Cohabitation, at last

By BILL DURYEA

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 29, 2000

Till Life Do Us Part Looking for the perfect wedding gift for Rebecca and Preston Hearn? How about frequent flier miles?

ST. PETERSBURG -- Mr. and Mrs. Preston Hearn cooked dinner together the other night.

This required a couple of shopping trips, for a 40-quart pot and the groceries, both of which they accomplished -- for the most part -- together.

"In the supermarket, I go to the vegetable aisle," Rebecca Hearn says. "He goes to the meat department."

They ate together.

They washed dishes together.

If you're thinking all this togetherness is pretty unremarkable, then you don't know the very modern love story of Preston and Rebecca, the newlyweds who kissed at the altar and then kissed each other goodbye.

[Times photo: Lisa DeJong] Stop the presses, strike up the band: We have an exclusive, a photo of Rebecca and Preston Hearn … together. This is special because they began their marriage living hundreds of miles apart. Update: They live together now, with Baba and three other cats.

Back in February 1999, when they first appeared in the St. Petersburg Times, the Hearns had been enjoying the state of matrimony for a little under three months. Make that two states -- Florida and Georgia.

Preston lived in Atlanta, where he was selling real estate. Rebecca had stayed in St. Petersburg, where she ran her parents' pet stores. It had been that way for more than a year already, and they weren't sure when they would ever live under the same roof.

Well, Preston is home.

It took another nine months after the story appeared, but by that time Preston had made enough money that he felt he could afford to move back to St. Petersburg.

"It didn't feel like a relationship in the true sense," Rebecca says.

"We had a heart-to-heart," he says. " "You know, sweetie, I'm done here. I want to come home.' "

"You couldn't come home fast enough," she says.

Just after Thanksgiving Preston packed up his Jeep Cherokee with his cat, Beavis, his Rooms to Go bedroom set and his computer and turned south on I-75 for the final 470-mile drive.

The thrice daily long-distance calls were over. The frustratingly brief weekend visits were over too. But once reunited, they discovered a new array of small trials to endure.

When Preston does a load of wash, for example, he is proud to say that he gets the finished product folded and in a drawer before the sun sets. The transition is not always as swift for Rebecca.

"I feel I'm clean," Rebecca says. "But I'm not orderly."

The Old Northeast bungalow that was perfect for one person is less so for two (one of whom is incapable of throwing out so much as a catalog) and four cats.

"Now he wants a dog," Rebecca says.

"I feel like if we had a dog I'd see less of the cats," Preston says.

But proximity has brought unforeseen pleasures, too. The picture frames they got as wedding presents now have photos of both of them, together!

"All the picture frames were empty," Rebecca says. "That was really sad."

Rebecca, who loves to shop, now can buy clothes for her husband, who is genetically programmed to wear khakis and Polo shirts. Sometimes he even wears what she buys.

"Except for that black stretchy shirt," he says.

"That was too fashionable for you," she says.

"Yeah, what was that all about?"

Their second wedding anniversary is coming up in a month. After a year together, they still haven't settled into that routine that Rebecca so envies about her own parents -- the morning ritual of breakfast together, swapping sections of the newspaper.

But they are creating their own routines, with a little help from the Food Network and a bottle of wine.

"Rebecca is the best cook I know, but she always follows the recipe," he says. "I like to wing it."

Collard greens are boiling away in the new pot. Preston crushes a small fistful of garlic cloves into a bowl of hamburger. Rebecca has made apple pie for desert.

"We have a very happy life," Rebecca says.

"Yeah," Preston says, crushing another clove.

"We're very lucky," she says.

"Yeah."

"That's a lot of garlic, honey."

"Yeah."

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