11. Bryson
11
Bryson
Embry was so excited about the cake he’d made for my birthday that he insisted on presenting it before breakfast. I took a seat at the kitchen island, and he brought it to me with a single lit candle. Then he serenaded me with the birthday song before instructing me to make a wish.
I blew out the candle and told him, “This is incredible, Em.”
The cake was beautifully decorated in a basketweave pattern, but the most remarkable part was the scene on top of it. He’d used gum paste to make cartoon figures of him and me, right down to his curls and my glasses. They stood at a marble counter, which held a miniature rolling pin, a bowl, and a baking sheet with rows of tiny cookies.
He tried to tell me everything that had gone wrong with it. He’d initially wanted the figures sitting at a table, but they kept tipping over and the chair legs kept breaking off, so he had to rework it. “I hadn’t used gum paste before, and I’d always wanted to try it,” he said. “I obviously need a lot of practice.”
Then he served me a rainbow-colored slice and watched closely while I tasted it. “What do you think? I found a new recipe for lemon cake, so I thought I’d give it a try.”
“It’s delicious. See for yourself.”
When I fed him a bite of cake, a faint blush crept into his cheeks, and he murmured, “It’s really good.”
“Thank you for making this. It means a lot to me.”
He smiled shyly before announcing, “I can’t wait, I need to give you your birthday present. Be right back.” He darted from the kitchen and ran upstairs. A minute later, he returned with a big, brightly colored gift bag, which he held out to me as he said, “I hope you like it.”
He held his breath and waited to see my reaction. The bag contained a large sketch pad, a huge box of colored pencils, and a set of watercolor paints. “I’m not trying to tell you what to do,” he said. “If all you want to do is keep drawing food, then go for it. But you really are an artist, Bry, so I wanted to give you a way to explore that. If you want to. But you don’t have to.”
I gave him a hug as I told him, “Thank you, I love it.”
When I let go of him, he seemed a bit flustered. “Sorry, I got carried away. You haven’t even had coffee or breakfast yet, and I’m ambushing you with an entire birthday celebration first thing.”
“It’s a wonderful way to start the day.” I began to head to the refrigerator as I asked, “What would you like for breakfast?”
He grabbed my arm, and I let him drag me back to the barstool. “You’re not cooking me breakfast on your birthday. I may not be a chef, but I can still scramble some eggs and make coffee.”
It should have made me twitchy, but I actually enjoyed watching Embry cook for me. He made such a big show out of everything he did. He tried to crack the eggs with one hand, then muttered, “Oops,” and spent the next minute fishing shells out of the bowl. When he sprinkled salt, he did it from high above the pan—a move he said he saw on a cooking show—and got it all over the stovetop. “I’ll clean that up,” he said. Next, he tried to soften some butter in the microwave to make it more spreadable, but he left it in too long and ended up liquifying it.
But none of that mattered. Eventually, he placed a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of me and watched with wide, hopeful eyes as I took a bite. When I told him, “It’s delicious,” he sagged with relief.
Then he popped right back up again and exclaimed, “I forgot the coffee!”
He ran to get me a cup, while I got up and retrieved some more utensils from the drawer. When he came back, I handed him a fork and said, “You made enough for three people. Have some with me.”
He took a cautious bite of egg before flashing me a smile. “It’s not bad. I thought you were just being nice.”
We’d barely finished eating when my phone rang. I glanced at the screen and murmured, “My grandfather is video calling me. That’s new.”
When I answered, I didn’t even get a hello in before he shouted, “Happy birthday, young man! How does it feel to be thirty-seven?”
“Hi, Granddad. It feels good.”
“Damn right it does! What I wouldn’t give to be thirty-seven again, instead of seventy-four. The cliché is true, you know. Youth is wasted on the young.”
“So I hear. When did you learn how to video call?”
“Last week. My new assistant showed me, after insisting I get one of those fancy Apple phones.”
“iPhones.”
“Exactly. He said it was time I joined the twenty-first century. He’s a bit of a smart-ass, but I like him. The kid’s got moxie.” My grandfather was a handsome man, but he was holding the phone at an extremely unflattering angle, which made him look like Jabba the Hut. I decided it was best not to point that out.
“I hope this guy lasts longer than your last few assistants.”
“Good riddance to them. They were useless.” He held the phone closer and squinted at me. I wondered where he’d put his glasses. “My brother’s cook told us you sent him an email, letting him know you’re bringing a guest for the holidays. Who is she, and why is this how I had to find out about her?”
I frowned at that. “I asked the cook not to say anything.” I’d contacted him so he and his staff could plan for an extra guest. I’d also wanted to make sure Embry had vegetarian options at mealtime.
“Of course he said something. We don’t pay him to keep secrets! What I don’t understand is why you didn’t tell me about her sooner.”
Well, shit. I might as well get it over with. “Not her. Him.”
He looked disappointed. “Oh. Someone from culinary school? Or a new buddy? Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you made a friend. You’ve practically become a shut-in since your restaurant closed. But you got my hopes up for a minute there.”
“You misunderstand, Granddad. I’m not bringing a ‘buddy.’ I’m bringing my husband.”
“Come again?”
“I know this is a big bombshell, which is why I was waiting to tell you in person. But there it is. I got married two weeks ago, to a sweet, beautiful man named Embry.” I held up my hand to show him the wedding ring. “He’s looking forward to meeting you.”
He took that in for a long moment. Then he surprised me by grinning and exclaiming, “Your Great Uncle Charles owes me five bucks!”
“Why?”
“We had a bet going. I said you were gay, and he said you were just shy around the ladies. I’ve finally been proven right.”
What the actual fuck? “You were placing bets on my sexuality?”
“Well, sure. This was five, six years ago. You were well over thirty by that point and had yet to bring a girl home to meet the family. Naturally, I put two and two together.” And he’d completely gotten the wrong number!
“I can’t believe this.”
“Don’t worry, son. I’m not one of those closed-minded old coots who has a problem with homosexuals. I’ve been expecting this news for ages, so I’ve had time to come to terms with it.”
“First of all, I’m bisexual, not gay.” I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to make that point. Maybe it was because I’d mentioned going out with women in the past, and I wanted him to know that hadn’t been some sort of elaborate ruse.
“Same thing.”
“No, it isn’t. And I can’t believe you bet on me like it’s the Kentucky Derby, and I’m Seabiscuit!”
Embry, who’d been watching this whole conversation closely, whispered, “Seabiscuit never ran in the Kentucky Derby.”
I turned to him and asked, “Why do you know that?”
Embry shrugged, and my grandfather asked me, “Is he there with you now?”
I felt like I was rapidly losing control of this conversation. “Of course. Like I said, we’re married, so we’re obviously living together.”
“Why would you get married and keep it a secret?”
“We eloped to Las Vegas and didn’t tell anyone, apart from a handful of friends.”
“But not me, your own flesh and blood.”
“I wanted to tell the whole family in person, when we all met up at Christmas.”
“I still don’t understand why you wouldn’t come to me first, but that’s not important right now.” He made some sort of rolling gesture with his free hand. “Come on, then. Put your young man on the phone. I want to meet him.”
I glanced at Embry, who was looking amused, and asked, “Are you up for a quick video chat with my granddad?”
Embry immediately dove into the frame and threw his arm around me. “It’s such a pleasure to finally get to meet you, Mr. Baudelaire,” he gushed. “Bry goes on and on about you.”
“Hang on, I need to see you clearly.” My screen filled with a view of my grandfather’s ceiling for a few moments, while we heard him rummaging around. When he reappeared, he was wearing his glasses, but he still held the phone very close to his face as he scrutinized Embry. “You’re a good-looking young man,” he finally said. “But do you mind if I ask how old you are?”
“I’m twenty-eight, sir.”
“That’s a relief. For a minute there, I thought Bryson had gone out and found himself a college student. But a nine-year age gap, that’s not so bad. Now, listen. I know you two must have thought it was terribly exciting to elope, but don’t you want a big, romantic wedding ceremony?” That was directed at Embry, not me. He already knew my answer. “We can call the first wedding practice and have the real one here, at my brother’s vineyard in the springtime.”
Embry was pure, doe-eyed innocence as he said, “Our wedding was very romantic, sir. I get nervous sometimes and don’t do well with crowds, so Bryson made sure the ceremony was just the way I wanted it.”
“That’s lovely, but I wish you’d included me. Didn’t you think I’d approve?”
“We didn’t know.”
“Well, now you do, and I want to welcome you to the family, Embry.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I can see you’re still in your pajamas, so I won’t expect you by lunchtime. But I’ll instruct the staff to set two more places at the table for dinner.”
“We have dinner reservations for my birthday,” I explained. “That’s why we’re planning to come tomorrow.”
He waved his hand dismissively. “Reservations can be changed. I’ve waited long enough to meet your young man, so you’re coming today. End of discussion.”
I glanced at Embry. He shrugged almost imperceptibly, as if to say, why not? I turned my attention back to the screen and said, “Fine, Granddad. You win. We’ll be there in a few hours.”
“Dinner’s at eight, but cocktail hour begins at six sharp. Don’t be late.” With that, my grandfather ended the call.
I muttered, “Fuck,” and sat down on the kitchen floor. Then I stretched out on my back and stared at the ceiling.
“I’m sorry. I know you were looking forward to that fancy restaurant.”
“It’s not that. I feel horrible about lying to him. I expected a lot of push-back and disbelief, which would have made it easier somehow. But he welcomed you to the family and didn’t even question any of it.”
Embry smirked, just a little. “Because he thought you were gay all along.”
I sat up and exclaimed, “And he bet on it! I can just see him and his brother Charles, having a chuckle about my total lack of a love life over brandy and cigars. At some point, Gramps says, ‘I bet the kid is gay.’ And Chuck comes back with, ‘Nah, he’s just a total wash-out with the ladies.’ They argue about it for a while, until one of them says, ‘Let’s put five bucks on it.’ Honestly, who does that?”
“That might not have been how it happened.”
“It’s annoying no matter how it played out.”
“I get that.”
I got up and said, “I still feel bad about lying to him, though.”
“Good. That means you have a conscience. But just remember, he pushed you into this by giving you that weird ultimatum—get married or get nothing. He should have just stepped up and helped you when your restaurant was struggling, instead of trying to control your life.”
“I never told him how bad things got when the restaurant started to fail. I was too embarrassed.”
“Well, anyway, it’s too late to take it back. You already told the lie. The wheels are in motion.”
“Yeah. They are.”
Embry said, “We still have a little time before we need to get on the road. Healdsburg is what, two hours north of here?”
“Something like that, and Uncle Charles’ place is maybe twenty minutes outside of town. He’s my great uncle by the way, my grandfather’s brother. But that’s too wordy, so I just call him ‘Uncle.’ Which you probably figured out.”
“I did. Let’s go relax for a while, maybe eat some more cake…”
“And cancel our coveted reservation at the hottest new restaurant in town. But hey, my colleague who managed to slip us in can probably do it again, a year or two from now.”
He flashed me a smile. “Something to look forward to.”
Embry had seemed pretty confident about this whole thing, until we got in the car a few hours later and started making our way out of town. He fussed over Dusty for a while, who was perfectly content in the back seat, and then he began asking questions.
“Do you really think we can pull this off? There’s so much we don’t know about each other. Like, why were you named Bryson? I was named after a character on a soap opera, but I don’t know where your name came from.”
“Bryson and Fallon are both family names. My brother and I were named after illustrious ancestors on our mother’s side. And I don’t think we’re going to be expected to know every last thing about each other. It’s not like we’ve been married for twenty years or anything.”
“That’s true.” He turned to look at me, as much as he could with the seatbelt pinning him down. “Your grandfather knows we’ve been married for two weeks, but are we going to try to stretch our timeline?”
“What do you mean?”
“In reality, we met just days before we got married. We’re not going to go with that timeline, are we?”
“I thought we were going to stick to the truth as closely as possible, to avoid making this too confusing.”
Embry nodded. “We did say that, and it makes sense in theory. But if someone told me they married someone five days after they met them, I’d think they were nuts.”
“It happens, though.”
“Definitely. I’m sure there have been several lovesick fools throughout history who married people they knew less than a week. But is that going to sound believable to your family?”
“Maybe not,” I said, “but it’s going to get complicated if we try to stretch it out. I was in New York for almost all of November. You told me you’ve never been there, and most of my family has. If we try to say we met there, they could ask questions and easily catch you in a lie.”
“Yeah, we definitely shouldn’t say we met in New York.”
“But if we knew each other for a while before getting married, why didn’t I mention you when I talked to my grandfather on Thanksgiving? I missed dinner with the family because I was still on the east coast, but we spoke on the phone for almost an hour.”
“You could say you were afraid of jinxing it.”
“Maybe.”
He asked, “What day did you leave for New York?”
“November seventh.”
“Okay, let’s go with this story—we met at a Starbucks on Halloween. That’s easy to remember. I struck up a conversation with you. That part’s true. We spent a glorious week together, and then you left for New York. But we talked on the phone for hours every day while you were away, and by the time you got home, we knew we wanted to get married.”
“Were we in costume when we met?”
“No.”
“I like this story. Let’s go with it.”
As traffic slowed to a crawl over the Golden Gate Bridge, I asked, “I know why you started talking to me in real life, but why would you strike up a conversation with me in this version?”
“Because you’re totally hot. Duh.”
I frowned at that. “I thought we were trying for somewhat believable.”
“Come on, Bry. If I’d met you under different circumstances, I absolutely would’ve tried to shoot my shot. Who doesn’t dig that whole Clark Kent thing you’ve got going on?”
“The problem is, when the glasses come off, oh look—it’s still just Clark Kent underneath. People never hit on me. Every woman who ever went out with me was fixed up on a date by a mutual acquaintance. That’s very different than hitting on me because they found me attractive.”
“If someone hit on you, would you even notice?”
“What do you mean?”
“It seems like you used to have tunnel vision when it came to your career. If a total hottie came up to you and tried to flirt, I don’t even think it would have registered. You would have been too busy obsessing over imported balsamic vinegar, or whatever.”
I grinned a little. “You think vinegar was on my mind?”
“It was the only snooty, high-end thing I could think of.”
“You think what I’m into is snooty?”
“Don’t you?”
“No.”
Embry tried to shift around and face me again. “Explain the whole fine dining thing to me, Bry, because I honestly don’t get it. Why does anyone actually want to go to that type of restaurant? I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but I was relieved when tonight’s dinner got canceled. I kept thinking, what if I knock over my water glass? What if I sound ignorant and mispronounce everything I try to order? What if I accidentally eat the centerpiece, because I think it’s the entrée?”
I grinned a little. “I would have stopped you before you ate the centerpiece.”
“I was mostly kidding about that one. But I really don’t understand the appeal of that entire experience.”
I thought about how best to explain it before saying, “Having a front row seat as my parents’ marriage unraveled was pretty horrible. For about a year before they split up, there was so much tension in our house. They tried not to fight in front of my brother and me, but we could still feel it. When you’re a little kid, your home and your family are your whole world, and ours was quietly miserable, all the time.”
I paused for a moment as I tried to push those memories down again. Then I continued, “But there was this one day—it was my mom’s birthday, and Dad decided we should all go out to a fancy restaurant. He really shot for the stars here. We’re talking the best of the best. We’d never been to a place that nice before. Everything was absolutely beautiful—the setting, the food. Each dish was more glorious and more perfect than the last. I barely remember what we ate, but I remember how it made us feel.
“This place treated us like royalty. The staff made us feel special, and seen, and heard. When Fallon mentioned he liked chocolate, they brought each of us the most perfect little bonbon, covered in real gold. I’d never seen such a thing! I’d never even imagined it.
“But even more amazing was looking around the table and seeing my whole family smiling. For that one evening, we were happy . It was so different than the rest of our lives, and such a welcome break from all that tension. I fully understood that getting to be a guest at this restaurant was something special, and I never, ever wanted to leave.”
I swallowed the lump in my throat before continuing, “Of course, that one amazing birthday dinner didn’t fix anything. My parents still got divorced. My mom and brother still moved away. But getting to experience that, even just for one night, felt so damn good.”
Embry reached out and squeezed my shoulder. We were still creeping across the bridge. I took a breath and finished my story. “I was a little kid at the time, and I obviously didn’t make the decision then and there to become a chef. But I learned that day that a great restaurant is a kind of magic. It has the power to bring people together, and to make them happy.
“That’s what I wanted to do with my restaurant. But I think that goal got lost along the way, or maybe it was drowned out by my relentless quest for perfection.”
“I get it,” Embry said, “because I have the same goal—making people happy. I plan to do that one cake at a time. Have you ever been unhappy while eating cake?”
“Nope.”
“Exactly.”