All Chapters of Mi Amor: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

Jean-Jacques and I got busy. He still had to make time for his jewelry resale business, but whenever he could, he called in favors for me, setting up meetings with merchants, showing them mockups of the carts, and selling them on the benefits of setting up a pushcart in Wynwood.I made the same arguments to most of them. It was a cheap, easy way to get a foothold in a developing neighborhood. No build-out costs, short-term leases and rent only a percentage of what they sold for the first six months.One day I met with an artisan baker who owned a shop in Coconut Grove. I desperately wanted him to lease one of the pushcarts, with the idea that if he did well enough, he’d open a second full-scale outlet. “We’re expecting a lot of foot traffic,” I said as I tried to convince him. He was a tall, skinny guy with a buzz cut, a former Marine who had discovered baking as a way to cope with PTSD. There were regularly articles about him in the paper, and the lines at his bakery sometimes stretc

We were fine for another few days, until I handed him a lease for a pushcart vendor that I’d worked hard to negotiate. I just needed his signature to seal the deal. “Patriamos?” he asked. “The word doesn’t mean anything.”“It’s the name of his organization,” I said. “Do you know what Birthright is for Jews?”“That group that gives college kids a free trip to Israel?”I nodded. “That’s what his group does. They give Cuban-American teenagers and college kids an all-expense-paid trip to Cuba for a week so they can get in touch with their roots. The profits from their merchandise sales go to support the programs.”“That’s a stupid idea,” Javier said. “They want to go to Cuba? Let them do what I do, volunteer, build something, make things better.”“It’s not stupid,” I said. “And he sells cool stuff, right for the neighborhood. Cigar-clippers, guayaberas, domino games, pots to make café Cubano. He’s got contacts lined up in Cuba and as soon as the import regulations lift he’ll start selling

I woke with a sour taste in my mouth. What if Wynwood Columns was a big flop, and its failure destroyed Javier’s business, because he’d bet everything he had on it? That could leave us both out of work. And because Javier had mortgaged the condo at the Madrigal, we could be homeless as well. And of course the wedding would be off. We couldn’t afford a party if we couldn’t put a roof over our heads or food on the table.We had only a week to go before the grand opening of Wynwood Columns, and Javier spent all his time on the mainland, leaving behind the beach, while I was at the office most of the time, handling dozens of small details from chasing down attorneys and leases to sourcing party favors. It was doubly hard because everything had to be done on the cheap, and I called in every favor I was owed, relying on every emotion from guilt to greed to get what I needed.Late one afternoon I was all alone in the office, and I started to worry. What if this physical distance was just a m

We fell into bed together and slept until mid-morning Sunday, when I got up, fixed us omelets and bacon, and we hashed over the details of the night before. Javier had a half-dozen solid prospects for the condos, and he’d impressed a number of local real estate agents. The buzz at the party had been superb, and it looked like we were going to be a great addition to the Wynwood scene.I waited until a few days had passed, and Javier had contracts on two more of the condos, before I brought up the question of setting the wedding date again.“I don’t know, mi amor,” he said. “Maybe it’s not such a good idea right now. Just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s right for us.”I opened my mouth to argue. What had happened to “I’d marry you today if I could?” But I already knew what the problem was. His parents. Until they came around to the idea of their precious boy married to another man, my wedding plans were on hold.Over the next few days, I thought about the issue. It wasn’t about the

“I have something I would like to show you about Javier, if you would allow me,” I said, when she and I were in the living room with Javier’s father. They didn’t seem to know how to say no, so I hooked everything up, chatting nervously in a mix of English and Spanish, until I had a picture of Javier as a little boy up on the screen.“Ay, mi hijito,” his mother said.I launched into my story. Javier as a boy, cleaning up at construction sites, playing baseball, graduating from high school with honors. His parents were smiling and happy, adding in their own comments to each other.The last pictures were of Javier and me together—dancing at a party on South Beach, walking barefoot on the beach during one of Javier’s summer visits to New Jersey, us posed together in front of the Wynwood Columns sign.I left that last picture up on the screen. “Javier loves you very much, and I know he misses having you in his life right now. Wynwood Columns is his biggest success so far, and it would be s