Marcus Diaz-Coleman
The Grand Reopening
Squeezing Zamora’s hand tightly, I smiled at the crowd. After two decades of hotel/hospitality experience, I would own my first piece of property. Anyone else might have been thrilled about this, but I wanted to run out of the decorated lobby as fast as my legs would carry me. I did not want this for the rest of my life, but unfortunately, no one with ears heard me except Zee. She had told me throughout college that I should take a stand, but I couldn’t bring myself to let my parents down. I didn’t want this baton passed to me. However, being an only child, I was the only one in line to take over for my parents.
Allow me to give you a little back history. My great-grandparents came to America decades ago from Venezuela with their five children, two brothers, their wives, and their kids. They came with everything they owned at the time and ended up purchasing a small hotel that only had twenty-five rooms. Since the place needed much work, the brothers lived on the property with their families while they did the renovations themselves. They utilized five of the rooms for their living quarters and made a nice profit over the first couple of years, putting them in a position to invest in another property and, over the years, even more properties.
By the time my uncle and mother were born, collectively, my family owned multiple hotels. After my uncle took over two locations, my mother stepped in to run the other two when my grandpa got ill. My grandpa had four properties when he died, so I grew up in a hotel environment. My mother maintained the hotels well with my grandmother’s and other relative’s support. When she met my dad at a brand conference in Austin, they grew close over a short period, and before long, he moved from Texas to Chicago to be with and marry my mother.
My father was a brilliant engineer but changed careers to the hotel industry after they married. My parents now own four properties. A college graduate with a hospitality degree, my gift from them was a newly remodeled property I would own and run, yet something I had no interest in. Still, my mom guilted me into taking on the responsibility, stressing how much they had worked hard and sacrificed to be able to pass along to me a profitable property. So, I set aside my true desires for Intel to please them. I was honestly a tech geek, which oddly turned Zamora on. She was the only one who knew me better than anyone, and I loved her with all of my being.
She and I were the best of friends. No matter how bad of a day I had, laying eyes on her made everything better. What I loved most about Zee was her creativity. She turned our condo into a cozy home and would cook mouth-watering meals I would choose to eat over dining out at a 5-star restaurant any day. My baby could cook her ass off, but somehow, her greatest gift turned out to be our downfall.
One day, she announced that she was going to Maryland to attend culinary school. This news hit me from left field and caused my heart to stop for a second or two. If I can be honest, it wasn’t the fact that she didn’t include me in her decision that broke us up. It was more like jealousy––me being jealous of her daring to pursue her dreams while I still allowed the Colemans to control my future. I wanted to work with robots and build machines that would help improve our health and environment. I yearned to be in a lab working on better ways for our world to function, but I was too cowardly to speak my truth and go after what I wanted for my life. Now, I had to live with the harsh reality that I had lost the best woman in the world for me because of my issues with myself and not because she did what I was not courageous enough to do, which was follow her heart.
I missed her so much after she left but was too bullheaded to even talk to her. I was a fool to let her go, and when I finally admitted it to myself and got the nerve to want to reach out to her many months later, I saw a share on a mutual friend’s page that she was headed to New York for two months for some culinary experience. I smiled at the photo of her beautiful, bright smile and cocoa skin. Her hair was in a bushy, curly style that I thought was a perfect new look on her, and her slanted almond-shaped dark brown eyes shined. Her high cheekbones were a little chubbier, and her body had filled out a bit more––with plumper tits and rounder hips, but she was still beautiful. As my eyes traced the photo from her head to the strappy sandals on her feet, I let my fingers caress the screen for a moment. Then, breaking my own heart for a second time, I silently wished her well, not wanting to set her back from what she had more than likely already healed from––me.