell the truth would be too horrible.

I missed Esteban as a companion, but I thanked God that I didn’t truly love him. If I had, his betrayals would have broken me. I was sad and hurt, but because he never truly had my heart, I knew that I would be okay.

My family had all thought this time the marriage would be forever. I said, “I have an eight-year track record. Trino was eight years, Juan was eight years. Maybe I knew Esteban wasn’t going to last forever, but I thought we would at least get the eight years.”

When we were going through the divorce, I took off my diamond wedding ring, but I still wore the black-diamond engagement ring.

“Why are you wearing that?” my family would ask.

“Because I always knew I would be a widow.”

“But he’s not dead.”

“He is to me.”

I wanted to auction off my engagement and wedding rings to save my friend Chava’s life. He was an ex-employee and so dear to me. He had leukemia and needed $200,000 for a bone-marrow transplant.
I announced the auction on my radio show with so much joy, and then Esteban’s attorney called my attorney and stated that I could not auction it. They were still negotiating the details of our divorce, and the rings could end up belonging to Esteban. I cried not to be able to hold the auction for Chava. I couldn’t believe Esteban would do such a thing, but it only confirmed to me that he was not the man I thought he was.

On December 3, 2012, I delivered a donation check to the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. I was wearing my most ghetto overalls, held together with a safety pin, as I handed over the check. I was so sad about everything that was going on in my life, and it was the one moment that made me feel as if I still had a purpose.

When I left the hospital, my car somehow made its way to Fernando’s apartment in Hollywood. I sat out front with my car still in drive, debating whether I should call him. I had not seen him since I’d married Esteban more than two years earlier. Through all of our drama, Fernando was the one man I could talk through all my shit with, and I knew he would never judge or shame me for my mistakes. More important, he was the one man who never betrayed me. On that day, I needed to remind myself that such a man existed. I needed him.

I put the car in park and called him, praying that he’d pick up.

As soon as I heard him say “Hello” I got a lump in my throat.

“Where are you?” I said.

“I’m home. Why?”

“Good. Come outside.”

He came outside and got into my passenger seat. I was crying by then.

“What’s the matter?”

“I’m divorcing Esteban.”

I’m sure he already knew either from his mother or from seeing it all over the media. But he didn’t ask me what had happened or why. Instead he made me laugh. Of course.

We got Subway and ate it on the roof of his building overlooking Hollywood and Highland. I told him everything that was going on, down to each embarrassing detail. Though he knew I should never have married Esteban, he never said it. He just let me talk. And then he leaned in and kissed me—a sweet, tender, honest kiss. Sometimes that’s all you need from a man: a good kiss, some Subway, and an ear to listen to all of the shit rattling around in your head.

Two days later I went into the radio station to do the weekly show with Rosie. We had our dad on the show that day as a special guest. We reminisced with him about “the good old days” of growing up poor in Long Beach. The Saturdays at the swap meets, selling buttons at concerts and during the 1984 Olympics. He told us again about how he had made it to America and the man at the gas station in San Diego who gave him $20, which made the rest of his life and our lives possible. Afterward Rosie and I went to the swap meet to visit the world we once knew so well, the world that helped to shape us into the adults we became.

As we walked through those old rows of tables, we talked about the sitcom deal. “How is it that these strangers see something in me that is worthy of love, but not the men closest to me?” I asked Rosie.

“You will find love one day,” she said. “A true, enduring love.”

“You’re forgetting, Sister. I already found that love onstage. My fans give me that love.”

As we walked the old path that I used to run between my parents’ booths, I remembered the simplicity of my childhood. I remembered the years when we had no money and were barely getting by, but we
had each other, and that was all that mattered. It was still all that mattered. I was so looking forward to Christmas that year. I wanted everyone to be together again, despite any arguments or differences that we may have had—I wanted every Rivera to be in the same place at the same time. I needed them all. I would always need them all.

In the middle of my reminiscing I turned to Rosie and asked, “Do you want Chinese food? I bet your baby wants Chinese food.” What that meant, we both knew, was that I wanted Chinese food even though I was on a diet.

“Yes, I think the baby does want Chinese,” Rosie said, since she knew how to play this game so well.

We ordered Chinese food and ate it in my car in an empty parking lot as we talked for hours about everything that was important and not important in life: love, sex, babies, men, a new Runner Boy, God, music, childhood memories, drunken memories, and the dreams of what was still to come.

_{On December 9, 2012,}
after performing at a concert in Monterrey, Mexico, Jenni Rivera passed away in a tragic plane crash along with four beloved members of her team—lawyer Mario Macias, publicist Arturo Rivera, makeup artist Jacob Yebale, and hairstylist Jorge “Gigi” Sanchez—as well as the pilots of the plane, Miguel Perez and Alejandro Torres. Jenni had been writing this autobiography for years, but always refused to let it go to print because she didn’t know how it should end. The truth is, the story of Jenni Rivera was never meant to have an ending. As with all true icons, her legend will endure for many lifetimes. They will be forever telling the tale of
la diva de la banda
,
la reina de reinas,
the rebel from Long Beach,
la mariposa de barrio,
the badass mother who could not be broken.

MARIPOSA DE BARRIO

Aquí estoy vengo desde muy lejos,

el camino fue negro pero al fin ya triunfé,

Me arrastré, viví todos los cambios,

y aunque venía llorando mis alas levanté.

Mariposa de barrio, la que vive cantando

La oruga ha transformado, su dolor en color.

Mariposa de barrio que vuela del aplauso

Porque fue donde encontró el verdadero amor

Vive en los escenarios.

Tócame, soy como cualquier otra,

me conquista una rosa aun creo en el amor

Ahora estoy, entre luces hermosas,

mas cuando estaba sola, sé que Dios me cuidó

Mariposa de barrio que vuela del aplauso

Porque fue donde encontró el verdadero amor

Vive en los escenarios.

Porque fue donde encontró el verdadero amor,

mariposa de barrio.

MARIPOSA DE BARRIO

Butterfly of the hood, singing live

the caterpillar has transformed her sadness into color.

Butterfly of the hood, flying from the applause

because it is where she found true love

live, onstage.

Touch me, I am like any other

a conqueror, a rose who believes in love.

Now I am among the beautiful lights

but when I was alone, it was God who took care of me.

Butterfly of the hood, singing live