Splitting the Difference

by Tre Miller Rodriquez

  I think you should go, she says.

  I decide on a hat, kiss Hilda’s cheek, and hail a cab downstairs.

  * * *

  I’m Alberto, he had said, shaking my hand.

  The man—shaved head, statement glasses, sport jacket, jeans—had charisma from here to Sunday.

  And it was only Tuesday.

  It would have been just any Tuesday if I hadn’t been in New York on business.

  If my cousin Brent hadn’t cancelled for a client party I was hosting and sent a proxy.

  If the proxy hadn’t brought me to Soho House and introduced me to Alberto.

  Instead, a Tuesday in May 2005 became The Night We Met.

  Alberto and I ordered the same bottle of beer and sat in the billiard room, trading industry stories. He was in advertising and I was in PR so we discussed branding and favorite campaigns and partnerships. He was charming, eloquent, and had a laugh that made me want to hear it again.

  I had spent the next hour earning his laughter until the proxy, Dave, interrupted to take us to a Brazilian club downtown. On the street, Dave and his boss were trying for a cab as Alberto and I leaned against a shop window, shoulders touching.

  When Dave beckons, we start toward them, but I halt a few steps away.

  Or . . . we could just go to your place?

  Alberto raises his arm and whistles.

  Catch you guys later, he shouts and pulls me toward our cab.

  We find each other’s lips and don’t come up for air until we reach his Chelsea building.

  As we’re about to go inside, he asks if I do this often?

  Seriously? I say, and take a step back.

  Wait—no! he laughs. I didn’t—

  Too late, asshole, I shrug. Going back to my hotel.

  He follows me with an apology: Come on! I was kidding! I’m sorry! Just come up? One drink?

  I ignore him and hold my stance: one foot on the sidewalk, one arm up.

  Seriously, my bad, he says.

  Whatever, I mutter.

  I’m sorry, Tré. I didn’t mean to insult you.

  Too late, I say.

  (Damn, where are the cabs tonight?)

  I’m an idiot, he pleads. Forgive me?

  He doesn’t look like a dick.

  He actually seems sorry.

  I drop my taxi stance but give him the once-over.

  One drink, mister, I say. And then you’re fired.

  I’ll take it, he says, reaching for my hand.

  His hand takes me through the lobby, into the elevator, and up sixteen floors.

  His apartment is dark but through his southern exposure windows, there’s a sweeping downtown view with a slice of the Hudson River.

  He turns on a lamp in a custom-built wall cabinet and I observe one of the tidiest, best-appointed bachelor pads I’ve ever seen.

  A sleek gray, eight-foot sofa, black coffee table, and club chair are surrounded by original paintings and photography on every inch of wall.

  He removes his jacket and I take a seat, complimenting his neatness, to which he credits the housekeeper who comes twice a week.

  He produces a chilled bottle of Patron Silver, along with shot glasses made from hand-painted pottery.

  As I fill the glasses, modern Cuban music floods the apartment and from somewhere in the library-esque wall cabinet, he brings a bag of coke and sets out the necessary accoutrements.

  I raise my eyebrows, ask if he does this often?

  He smiles at my jab.

  Only on special occasions, he says.

  After we’re married, I’ll realize he isn’t lying. Over the next four years, we’ll party like this exactly twice: Halloween 2005 and New Year’s 2006.

  And, I tease, how do you know this is a special occasion?

  He kneels down on the white mohair rug and kisses me. When he bites my lip, I press myself into him. He reciprocates before pulling back and handing me the straw.

  Ladies first.

  A scholar and a gentleman, I say.

  I lean over and do the line.

  Fuck, it’s strong, I exclaim.

  He does his line and wordlessly exits the room.

  From another part of the apartment, his voice reaches me.

  With a mouth like that, you ought to be spanked.

  Yeah, well, bend me over, baby, I laugh.

  He returns to the living room, smacking a riding crop on the palm of his hand.

  I stop laughing.

  Are you prepared to put your money where your mouth is?

  Maybe, I say, leaning into his sofa.

  He tells me to stand up, turn around, and place my palms on the sofa.

  His words instantly arouse me. None of my long-term boyfriends embraced my spanking fetish, but apparently, this half-stranger already has.

  I assume the position, but as he’s running the crop down my bare legs, I have a sudden flash of a scene from the book American Psycho.

  Can I make a request? I ask.

  Yes.

  Will you keep one hand on my hip at all times?

  I do not say it’s because I’m not sure his free hand won’t choke me.

  Or stab me.

  He agrees, hoists my dress around my waist and my underwear down to my knees. Placing one hand on my hip, he does not wield the crop like an amateur.

  Oh.

  My.

  The pleasure is exquisite.

  I want to lose myself in the moment, but I don’t completely trust him.

  I focus on a light across the Hudson, trying to keep my wits about me.

  But.

  It’s so good.

  And the crazy rush of cocaine.

  Oh.

  My.

  Five minutes into a first-class lashing, he stops. Runs his fingers over his handiwork, coaxes my dress down and disappears.

  I do not move my palms from the sofa.

  He reappears with a glass of water, extends it toward me.

  So this means I’m allowed to move? I ask.

  Yes, he laughs, and I join him on the sofa, as if we just returned from a trip to the drycleaners or the market.

  We make eye contact, smile, and kiss.

  More shots, more lines, more spankings, and as the sun comes up, we’re sprawled on his furry area rug.

  I’m wearing nothing but his shirt—initials monogrammed on the cuff—while he shows me portfolios of black-and-white photographs he’s taken of Cuba, Buenos Aires, nude ex-girlfriends.

  We split an E pill and spill our stories, our messy pasts, our idiosyncrasies.

  Around 8am, he tells me he’s calling into work, taking the day off.

  Change your flight, he says, stay a few more days with me.

  I should go—

  He hands me his credit card.

  I obey.

  After calling the airline, I head to my midtown hotel, where I pack my things, change clothes, and check out.

  When I return to his building on 23rd Street, I tell the doorman I’m here to see Alberto Rodríguez.

  He smiles and says, But of course, Mrs. Rodríguez.

  I stammer—still high—and say I’m not Mrs. Rodríguez.

  Then maybe I should call security? Because I was told to send Mrs. Rodríguez right up.

  Well, then. Send me right up?

  He winks and reminds me that it’s 16D.

  * * *

  Did you sleep, Hilda asks when Alberto’s alarm clock wakes us at 6:15am.

  Not much, I admit, glaring at the alarm clock.

  I tried to set it when we were first married but the radio went off instead of the beep, so I just stuck with the alarm on my cell. I hate that he’s not here to adjust it for me, and that I didn’t demand a tu
torial when he was.

  After five blonde minutes, I manage to cancel the daily alarm, which gives me a sense of accomplishment while I pack for a spontaneous trip to L.A. for Mother’s Day.

  Until 12:20pm, when the clock starts screaming from the bedroom.

  I unplug it from the wall.

  * * *

  How did I book this flight to L.A. without realizing the significance of the date or the destination?

  But here I am, at the airport, reliving every detail of May 5, 2005, right down to the morning slant of light.

  It was three days after we met and I had an 8:30am flight back home to L.A.

  Alberto had made espressos at 6am and accompanied me downstairs.

  As I got into the car, I wrote him into my memory as the best three-night stand I’d ever had. But when I pulled away from his building, he’d blown a kiss and lingered until my car was out of sight. It was a gesture that made me wonder if that’s all it was? After all, how many three-night stands give you their credit card and ask you to stay a few more days? How many carry your suitcase downstairs at six in the morning and see you off? Text you twice before you reach LaGuardia and twice more before you land at LAX? Send you a flower arrangement the size of a Saturn a day later?

  Alberto knew this wasn’t a three-night stand, and, soon enough, I did too.

  I’m the White Elephant in the Room?

  Flashbacks of breakfast, the upstairs

  guest room, the jacuzzi.

  Memorial Weekend? Yeah. No shit.

  (May 23, 4:34pm via Twitter)

  * * *

  Out in the California desert, the world has moved on.

  Gone are my parents’ sensitive tones and patience. My dad is back to irritable and my mom is back to endless narration: Just looking for my brush . . . gonna wear my flat shoes . . . just need to do my mascara.

  I float through their house with no daily goals other than a book, a beer, and a bikini.

  Every evening, we lay out appetizers and alcohol: people come over and people leave.

  This will happen all week because high-school friends have asked to “stop by.”

  Over a drink at a local dive, Tony Papa explains why these girls keep coming out of the woodwork.

  Hate to be the messenger, he says, but it’s because you’re the white elephant in the room.

  What the hell does that mean? I ask.

  You’re tangible proof of their worst-case scenario. You’re the thing everyone’s aware of . . . but no one wants to talk about.

  What are you saying? I ask. I’m a one-widow freak show?

  Tré, my dear, only a handful of these people care. The rest are just curious. They’ve never seen a white elephant before and they want to know what it looks like: Will it eat? Will it cry? Can it converse like the rest of us or only in white elephant-ese?

  So, I sigh. I’m the white elephant.

  Another round, please, bartender?

  * * *

  Like every night since March 15th, I’m craving the sound of Alberto’s laughter.

  His contagious, guttural laughter.

  And tonight, I’m just drunk enough to let myself think about Amoun: the only other man whose laughter I’ve craved. Last I heard, Amoun is alive and well and still lawyering in Santa Monica. Tonight, I could use some laughter and I’m just sober enough to dial digits I haven’t considered in five years.

  Three wrong numbers later, I hear his hello.

  Shit! What’s my opening?

  Hi, it’s Tré? Make me laugh?

  Hello?

  I hear the half-smile in his voice.

  What the luck do I say to the only other man I was in love with?

  The only other man I wanted to marry?

  The only other man who broke my stupid heart?

  We’d met in June 2002.

  At a dinner party in Old Town Pasadena.

  He was engaging, Egyptian, and well dressed.

  We were the only guests whose significant others weren’t in attendance, so our hostess seated us together.

  Over Verve remixes of Nina Simone and red wine, I learned that his girlfriend was in Vegas for the week and he learned that my paparazzi boyfriend was “sitting” on Nicole Kidman’s house. We had an alma mater in common—Go Bears!—as well as the same Jerky Boys sense of humor. The chemistry was undeniable, as was the understanding we were both in relationships that weren’t entirely unsatisfying.

  We parted with a long hug and without asking for the other’s last name.

  Fast forward to Halloween 2003.

  A party in Hollywood.

  He was dressed as a surgeon and I was a schoolgirl.

  You? Again! he exclaimed, pulling me into a hug.

  But this time, I’m single! I laughed.

  Me too, he whispered.

  We flirted, exchanged phone numbers and last names.

  He picked me up two weeks later for a spirited night that began with dinner in Santa Monica but somehow devolved into every L.A. cliché you’ve ever heard: coke vials, hotel parties, valet parking, and C-list celebrities.

  Still.

  He left me surprised and breathless.

  Wanting more.

  Our second date was a weekend road trip to San Francisco.

  Kinky-ish sex in a Union Square hotel.

  Crepes in the Mission.

  Making out at the Museum of Modern Art.

  Dinner at my favorite Japanese place in Berkeley.

  A nostalgic, hand-held stroll across campus.

  On Sunday night at the Oakland airport, he kissed my hand and drove toward Oregon for a solo quail-hunting trip.

  We reunited in L.A. a few nights later, and between sashimi courses, I reached for his hand.

  Hey, I said. This thing we’re doing? It’s better than anything I’ve experienced. It’s also more intense than I expected. That being said, I’m compelled to repeat what I said in San Francisco.

  Which part, he asked.

  The part where I told you how I feel about kids. I really can’t promise I’ll want to have them in the future, so seriously, Amoun, if it’s gonna be a “thing” with you, this is the moment to speak up.

  Listen, Tré, he said, I’m in love with you. And even though I’ve always pictured myself as a father, if this is what you come with, then it’s what you come with.

  He leaned across the table, kissed me and thus began the giddiest chapter of my twenty-eight-year-old life.

  I couldn’t imagine spending the rest of my life with anyone . . . until Amoun. Suddenly, all that crap I decided in college? Everything I’d told my parents about avoiding the institution of marriage?

  Yeah.

  Never mind.

  I’m in love.

  Compared with Amoun, my previous boyfriends were just that: boys. Amoun was a Santa Monica homeowner and an entertainment lawyer who moved in circles of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and lobbyists. He introduced me to the music of Jobim and Coltrane, the films of Pedro Almódovar, the world of gourmet chocolate. I was a freelance publicist with too many credit cards, coasting toward my next project with no life plan. But in L.A., if you’re a Berkeley blonde who looks good in a bikini, you can pretty much fake it ’til you make it.

  Five months after my first date with Amoun—we’d met each other’s families and spent the holidays together in Mexico—he came to my West Hollywood bungalow to pick me up for dinner.

  I wrapped my mouth and arms around him at the door.

  Good to see you, baby, he said. How was your flight?

  I’d just spent five days in New York on business and my unpacked luggage was still in the living room.

  Uneventful, I said. But come in—apologies for the mess. Can I get you a drink?

  Actually, yes, he said, following
me into the kitchen.

  Drinks in hand, we proceeded to the bedroom, where he settled on my bed and I ducked into my walk-in to finish dressing.

  What do you want to do, he called.

  Maybe that Thai spot off La Brea? I suggested.

  Can we stay in? he asked. How about pizza from that place on Hollywood Boulevard?

  I’m game, I said, closing the closet and picking up the phone.

  Pizza ordered, I curled into bed beside him.

  Amoun responded by shifting away and clearing his throat.

  Tré, he said. We have to talk.

  As compared to what we’re doing now?

  No, I mean, we need to talk.

  Okay, what? I teased. You breakin’ up with me or something?

  He winced.

  Um, I said. This is where you say you’re not breaking up with me.

  He met my gaze with a look I’d never seen before: pleading but steely.

  I recoiled.

  Amoun? What the hell?

  Tré, he said. I’m sorry, but there’s no easy way to say this. It’s just that I’ve realized I want to spend my life with someone who . . . wants kids.

  Kids?

  You’re . . . kidding?

  I wish I were, he said.

  But I was straight with you from the get-go—you said it wasn’t a thing!

  I’ve had time to think, he said, slowly. And I’ve changed my mind.

  You’ve “changed your mind.” How awesome for you! Do you even know if you can make babies? I mean, what if you’re shooting blanks?

  He exhaled a laugh.

  I don’t know, he admitted, but—

  But what? We’re breaking up anyway?

  Well. Yeah.

  You’re a lawyer, I said. I know how you roll. And frankly, I find your excuse a little too convenient. The one thing that’s non-negotiable, Amoun? The one fucking thing? Why aren’t you telling me I drink too much or think too much or wear pink too much? Why aren’t you telling me it’s something I can actually change?

  Because it’s none of those things, he said. It’s kids. Simple as that.

  I glared at him.

  I should probably go, he said.

  Smartest thing you’ve said all night, I muttered.

  Walking him out, I suddenly remembered his birthday present: a dress shirt I’d just bought for him in New York.

  So much for planning ahead, I fumed, and unzipped my carry-on bag.