IT'S media day for Gloria Estefan and a flock of journalists - ranging from a Time magazine reporter to a talk show host billed as the "Oprah of Brazil" - has assembled at Gloria's second house in Florida. The house is all white wood floors and huge leaning mirrors.
For the first time in five years Gloria is back on tour supporting her new album, Destiny, and back on the bus again after the 1990 accident that almost paralysed her.
The American segment included bread and butter towns such as Buffalo and Albuquerque, as well as glory train stops - in particular, the Olympic closing ceremonies.
At the time of this interview, Gloria was planning to tour Europe, Latin America, Asia and beyond there was promotion to be done, and Estefan Enterprises never fools around when it comes to its No 1 product.
Commerce is at work, and the house crackles with an urgent buzz as TV camera crews set up amid courtesy buffet tables and publicists on cellular alert.
And then the focus of all the attention arrives by golf cart from her even more major property down the road, where she lives with husband, Emilio and her two children, the teenage Nayib and the 21 month old Emily.
As usual, Gloria is in fighting shape, looking smart in linen pants, a walking conglomerate who promptly apologises for being slightly late.
Polite to a fault, she has an uncanny knack for deflecting the coruscations of envy, a combination of plain good manners and a frankness about coming from nothing.
The former Gloria Fajardo grew up amid considerable hardship - recording an unreleased single The Carpenters' Superstar, at the age of 12 with her cousin - then ploughed along in the trenches until the Miami Sound Machine became Miami's best known cultural export.
Even while she recounts the operating details of a portable pop empire, it's impossible not to like her.
"We bought this house for Emilio's parents, but they thought it was too big so we built them a cottage in front. We're going to either keep it as a guest house - like if Quincy Jones comes in and wants to stay here or rent it seasonally, make some of the taxes back. My place is darker, more Indonesian or Eastern in feeling, sort of temple like.
"It looks like one house, but we really joined two together. One has a gym, a library, a movie theatre and party rooms - a separate entertainment centre. The other house is for the family, with a big playroom for Emily.
"We've been in construction hell for two years, and now that it's finished we're leaving. I'm both dreading being on tour and looking forward to it, although my schedule is actually easier - I only have to do one thing a day, unlike now with the rehearsals and the interviews.
"A caterer comes with us on tour, although we'll all go to dinner sometimes, a quiet place during the off hours. Nayib has a tutor and Emily stays with me all day: the gym with my trainer, makeup before the show, whatever.
"For long distances, we'll fly private, but I'll have a play area for Emily on the bus. And when there's a little kid around you have to watch things, so I have security on tour. My guards are very low key. If you're always travelling with big bodyguards, you re just calling attention to yourself. Usually, I don't need security here: People on the beach are used to seeing celebrities.
"To think that my name on a piece of paper means something is still pretty cool. In 20 years, I've never had any trouble anywhere: if they didn't ask for an autograph, it'd be worrisome.
Unlike the current crop of nouveau Miami celebrities, Gloria is a Cuban girl who remained in her hometown, made good in the world at large and stayed one very tough sweetheart.
Long before the media blitz period, Gloria and the Miami Sound Machine were on the high end of hired entertainers, but pretty much part of the scenery.
As the Miami Herald's social columnist, I'd forever find myself in conga lines with bejewelled and bedazzled socialites, chugging around some turgid hotel ballroom to the band's patented Latin fever medleys.
They were a tight group, but no one would have predicted a future adorned with two Grammy Awards and 50 platinum albums.
No matter how far you go in life, the struggling years are heightened by the balm of nostalgia, more honest and clear somehow.
"Those early days of playing parties were amazing. We'd work like crazy. You used to see some funny stuff, though. The best was once where the girl was supposed to come out of this big cake, and then she got stuck in side the thing.
"The Anglo market didn't know who we were, but we had already done seven albums before Conga broke, going back to Renacer in 1976. That album became a huge hit in Latin American, the first time anyone had crossed over to all the different countries at once.
"Sometimes we'd go down there and play a stadium, then come back and do a wedding for 200 people. So it really gave me a clear picture of what this business can be like.
"Once this guy was standing right in front of the stage, making a cut the show motion across his throat. Emilio was yelling, `She's not a machine,' and then he almost threw his accordian at him. The hosts were always interrupting your songs, usually for something food related, and a lot of the people wouldn't let you eat anything."
Now, of course, the Estefans' can buy and sell most of their former clients, though typically enough, Gloria displays no apparent bitterness.
It must have been tempting to work the foreign market where she was already becoming popular, but she stayed the course of the crossover dream: "To get out of the party circuit we started asking for ridiculous prices, but people kept on paying before we made a decision to stop completely. But those parties gave us a chance to test Conga with different audiences and the Anglos. Then we really planned and wrote for Primitive Love in 1985 - the first big international album.
"SOMETIMES the pressure can get to you. When I sang live at the Oscars, a billion people were watching if you screw up, you screw up big.
"I've always been fortunate to have fans who are loyal, but I can't expect it to last forever. The natural law of this business is to have peaks and valleys and there are always going to be a million new people doing interesting things.
"It has taken me a long time to get to this point, and I've learned to enjoy it - that's the bottom line. This life is my reality now."