4. Bryson
4
Bryson
When Embry told me he was coming over and bringing his friends, who needed to sign off on me, I was a little nervous. What was I expected to do here, convince them I was pure of heart and noble in intention?
Actually, I probably just needed to convince them I wasn’t some sort of perv, although Embry had actually been the one to approach me. They had to realize I wasn’t trying to lure him into a trap, or hatching some other nefarious plot.
In fact, if anyone had a reason to worry, it was me. I’d tried looking him up online, and even after figuring out the correct spelling of his name, there was very little information to be had. All I found was a Pinterest board full of very elaborate decorated cakes, a barely used Instagram account with only four pictures, all of his dog, and a handful of tagged photos, including two from an LGBTQ community center event.
On the other hand, if he’d done his due diligence and looked me up, he would have found pages of articles, detailing my slow but steady rise in the culinary world, the anticipation for my new restaurant, a handful of lukewarm reviews, and finally, a few cautionary tales written about the failure of my restaurant. That told him pretty much all there was to know about me.
While I waited for his arrival, I put the finishing touches on some snacks in the kitchen. I’d decided to go with a charcuterie board, and I’d decanted a bottle of red wine. Did it look like I was trying too hard, or not hard enough? And how many people was he bringing? I assumed it was two, three tops. What if it was more than that? This little board would look stingy.
Before I could add to it, there was a knock at the door. Shit, he was early. I’d wanted to make a good impression on him and his friends, but I felt like I was already blowing it.
I hurried to the door, and when I opened it I discovered he’d brought not two friends, not three, but six and a small, wiggly dog. I blurted, “Oh, there’s a lot of you,” before remembering my manners and inviting them in.
As my foyer filled with people, Embry came up to me and said, “Wow, you’re really tall. I hadn’t realized.”
“Yeah. Sorry.” Why did I say that? Apologizing for my height sounded completely nuts, except that he was about five-six, and the fact that I was six-foot-two might seem intimidating.
“No, it’s a good thing. I always wished I was taller.”
I indicated the scruffy tan and white dog in his arms and asked, “Who do we have here?”
“This is Dusty. I brought him along because he’ll be living here too if we go through with this, so I thought you should meet him.”
I held my hand out so the dog could sniff it. “That’s a cute name.”
“It’s short for His Royal Highness Bartholomew Dust Mop, of the San Francisco Dust Mops.”
What the fuck? “Is he a show dog?”
“No.” He left it at that and gestured at the small crowd in front of us. “These are my very best friends. We call ourselves the Pink Victorian Crew, since we all live in—well, obviously, a pink Victorian. It’s by Dolores Park, and it’s really wonderful. You need to come over sometime.” Then he indicated the women in the group and told me, “This is Yolanda Gutierrez and her wife, Josephine Deveraux. They’re two of the best people you’ll ever meet.”
The petite brunette eyed me suspiciously as we shook hands. But her tall, curvy wife, who had a bit of a Marilyn Monroe thing going on, smiled at me and grasped my hand with both of hers. “Everyone calls me JoJo. It’s nice to meet you, Bryson. You have a beautiful home.”
I barely got a thank you out before a dark-haired guy joined us with another man in tow. “Hey, I’m Lark,” he said, “and this is my boyfriend Dylan. This is a cool neighborhood, but I always giggle at that name. Nob Hill! Like, who thought of that?” Lark was upbeat and almost but not quite as small as Embry, while Dylan seemed very serious and bore a resemblance to a younger Idris Elba. He was tall, good-looking, and so fit that I felt self-conscious about my dad bod.
After I mumbled a few greetings, Embry directed me to the last two men in the group. He introduced a willowy guy named Hal Nakamura, who had long, dark hair, was dressed all in black, and could really only be described as strikingly beautiful. Hal’s grip when we shook hands was more assertive than I’d expected it to be, and his skeptical gaze told me he wasn’t sold on any of this.
Finally, Embry said, “Last but not least, this is my dear friend Vihaan Khatri. Everyone calls him Vee.”
Vee was a South Asian guy who’d dressed in a suit and slicked his black hair into a stubby ponytail for the occasion. Actually, the whole group was pretty dressed up. It made me question whether I should have gone with something other than a Henley and jeans.
I said, “Thank you for coming,” as I held out my hand. Vee’s arms were crossed over his chest, and he made me wait for a beat before he shook it. He was definitely the most skeptical of all of them, and it made me wonder—would Embry bail out if his friends didn’t sign off on this? If so, I was pretty screwed, because it wasn’t like I was going to win anyone over with my bubbly personality.
I directed everyone to the lounge at the back of the house, and Embry said, “This place is really nice,” as he fell into step with me on our way down the hall.
“Thank you.”
“Have you lived here a long time?”
“Since I was ten, except for a few years when I went to culinary school and trained in New York and Europe.”
“So, your parents live here, too?”
“My dad bought this house after he and my mom split up, so it was just him and me. But he died four years ago.”
“I’m sorry, Bryson.” I never knew what to say to that, so I went with a mumbled thank you. “Does your mom live in San Francisco?”
“No. She’s currently living in Europe with her second husband.”
“How often do you get to see her?”
“We’re estranged, so it’s actually been several years. She never forgave me for choosing my dad over her in the divorce.”
“I haven’t seen my mom in a few years, either,” he said. “She never really wanted to be a parent, so once I moved out she was pretty much done with me.”
“What about your dad?”
Embry shrugged. “Never met him.”
“It sounds like you didn’t have a very easy childhood.”
“It wasn’t so bad. Fortunately, I had the fair folk to raise me.”
We’d reached the kitchen, and I came to a stop and turned to him slowly. Oh, no. Was this person delusional? Had I missed the signs? I asked, as delicately as I could, “You believe you were raised by fairies?”
A laugh burst from him. “I wish! How cool would that be? But no, I was talking about some of the other families who traveled the same vendor circuit as my mom and me. We worked at fairs, carnivals, and festivals up and down the west coast.”
“What kinds of festivals?”
“You name it. There were your basic pumpkin festivals in the fall, cherry blossom festivals in the spring, that sort of thing. But my favorites were the off-beat ones, like the yearly bigfoot festival in a small Northern California town. Another town would go all out for an annual fungus fest. As in mushrooms. They weren’t, like, celebrating athlete’s foot or anything.”
“So, you did this year-round?”
“Yup, fifty weeks a year.”
I had so many questions. “Did you live in hotels? And how did you go to school?”
“We lived in our camper and trailer. I slept in the camper, so it was like having my own room. And I was home-schooled by Mrs. Olivetti. She had five boys, and she let me join them when class was in session. Her family made a living selling T-shirts.”
“What did your mom sell?”
“We sold several items, including corndogs and fried pickles. But we were sort of famous for fried butter on a stick.” I assumed he was kidding, but his expression was perfectly sincere. He changed the subject with, “Is it okay if I put Dusty down, so he can explore?”
I would have loved to hear more about his unusual childhood, but I let it go for now. “Yeah, of course. You can open those double doors for him if you want, so he can check out the backyard, too. It’s fenced, so he can’t run off or anything.”
“Thanks.” He put the dog down and darted after him.
His friends were close by, and I turned to them and asked, “Is everyone good with wine?”
Yolanda muttered, “Hell yes, and keep it coming.”
I indicated the lounge, which opened onto the kitchen. “Please make yourselves comfortable. I’ll only be a minute.”
They went into the adjoining room, but instead of taking a seat, they clustered in front of the fireplace and started a hushed conversation. I wondered what kind of impression I was making.
I pulled some additional glasses out of the cupboard before selecting two more bottles from the wine fridge. Then I grabbed two more. This afternoon needed all the help it could get.
After a minute, Embry reappeared at my side. “Dusty loves the yard. He’s running all around and sniffing everything.”
“Glad to hear it.”
He ran his hands along the edge of the stone countertop and asked, “Was it hard to grow up in a house like this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Everything is so perfect. It’s like a museum. I’d be afraid of messing something up and getting in trouble.”
“My dad wasn’t like that, and this house was very different when he was still alive. He picked furniture for comfort and practicality, not for style.”
“What made you change it?”
I decided to be honest. It was important to open up and get to know each other, if we were going to convince my family we were a couple. “After Dad died, I was devastated. It was so sudden. He was diagnosed with cancer and died three weeks later, at just fifty-seven years old. I couldn’t process it. Even now, I’m still coming to terms with it.”
Embry touched my sleeve. “That must have been so hard.”
“It was. I felt like I was drowning in grief. I couldn’t stand the thought of selling this house because he loved it so much, but I was overwhelmed by all the memories in this place. So, I got the idea to remodel it, as a way of trying to move forward. I hired a designer and let her do whatever she wanted, while I lived in a hotel for four months. The only room I wanted a say in was the kitchen. I also mentioned my favorite color, which is why every room is decorated in shades of blue. But that was the extent of my input.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“Thanks.”
“But you regret changing it,” he guessed.
“Yeah, I do, but it’s too late now.”
“Did you get rid of everything from before?”
“All the furniture got donated. The sentimental stuff is packed up in the attic.”
“Did any good come from the remodel?”
“Not really. I wanted it to feel like a fresh start, but when I look around I still see the past. It’s like looking at a double exposure. Have you ever seen one of those?” He shook his head, and I explained, “It’s where one photograph gets printed over the top of another, and you can still see both images. That’s what this house feels like. I look at my stainless-steel refrigerator, and I remember the funky shelves full of plants and cookbooks that used to be in that spot. The fridge was over there.” I pointed to the right. “It was white, and it had these souvenir magnets all over it that I used to collect when I was a kid. There was one from every place I visited.”
I stopped talking, because I really didn’t want to start crying with an audience. In the next instant, Embry grabbed me in a fierce hug, which was startling. I didn’t know what to do, so I held up my hands like someone had a gun on me. “Want to go up to the attic right now and bring some stuff down? I’ll help you,” he said. “It won’t be the same as before, but you don’t have to live in a museum. Not if you don’t want to.”
“Thanks, but I’m not ready to face it.”
“Okay. If you change your mind, let me know.”
When he let go of me, I covered my embarrassment by busying myself with the wine. As I pulled another decanter out of the cabinet, Embry asked, “Can I help?”
“Sure. If you want to take those glasses to your friends, I’ll follow with the wine.”
He began to gather the wine glasses into the crook of his arm. I was about to offer him a tray when one fell onto the floor and shattered. He muttered, “Oops,” and tried to shift the remaining glasses, but he lost control of them and they fell with a huge crash. He looked completely distraught as he exclaimed, “I’m so sorry! I’ll clean it up.”
“No, don’t?—”
Before I could stop him, he tried to pick up a shard of glass and gasped in pain as he cut his finger. When he clutched it to his chest, a blood stain appeared on his pink sweater.
I grabbed a clean dishtowel and said, “Give me your hand.” It was shaking as he held it out, and I quickly wrapped the towel around it to slow the bleeding.
His big, blue eyes were filling with tears. “I’m so sorry,” he said again. “I always screw everything up.”
“Don’t worry about it. I need to see how bad your injury is, but first we need to get away from all this broken glass and rinse off the blood. Is it okay if I pick you up?” He was wearing fabric slip-on shoes with thin soles, and the last thing I wanted was for him to step on a shard and cut himself again.
When he nodded, I scooped him into my arms. He was surprisingly light. His friends had rushed over and were all talking at once, but I hurried past them and carried Embry down the hall to the guest bathroom.
I sat him down on the vanity, and while he held his hand under running water, I found the first aid kit in one of the drawers. Yolanda had followed us, and she told me, “I’m a nurse. Does it look like a deep cut?”
“I’m not sure yet. Is someone watching the dog to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself on the broken glass?”
“Yeah, Hal picked him up when he ran inside.” She shut off the water and examined the cut before wrapping the towel around it again. “I don’t think it’ll need stitches. Let’s see what’s in that first aid kit.” I handed it over, and as she fished out some supplies, she glanced at me and said, “You’re pretty good in a crisis.”
“I spent a lot of years working in kitchens. There were plenty of minor medical emergencies—knife cuts, burns, you name it.”
As Yolanda bandaged up his index finger, Embry told me, “I guess I should have mentioned this up front.”
“Mentioned what?”
“That I’m a total klutz. I should come with a warning label. If you don’t want to do this now because you don’t want me to wreck more of your stuff, I understand. And I’ll pay you back for the glasses, I promise. It might take me a little time because they looked expensive, but?—”
“You don’t have to pay me back.”
“They were really nice, though.”
“They don’t matter.”
“They don’t?”
“They were just stuff. You’re what matters, and I’m glad you weren’t seriously hurt.”
He offered me a sad little smile as Yolanda finished wrapping some first aid tape around his finger. Then she said, as she washed her hands, “Try to keep that dry, Embry. I’ll check it and rebandage it for you in the morning.”
“Thanks, Yo.”
She told us, “I’ll give you two a minute,” before leaving the bathroom.
I leaned against the wall and said, “Those people are more than your friends. They’re your family.”
Embry nodded. “You’re right, they are.”
“So, why would you want to move away from them?”
“I’m not really moving away. I’m keeping my room in the Pink Victorian, and I’ll be back there in a year. But if I did move out at some point they’d still be my family, even if we weren’t living under the same roof.”
“I think moving in here and away from them might make you sad, though.”
“Maybe a little, but this is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” he said. “I’ve always been broke. Like, broke broke. It’s hard to keep a job longer than a few days or weeks because I’m so clumsy. But with this money, I could start my own business.”
“What kind of business were you thinking of?”
His face lit up. “I’d sell custom birthday and wedding cakes. I love cake decorating so much. It’s a way to be creative, and to make people happy at the same time. There’s nothing better than that.”
“So, is the dream to own your own bakery?”
The light in his eyes dimmed a little. “I wish. But no, I can’t dream that big, especially in this city where rents are through the roof. The best I could hope for would be to rent time in one of those shared commercial kitchens and sell my cakes through word of mouth, or a website.”
That was depressing. Dreams were meant to be wild and over-blown. They should give us something to aspire to. It seemed like life had taught him to expect disappointment, so he couldn’t even entertain the notion of shooting for the stars.
Not that this was any of my business.
Since the mood was dipping, I changed the subject by asking, “Does your cut hurt?” He was holding up his hand with his finger pointing at the ceiling. Yolanda had folded a cotton pad around the tip before wrapping it in first aid tape, so it looked long and bulbous.
“It’s throbbing a little, but I’ve had worse. I look like ET, though.” He pointed at my forehead and said, in a high, raspy voice, “Ellioooot.”
I grinned at that. “Want some ibuprofen?”
“Nah, it’s not that bad. It sure bled a lot, though. I’m sad about my sweater.” He gingerly touched the stain on his chest.
“It’ll wash out, especially if you get to it right away. If you want to give it to me, I’ll take it to the laundry room and soak it.”
He looked shy all of a sudden as he climbed off the counter. “No, that’s okay. I don’t have a shirt on underneath.”
“I can give you something of mine to wear if you want.”
“It’s fine. I’ll take care of it when I get home. Right now though, I want to clean up the mess I made in the kitchen.”
“It’s okay. I’ve got it.”
“No way,” he said. “That’s my responsibility.”
“Really, it’s no big deal.”
“Then just let me do it.”
We were still going back and forth when we reached the kitchen and found his friends had beat us to it. The floor was totally pristine, and Dylan was returning my broom and dustpan to the cupboard. “We had to throw out the stuff on the charcuterie board,” he said. “Some glass shards had managed to bounce up onto the island.”
“We were super careful about cleaning up the glass on the floor,” his boyfriend Lark added, “but maybe don’t walk barefoot in here for a while. You know, just in case we missed something.”
“Thanks for doing that,” I said. “And good news, we still have wine.”
Yolanda muttered, “Thank god,” as I handed her two bottles and the corkscrew.
I gathered some more glasses, and all of us moved into the lounge, which my dad used to call the family room. Vee had taken off his suit jacket and rolled back his sleeves, and as I poured the wine he said, “I guess I’m ready to sign off on you. I’m not gonna lie, I’m still skeptical about this whole fake marriage scheme. But I like the way you took care of our Em when he cut himself, and you didn’t yell at him for breaking your shit. Keep that up. And just know that if you’re ever mean to him, or if you hurt him in any way, you’ll have to answer to all of us.”
Yolanda raised her glass to toast Vee’s threat, and I muttered, “Heard.”
After that, his friends practically interviewed me while we finished off four bottles of wine. When I noticed Embry wasn’t drinking any, I retrieved an orange San Pellegrino soda from the refrigerator. He seemed happy when I handed it to him.
Finally, JoJo produced a yellow legal pad from her large handbag, and we wrote out the terms of our agreement. The gist of it was that we succeeded or failed as a team. If I didn’t get my inheritance because nobody believed we were a real couple, then Embry didn’t get his money either—aside from his monthly thousand-dollar stipend, which would remain in effect for twelve months or until we were found out, whichever came first.
We both signed the paper, followed by all of his friends, who listed themselves as witnesses. Embry seemed embarrassed, but I thought it was a good idea. I wanted us to go into this with clear expectations, especially where money was concerned.
Then I brought up what might be an uncomfortable subject. “Speaking of paperwork, I asked my lawyer to draw up a prenuptial agreement a few weeks ago, when I finally resigned myself to playing my grandfather’s game. I’ll have him add your name, and I’ll bring a copy for you to sign next time I see you. It’s nothing personal. I just?—”
“No, of course,” Embry interrupted. “We know for a fact this is ending in divorce, or annulment, or whatever. You’d have to be nuts not to protect your assets.”
“Thanks for understanding.” I’d thought that might be awkward, so it was nice that he took it in stride. “Now, let’s talk about the wedding ceremony.”
Embry perked up at that. “I did some research this afternoon. At first, I thought we should get married at City Hall, but it’s booked for the next few weeks. I guess it’s in demand because it’s such a beautiful, historic building.” He took a sip of soda and added, “Getting married locally might be a bad idea anyway, since your grandfather would probably expect us to invite him to the ceremony—assuming he lives here in San Francisco.”
“He lives close by, in Marin County. You’re right, he’d definitely expect an invitation, but I don’t think we’d be ready to try to sell him on our relationship.”
Embry nodded. “Exactly.”
“Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t even want to tell him about you for the next couple of weeks. As soon as I do, he’ll want to meet you, and we need some time to get to know each other and get our stories straight.”
“Right. So, maybe we should ‘spontaneously’ run off to Las Vegas and elope. That way, we wouldn’t be expected to include him.”
I asked him, “Are you sure you want to go that far?” The real question was whether he was okay with the idea of traveling with me, since we barely knew each other.
“We’re trying to make this seem authentic, and it’s what I would do if I was really getting married. There are all sorts of fun, themed wedding venues, like Elvis, of course. That’s a classic. But you can also have a vampire-themed wedding, or gangsters, or disco, or a bunch of other ones.”
“Pick whatever sounds best to you.”
Hal, who was curled up in a club chair with the dog on his lap, chimed in with, “Is your grandfather really going to buy it if you show him pictures of yourself and Embry getting married under a disco ball, while dressed in bell bottoms and platform shoes?”
“The marriage license we’ll end up with is undeniably real, so the rest probably doesn’t matter all that much.” After mulling it over for a few moments, I added, “Actually, since I’m trying to get him to believe I ran off and married not just a man but someone I barely know, the wacky Vegas wedding thing fits. Maybe as a whole, it’ll come across as a massive midlife crisis or something.”
Hal nodded. “In a way, it makes sense.”
Embry glanced at me hopefully. “I’ve never been to Las Vegas, so it might be fun to spend an extra day there and see the sights. What do you think?”
“Sure. How about if we go this Friday and come back on Sunday?” I was willing to agree to just about anything at this point, as long as we kept moving forward.
He flashed me a big smile. “Perfect.”
I turned to his friends and told them, “If any of you want to come along for moral support, I’ll pay for your airfare and a hotel room.” I figured that would make Embry more comfortable than travelling alone with me.
“I’m in,” Vee said.
Hal nodded. “Me, too.”
Both couples had plans, so they declined. “We’ll watch Dusty, though,” JoJo said.
Embry asked me, “Are you going to bring some friends along?”
“Oh. Um, no. Best to keep this simple.” I wouldn’t have minded telling Embry I didn’t have any close friends, only acquaintances and colleagues. But I didn’t want to admit it to everyone else.
“Okay. Then I guess we’re set.”
“I’ll book the flight and hotel this afternoon,” I said, “and I’ll text you with the details.”
“Thanks, Bryson.” Embry stood up, and Hal handed him his dog. “I guess that’s everything, so we should let you get back to your day.” His friends said goodbye before starting to head for the door, but Embry hung back and told them, “I’ll meet you outside in a minute.”
Once we were alone, he said, “I wanted to check in with you when we didn’t have an audience. Are you alright?”
“Sure. Why do you ask?”
“You seem kind of stressed out.”
“I’m fine.”
“It’s okay if you’re not.”
After a pause, I admitted, “I’m worried about being able to pull this off. There’s so much at stake, and without that money—well, you know.”
“I do. Also, I didn’t mean to put pressure on you. We don’t have to go to Las Vegas if it’s too expensive, and I don’t need such a big amount every month if you can’t afford it.”
“No, it’s fine. I made sure to keep enough money to live comfortably for a year, after I liquidated my restaurant’s assets and paid down my debts. That’s why I’m not scrambling to find a job in someone else’s kitchen. I wanted to allow myself the time to plan out every detail of my next restaurant.”
“Okay. I just wanted to make sure.”
I petted the dog, who was shifting in Embry’s arms, and said, “I think Dusty’s getting impatient.”
“Yeah, I’d better go, but please don’t worry. I know we can do this. I also know everything feels weird and uncertain right now, but let’s both try to think of it as an adventure and have fun with it.”
“That’s a good suggestion.”
I walked him out, and after he stepped onto the porch, he turned back to me with a smile. “This is going to be great,” he said. “You’ll see.”
I had no idea if he was right about that. All I knew was that my life was about to change in a big way. Whether it would be a change for the better remained to be seen.