Splitting the Difference_A Heart-Shaped Memoir by Tre Miller Rodriguez

Author:Tre Miller Rodriguez [Rodriguez, Tre Miller]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B00FHFNUP0
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2013-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

Four years ago today, we stood in a private garden at Paradise Point in San Diego.

We exchanged vows, laughter, and a few happy tears at sunset.

I was, as the florist put it, the calmest bride she’d ever met.

There was a reason.

And it wasn’t Valium.

It was because Alberto planned everything.

While I was busy storing, selling, or shipping everything in my West Hollywood home, he was designing the wedding invitation. Researching jazz trios and photographers. Creating the four-hour song list.

As I wrapped my last chaotic week at work, he chose the cake designer and selected matching shirts and ties for him and my father. Planned the menu from three thousand miles away. Recruited Fico to help him taste and pair wines for each course.

My responsibilities?

Pick the wedding location, find a dress, book the florist, and plan the engagement party. After that? Just write my vows and show up. Only now do I fully appreciate the magnitude of his planning and his attention to detail. Only now do I recognize how rare a groom he was.

I spend the afternoon writing an anniversary card to him and fielding calls from the office. Maggie arrives just before sunset, and we tie my card to eight balloons—remembered the hole-punch this time—and watch them disappear into the ether. Afterward, we dress for dinner at a place Alberto would have liked, order a big bottle of champagne, and finish it in our suite.

* * *

Lounging at the pool today, Maggie and I do our best to ignore the loud, forty-something men with the corner beach cabana. But around sunset, we accept their invitation to join them for a drink and later, in the casino and VIP section of a club.

Gorgeous Bahamian girls refill our glasses and give lap dances to the men, who do not hit on us or drop pills into our drinks. They just cheer as we dance together, alone and with other girls. I’m feeling the music and energy and champagne so I dance for hours. We close the place, not being allowed to pay for a thing, and head back to The Cove.

It’s the kind of night that often happens with Maggie.

It’s the kind of night I’ve needed all summer.

* * *

An afternoon storm postpones our scheduled swim with dolphins so Maggie and I find ourselves in the hotel room watching TV. Since Ted Kennedy died on my wedding anniversary and it’s been four years since Hurricane Katrina, the news channels are a litany of misery. Watching CNN’s broadcast of Kennedy’s funeral at Arlington, I’m surprised that cameras have been granted access to such a deeply personal ritual. I feel like a voyeur, but find myself flippantly observing the details of the service.

Hydrangeas for an August service in D.C.?

Those flowers wilt in five minutes.

But holding the internment at dusk?

So apropos.

I announce to Maggie that if I ever plan another funeral, it will be held at sunset: the somber, shadowed setting is pitch-perfect.

Let’s hope you never have to plan another funeral, she says.

Touché, I agree.

When I realize dusk is falling, I turn off the TV.

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