Ross & Joaquin A Modern Love Story
Preface
Joaquin stood at the edge of the manicured lawn, facing the crowd on the patio of Mason Taylor's ocean-side Malibu home, the house which had served as a party platform, a meeting place for Presidential candidates and Governors, journalists and financiers and chefs and hobbits and surfers and beach bums and family and friends. Joaquin was addressing the crowd, a gathering of the many friends he had known over the years who now came to bestow his ashes to the sea which he loved.
"Ross loved all of you and would be quite overwhelmed at this gathering here today; he had a few faults- don't we all? but chiefly he could never quite find the words to express his emotions publicly, as you may recall. But he did love you, even if you never heard him say it; he said it to me often, always remembering the kindnesses you expressed toward him and to both of us."
Chapter One
Mario Garza, his husband Peter Schilling, Peter's nephew Sam Stephenson and Sam's husband Mickey Clarke, formerly Mario's PA and now law firm managing partner, as well as Mason's nephew Stuart Warden and his husband Raj Acharya, along with Raj's sister Aneth (Professor Aneth Acharya Simmons, PhD.), and Carlos, the Venezuelan emigre adopted by Mario and Mason, and nearly one hundred others- the paparazzi, the best and beautiful of California politics, journalism, finance, communications, and entertainment- had gathered to remember Dr. Ross James and his place in their lives.
"This home, this beautiful place overlooking the broad blue Pacific, was the dream of Mason Taylor, but I will leave that story for others to tell. But this home, which many of you have visited in the past, was a place of refuge, a place of unsurpassed beauty, a quiet haven that rescued many of us from the challenges of modern society, and it was special to Ross as well."
"Mason, the excellent host and perfect party-giver, used this home to launch my romance with Ross, and I am deeply sad that Mason is not here today so that I may properly thank him for that."
Joaquin stopped, dabbed at his eyes, turned his back on the crowd and stared out at the sea for a long moment; returning to his thoughts, he resumed.
"Here we witnessed the marriage of Mason and Mario; we held a memorial service for Mason; we witnessed the marriage of Mario and his wonderful husband Peter Schilling; we watched lives grow and mature and change and evolve, including Mario and Peter and their many family and friends, Sam, Mickey, Stuart, Raj, Carlos, but especially Ross and myself."
He was silent again; how do you put into words in just a few minutes the encapsulation of lives well-spent, a love that had grown into a vintage twining of two very different spirits?
"I want to tell you that Ross and I had a perfect love affair; however, that would not be true. We fought like cats and dogs; but I suppose that every married couple, given enough time, will find the time and space to fight, to apologize, to compromise, to heal, and to evolve. So did we. But what we brought to our love affair, like many others, like many of you, was an appreciation for the unique gifts of the other: I saw in Ross a capacity for taking huge leaps of faith and loving me despite my quirks and my idiosyncrasies and my short temper and my jealousies. What he saw in me was huge, also, or so he said from time to time."
Joaquin let that last thought sink in for a moment, and only about a third of the crowd got the inference; there was light laughter, and then he continued.
"Ross James and Mason Taylor had been lovers, but by the time I was introduced to them they were no longer boyfriends but had become good friends, still very committed to each other, a friendship which lasted a lifetime or two. We met in my art gallery up here near Topanga Canyon, and eventually Ross and I were married, became business partners, opened our gallery in Beverly Hills, and I guess this is the part where I am supposed to say we lived happily ever after."
Now there was a bigger response from the crowd; the laughter was much larger.
"But we did not. We did, however, learn to accommodate each other, we learned how to compromise, we learned how to pack for the weekend instead of for a safari, (more laughter) and we learned how to cook. Believe it or not, when we met, neither of us could cook: and after a while, even in southern California, you get tired of take-out."
More laughter and lots of smiles.
"And we learned the most important thing in any relationship: we learned how to give each other space, and time, and distance. Not too much distance, not too much time, but just enough. And that saved us."
"So, to each of you, thank you for being here today, thank you for loving Ross and loving me as well, despite our quirks, and thank you for being a part of what I consider to be a big crazy warm wonderful family."
There was a hush; the crowd was reverently remembering the man who had touched each of their lives. Joaquin sat down, and Mario stood, and announced they would walk down to the edge of the cold dark blue Pacific and commit the ashes of Ross, like they had committed the ashes of Mason, to the sea.
The party following the memorial service was touching and low-key: it was a funeral, after all, and even with champagne and wine and beer and canapés and more wine, it was quiet.
By nightfall, only a small crowd remained: Mario and Peter, Sam and Mickey, Stuart and Raj, Joaquin; they were seated on the patio with a fire in the center of the conversation pit, enjoying the closeness they had felt over the years. Stuart and Raj had thrown a shawl over their shoulders to ward off the cool breeze from the ocean; the Pacific is deceptively colder than most people expect.
There was quiet re-telling of the stories and experiences they had all shared: Joaquin loved remembering how Mario's father had been roommates in law school with his own father in Spain.
Sam loved to tell the story of how Mario and Peter had brought him to meet Mickey.
Mickey told with awe and love and admiration, the story of how Mario had given Mickey the job as the law firm's managing partner.
Peter told of how he had first met Mason and Mario at one of the famous sex parties in this very house, and Mario responded with the story of how he had later re-met Peter and fallen in love with him after the years of loneliness following Mason's death.
Joaquin was quiet through all of the stories and jokes and laughter; he was lost in his thoughts and memories of the roller-coaster that had been his life-long run with Ross James, the university grad-school professor of international finance and consultant and rabid sex-hound.
He was startled by hearing his name repeated a couple times; Mario had asked him a question.
"I am curious about something, Joaquin, and forgive me for asking this, but I have wondered about this for many years. When you and Ross first met, he and Mason had been lovers and were still sexually intimate, in fact Ross was here on one of his many visits from Atlanta to the west coast and was staying here in this very house, sleeping with Mason."
Joaquin smiled wistfully; he knew where this was leading.
Mario went on: "So how was it that you were able to steal Ross away from Mason, and steal his heart, and keep him celibate all of these years?"
That brought a round of laughter: being celibate is not widely known or admired in the gay universe.
"Mason and Ross had had a tumultuous relationship, as you may have known. Mario, you were Mason's housekeeper for a couple of years before you and Mason were married, so you may have known some of this already."
Mario smiled; he still had very fond memories of the man whom he had married and inherited this house from, and of their relationship over twenty years.
"At any rate, when I met Ross and Mason for the first time, it was sex at first sight."
Everyone laughed; you did not have to know the details, just that gay men have sex first rather than a long courtship, just to try it on for size. And etc.
"After that, we were in love and fighting and in love and fighting for another year, before we finally decided to try to become adults and stop acting like twinks and settle down and get serious about our relationship. I left Ross for a while- a couple of months- so that we could each get our heads into the right space."
Joaquin went on to relate how he and Ross had gone to Europe several times, mostly on business, once to visit Joaquin's family, all of whom were now deceased except his sister. He told of how they had visited the cemetery in New Jersey where Ross's parents were buried, and the town where he had been born and raised in the farm country of south Jersey near Cape May.
He described the angst that Ross had gone through in trying to decide about leaving the university and finally finding his footing as a consultant, opening his firm in Beverly Hills, becoming a business partner in the art gallery with Joaquin and together growing the gallery into a very lucrative enterprise.
Joaquin related how during all of those adventures, Ross never forgot to keep in touch with Mason, and had cried for a week when Mason had died. Joaquin had left Ross alone to grieve at that time, and Ross spent a few days just driving along the California coast northward on Highway One in the process.
"I always knew that Mason and Ross had a special relationship; at first I was very jealous of that, as you may expect from a Latin lover." They all laughed; he continued "Then I realized that what they had, I wanted also, and I had to learn to grow into it, not to expect it to just happen as a side-benefit of being married to Ross."
"And so?" Peter prompted.
"And so, little by little, over the years, we learned to accommodate each other, we learned how to love each other, we learned how to fight, we learned how to compromise, and we learned how to pack." The joke is that gay men always pack for a weekend trip as if they are going on a month-long safari.
"Would you do it over again?" Mickey was asking more out of admiration for a mature gay romance than out of naivete.
"Never" Joaquin dead-panned. They all laughed. The evening was growing cold, and Mario stretched his long legs; Peter knew this was a signal that his husband was ready for bed. Everyone was staying for the night, and so no one had to drive down the coast to Santa Monica or into the city.
Sam and Mickey had a condo in Santa Monica, and Raj and Stuart had acquired a historic Craftsman bungalow in Hermosa Beach, further south toward Pacific Palisades; they had all planned to have breakfast brunch in the morning at Mason's favorite restaurant in Malibu, Geoffrey's.