Splitting the Difference Read online

My breathing finds its rhythm again.

  Shoulders do not feel like heaving.

  Face doesn’t feel like a pressure cooker.

  I squeeze and release my parents’ hands.

  I pack a bag for another night at The Standard.

  * * *

  From a dreamless sleep, I wake and remember why I’m in a hotel room with my parents—because he’s dead—and what I have to do today—write the obituary.

  It occurs to me that I can’t write it here, in this hotel: I will need our iMac and his music and the space to write and sob. I’m gonna have to sleep in our apartment tonight. In the bed that he—

  Every pore, every muscle, every hair on my body feels as if it’s trying to repel the rest of this sentence. I give in to the shaking and the heaving, and feel my mom wrap her arms around me. It’s not until my dad cradles my feet and prays aloud—his words floating over me, the cadence wrapping around my limbs—that my shuddering subsides.

  Someone orders coffee, along with a breakfast I stare at.

  My mom asks if I have any friends who are makeup artists? Someone who knew Alberto?

  I realize where she’s heading.

  One of my aunts owned a salon in California and she did my brother’s hair and makeup for his viewing fifteen years ago. Mom always said how grateful she was that it was done by someone who knew him.

  One name comes to mind.

  Shannon.

  The Ford makeup artist I met one fall afternoon outside the Paul Smith store in SoHo. Alberto and I were on a bike ride and we’d stopped to buy a birthday gift for my Grandpa. At the bike rack, we’d run into an ad industry pal of Alberto’s and his fiancée. The boys launched into shoptalk and Shannon and I found an easy rapport. Her fiancé had just been laid off and we discussed the situation like optimists: these moments are new opportunities in disguise and he’ll land on his feet and blah, blah, blah.

  When Alberto and I rode away, I told him that I liked her and wouldn’t mind going to dinner with them.

  Set it up, he said.

  Took two years and thirty-two emails, but we finally double-dated with the newly married Shannon and James. Last month, she and I had discussed marriage and the master cleanse over lunch and spa treatments.

  And so from this hotel room, Shannon is the makeup artist whom I text: Darling, I don’t have the words for what I need to tell you or what I’m about to ask of you . . . can u call me when u get this?

  She calls a minute later and I walk to the floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the High Line—the farthest physical place in the hotel room—and turn away from my parents, toward the City.

  Are you in a public place right now, I ask.

  I’m at home, why?

  Please sit down, because I’m about to say that Alberto died of a heart attack two days ago and I’m calling to ask if you will do his makeup for the viewing?

  Did—did you just say what I think you just said? Alberto’s . . . gone?

  I hear myself telling her I’m still in shock, which is why I’m able to make this call and ask her this question. The viewing is Friday: can she—

  I’ll do it, Tré.

  * * *

  Nikki and I have to scout locations for Alberto’s after-thing, so I meet her at the first restaurant on the list: Gusto on Greenwich Avenue. Alberto and I dined here a few times and it’s next door to our favorite and now-shuttered sushi place.

  As I stand here with Nikki and the kind restaurant manager, I recall that the word gusto actually appeared in the text of our wedding invitation.

  I think this is the right place, I inform Nikki. We don’t need to see the others.

  Someone hands us event menus and in homage to Alberto, everything we choose is either fried or made with pork.

  We’ll need to play his music, I say. Do you have an iPod dock?

  We do, the manager says.

  I ask Nikki if she can take it from here?

  She nods and I step out for a cigarette, a habit I started again yesterday. I forgot to bring matches, so when I see a petite girl smoking I head toward her. As she’s lighting my cigarette, I realize she’s one of the Olsen twins.

  * * *

  Hi Mom, I say. Just calling to say we booked a place for the after-thing. Did you guys buy a wedding ring for Alberto to wear at the viewing?

  Yes, she answers, come meet us in the Flatiron.

  When we meet, I eat my first meal in three days—a slice of pizza—and we head to the apartment, where I have a near-meltdown after my parents say they’re too exhausted for the party at Alberto’s office. His mom and sister tell me they’re sorry, but they aren’t ready to see his office yet.

  I cannot face Revolución alone so I call Mariana and ask if she’ll meet me at Alberto’s office around 9pm? And pack an overnight bag? And the spaniels?

  Of course I’ll be there, darling, she says in her Oxford accent. But . . .

  why the dogs?

  Because after this party I have to write the obituary, I say. And I can’t write it in the hotel room with my parents, which means I need to stay in the apartment tonight. And if I’m gonna to stay in the apartment again, Mariana, it needs to be very, very different than it was before this happened. And your dogs make it different. And they make me happy.

  Consider it done, she says.

  * * *

  Call me vain, but I’m not delivering Alberto’s eulogy with half-inch roots.

  En route to my salon on 23rd Street, I stop in front of El Quijote Spanish restaurant.

  We came here on the first night of our second date.

  The ten-day second date.

  He’d picked me up from JFK and hours later in his apartment, we’d realized how famished we were. I’d thrown on his dress shirt with a jean skirt and we strolled 23rd on a warm May night.

  We ended up at this Spanish place, the only restaurant open at 11pm that wasn’t a diner.

  Other than a few weeks in Spain, my experience with Spanish restaurants was confined to Mexican food in California. So with the exception of camarones and sangria, the menu at Quijote was way over my blonde head.

  I order the only two things I recognize but somewhere between his ham croquetas and chorizo, Alberto notices that I’m just moving my Shrimp That Have Heads and Eyes around on the plate.

  Is it not good? he asks.

  It’s fine, I lie.

  Well, life’s too short to eat things you don’t like, he says, signaling for the waiter to bring him the menu again.

  He orders me codfish croquetas, a green salad, and another sangria.

  That night, I caught an endearing glimpse of Alberto’s character: he didn’t believe that If-You-Order-It-You-Have-to-Eat-It and his sense of my palate was actually better than my own.

  Today, my palate is all tearwater tea and nicotine, and I’m so lost in my head that I don’t even recognize the salon owner on the street. He leads me inside, hands me a bouquet and a card signed by the stylists.

  I stare at the card for what feels like hours, unable to process all the handwriting styles in different color inks telling me how many kinds of sorry they are. I stare at the card until Nikki arrives at the salon to escort me down the street to Revolución. When the elevator opens to the third floor, Alberto’s agency is crowded and the Cuban music is appropriately loud. But when I realize how many pairs of eyes are on me, I start looking for a safe place.

  A group of friends from my former PR agency are in the darkened conference room so I head for them, arms out. We group-hug and someone hands me a drink, over which I survey the scene and Alberto’s executive space in the back of the office.

  I’m gonna need all of you to walk me there, I say, linking arms with the girls. I’m not doing this gauntlet alone.

  On the way, I am embraced by friends, strangers, people whose weddings we at
tended. It seems like hours before we reach the area where Alberto and Fico have spent half their waking lives for the last nine years.

  Maybe it’s everyone raising Havana Club shots or the music that utterly personifies him, but his empty chair does not affect me like I expected.

  His spirit is still here, I say to no one in particular, and make my way to his station.

  I look at the framed pictures of us with my love notes tucked in the corners. I sit on his desk and reread them.

  Revolución’s PR girl, Kerri, makes her way to me and we share a long hug. We talk about the music and she mentions that she queued it up for tonight.

  I ask if she’ll create a four-hour playlist for the after-thing at Gusto on Saturday?

  Me? Really? Why? she asks.

  Because you guys have the exact same taste in music, I say. So include lots of Elvis, Sammy, Sinatra, Cher, and Donna Summer. Throw in some show tunes and “Car Wash,” “Tie a Yellow Ribbon,” and “Sleigh Ride.” Don’t forget AC/DC.

  Wait, let me write all this down, she says.

  While she’s finding a pen, Nicolas, an Argentine who shares the same birthday as Alberto, starts shouting in Spanish and writes the words ¡te extrañamos! (we miss you!) with a thick Sharpie across Alberto’s huge Mac screen.

  Fico’s face goes pale as everyone else cheers and rum is poured all around.

  Glasses are raised toward his empty chair.

  His absence is officially tangible.

  I say my good-byes and exit stage left with Mariana and the spaniels.

  At the apartment, we turn up Alberto’s music and an hour in, I realize why it’s going so decently: Mariana is a former editor at Travel + Leisure. She cleans up my sentences the moment they appear on screen. She fact-checks and style-checks and grammar-checks with the speed of someone accustomed to deadlines. We finish around dawn, email it to the New York Times, and curl up with the dogs.

  I’m just tipsy and exhausted enough to not think about what happened in this bed seventy-two hours ago.

  * * *

  I’ve been dreading this moment for three days but I can’t delay it, can’t delegate it.

  I have to select Alberto’s suit.

  For his viewing.

  Last outfit he’ll ever wear.

  No pressure.

  In the past year, I can only recall him wearing four of the two-dozen suits in his closet. How do I know which suit will fit him? What if I pick one that doesn’t fit and they can’t get him into it? And should it be a winter or a spring suit? Why didn’t I pay more attention when he packed for that business trip to Chicago last month?

  Enter my father.

  Dad to the rescue.

  He takes my hands, calmly asks for a fabric measuring tape and the last pair of jeans Alberto wore. I find the measuring tape in my sewing box and hand him the jeans, belt still attached. From there, he determines which pants will fit: the black Hugo Boss pinstripe. Its matching jacket is not on the hanger or anywhere in the closet, and I’m trying not to panic as I sort through the dry cleaning that came back Saturday.

  Jacket’s not here, I announce. Must be at the office.

  I call Henry, one of Alberto’s creative directors, and ask if he’s seen the jacket?

  I haven’t, he says. But it’s probably in the lobby closet.

  Can I have the receptionist’s cell number? Maybe she’s seen the jacket?

  Henry steers me away from the panic button: I’ll go to the office early, Tré, and search for the jacket. When I find it, I’ll phone your dad so he can pick it up en route to the funeral home.

  The rest comes together in the form of a white dress shirt that was among the dry cleaning and a favorite red-and-white tie. My dad speaks “men” and reminds me that Alberto preferred a full Windsor, not a half.

  While he knots the tie, I choose black Calvin Klein boxer briefs, Paul Smith striped socks, and black Ferragamo loafers. Alberto’s red suitcase is produced and Dad folds each item with the skill of a corporate business traveler. I add the new wedding ring, Alberto’s electric clippers (hair grows after death, haven’t I read that somewhere?), and his Helmut Lang Cuiron cologne.

  When Dad zips the suitcase closed, I feel the kind of relief otherwise reserved for biopsy results coming back negative or waking from a night terror.

  My relief lasts fourteen seconds.

  Until it registers that during my wardrobe vortex, the night shift—Mariana and the spaniels—has arrived. And Mariana’s presence means my parents will go back to their hotel and I will stay here because I have to write the text for the funeral program tonight.

  The program needs to capture the essential brand of Alberto. And since all the examples I’ve found online are either bad poetry or shopworn Psalms, I’m gonna have to build it from scratch.

  * * *

  Building it takes all night and more than a few glasses of wine.

  Four sentences short of completion, I crawl into bed with Mariana and the dogs.

  I awaken two hours later to a pair of restless spaniels.

  Mariana is still sleeping, so I change out of pajamas and leash the dogs for a morning wee. I wander 23rd Street in dark sunglasses, mentally running through today’s to-do list: pick up fifty original copies of the death certificate. Meet the Insurance Guy. Place the obit in the Miami Herald. Email photos and final text for the funeral program to Henry. Decide on hymns for the service. Meet with the Brooklyn pastor recommended by our family minister on the West Coast. Choose six pallbearers and two ushers.

  What a handbag full of sunshine this day’s gonna be.

  Back upstairs with the dogs, I sit down with pen and paper. The ushers will be José and Roberto. The first five names of the pallbearers flow easily: Fico, Ramses, Nicolas, Henry, and Anthony, Barby’s husband.

  Who should be the sixth?

  I flash back to my brother’s funeral: I chose his pallbearers too. But a day or two after the service, I’d wondered why didn’t I pall-bear?

  Because, what, girls don’t pall-bear?

  I elect myself as Alberto’s sixth and call the other five guys.

  * * *

  My phone is blowing up.

  I feel obligated to answer it, but after fourteen calls in two hours asking when and where the service is, I decide to upload the logistics to Twitter and Facebook. Which should limit the queries to people who don’t use social media.

  The calls ease up.

  At the funeral home picking up death certificates, my parents arrive with the red suitcase—Henry found the suit jacket, Dad assures me—and they escort me uptown to an insurance meeting and back home.

  Between the barking spaniels and the voices of Barby, Hilda, and Mariana, the apartment’s decibel level is overwhelming—especially when I realize the text for the funeral program was due twenty minutes ago.

  I still need to write about seventy-five words, so I email Henry and ask what production’s absolute deadline is?

  Three o’clock.

  I have ninety minutes to write these sentences.

  I also have a living room full of people who are not using their inside voices.

  It seems rude to ask them to keep it down, so I launch Alberto’s music on iTunes.

  As I sit down at the computer, I see a reminder about today’s meeting with the pastor.

  I call for my father, ask him when Pastor Weinbaum’s coming over?

  4:30.

  I can do this. Right, Dad? I can finish the text by three o’clock and meet the pastor at 4:30? Right?

  You can do this, he says.

  I point my cursor at a missing line in the first paragraph.

  I stop and start.

  I stare and start.

  I stop.

  I’m distracted and annoyed by the living-room laughter, so I huff into t
he bedroom for earplugs and return to the desk. Dad follows me and cracks the window to smoke a cigarette. These days, he resembles William Shatner, which just reminds me of “Boston Legal” and how Alberto would say Denny Crane! when he did something particularly brilliant.

  I stare at the computer screen, crying softly and shaking my head. Dad sets down his cigarette to massage my shoulders. I start typing and actually finish a sentence that I don’t hate. And another one.

  He takes his hands off my shoulders, returns to his smoke.

  Wait, Dad! Come back! That’s the most I’ve written since I sat down! I need you here. Hands on shoulders, please?

  He laughs deeply, in a pitch that sounds surprised and a little flattered. He returns his hands to my shoulders and I start typing. Together we read what I’ve written aloud, tweaking a word here and there. Together we work out the final sentence and email it to Henry, who calls to say he’ll be right over with the final proof.

  * * *

  When Pastor Weinbaum arrives, people have exited and entered and I’m in the living room with Henry, doing a final edit on the funeral program.

  The pastor has a shaved head and statement glasses: two things in common with Alberto already. When he sits on our sofa, I notice his striped socks.

  You are so hired, I smile.

  After walking Henry out, I join my parents and the pastor in the living room and tell him about Alberto: how we met four years ago when I was here on business from L.A. and how he proposed with my father’s blessing on our fourth date. How he and Fico started the ad agency in this apartment nine years ago and built it into a multi-million dollar shop. How he always said he was going to retire at forty.

  I show him framed pictures of us, of him.

  I share what I know about his Miami upbringing: how his family and lifelong friends refer to him as “Albert” or “Albertico”; how his mom immigrated from Cuba on the eve of the Revolution before meeting and marrying his dad; how his father was a journalist in Cuba who escaped jail in the early ’60s to found El Patria, America’s biggest anti-Castro newspaper; how his dad died in 1993 and the family donated the El Patria papers to the University of Miami archives.

  I tell the pastor about Alberto’s younger sister Barby, who lives in Jersey and lawyers in New York; about his mom who remarried, retired, and still lives in Miami. I mention Alberto’s first marriage to an older woman whom I don’t know much about; his break with the Catholic Church; and how, on our second date, we talked about our experiences of being born again.