14. Gavin
Gavin
“You want ME to make the documentary? From scratch?”
Lavi was sitting across from me at a little café table.
He’d been thrilled when I called him earlier that day.
I’d wanted to meet him that evening. But he’d been so excited, in his usual rainbows-and-confetti kind of way, that he told me he was actually free right then, no need to wait for evening at all.
He’d taken the day off, as it turned out, to go shopping with his fiancé for his fiancé’s niece’s birthday.
That was honestly way more information than I’d asked for. I agreed to meet him anyway.
When I told him my idea, that I wanted him to restart the documentary and run the whole thing singlehandedly, Lavi had gone quiet.
Not just quiet. Quiet for a very long time.
He just sat there and stared at me. That kind of silence was not something you ever associated with Lavi, not even once, and you could tell from that silence alone exactly how surprised he was.
“Yes,” I said. “Like I’ve told you a bunch of times now, I want you for this. Only you.”
“And you want the documentary to be about Bree this time?” Lavi asked.
“Yes,” I said. “I want the whole focus to change completely. Not me anymore. I want it to show how the life partner, the companion, the wife, shapes and influences a man’s entire career.
I want it to be about the contributions a wife makes.
The stuff most men take completely for granted.
The stuff that turns us into big assholes, because we forget everything the wife is doing behind the scenes the whole time, never once asking for anything back except for our continued love and support, and sometimes just a little acknowledgment.
Which we, assholes that we are, forget to give them. ”
I kept going.
“The whole world wants to focus on me. My achievements. How I came from humble beginnings all the way to being the Redcoats quarterback. And I got so wrapped up in being the center of all that attention, I forgot who actually made me who I am today. Who stood by me through all of it. Who kept me sane. Who kept me happy. Who filled my whole life with joy and peace so that I could even go out there and focus on the game in the first place.”
“It was Bree,” I said. “And I want to highlight that.”
Lavi grabbed a napkin off the table and wiped his eyes with it. “Wow,” he said. “Just, wow. I wish every single person could think like that.”
“Everyone will think like that eventually,” I said. “Right after they fuck up real bad, and the love of their life walks out the door. If that happened to every man once in his marriage, he’d know he should be bloody worshiping his wife every single day. Like I know now.”
“So are you in?” I asked.
Lavi wiped the crumbs of the cookie he’d been eating off his hands, right onto the napkin, and reached across the table to shake my hand.
“Thank you, Gavin. I really, really, really appreciate this opportunity. This is going to be a masterpiece. I’ve had so many ideas for this, honestly, I even shared some with Wren once, but you know her, she’s never too keen on accepting anybody else’s ideas but her own.
” He reached down into his bag. “I actually have a whole portfolio full of them. Do you want to take a look?”
“You brought your whole portfolio with you? Today?”
“Sure I did,” he said. “I just knew this meeting was going to change my life.”
He handed the portfolio across the table, and his whole aesthetic, his whole set of ideas, were so different from Wren’s, it honestly caught me off guard.
Wren’s version of us had always looked like some plastic, picture-perfect couple, straight out of a scene from Bling Empire.
Nothing about it was authentic. It all focused on this extravagant lifestyle that wasn’t even close to how Bree and I actually lived our lives.
Wren’s whole focus, the entire time, had been on whatever would sell, including Bree’s humiliation, including my own sex-life rating.
I had been completely blind, up until that exact moment, to the idea that a documentary’s entire flavor, its whole theme, its entire value system, could change just because you swapped out who was holding the camera.
But flipping through Lavi’s portfolio, that difference was suddenly so clear. It was like night and day.
Page after page of candid shots. People doing their everyday things. Love shown through small, everyday actions. Couples helping each other out in the garden. An elderly couple laughing together while their grandchildren blew bubbles in the backyard.
This was exactly what I had wanted this whole time. I just hadn’t known I wanted it until it was sitting right there in my hands.
“These are beautiful,” I said.
Lavi looked ecstatic. “You like these?”
“Like them? I love these.” I closed the portfolio and slid it back to him. “I’m giving you full creative freedom on this documentary. But whatever gets included, and whatever doesn’t, is going to need full approval from Bree. Understood?”
“Understood, boss,” Lavi said, practically bouncing in his seat. “So when do we start?”
“As soon as I get this whole idea approved by Bree,” I said.
“Wait. What? Bree doesn’t know about any of this yet?”
“Relax,” I said. “Chill out. Like you usually do. I’ll handle it. Just wait for my call.”
Which left me thinking, right then, the only real problem left was figuring out where exactly I should even start handling it.
It had to be done simultaneously with step four.
I parked my car on the gravel lot outside Meat Cute, Bree’s parents’ deli.
I had always thought the name of that deli was such a beautiful mashup of Melvin and Lauren’s two whole worlds.
Him, the butcher, the delicatessen man himself.
Her, his muse, the woman who loves nothing more than curling up with a good romance novel.
It was only right then, pulling into that parking lot, that I really understood just how amazing and balanced they were as a couple, and I thought to myself, if I could ever reach their age still standing beside Bree, I would consider my whole life a real success.
I’d guessed that around five o’clock, the deli would be the perfect place to catch Bree, Melvin, and Lauren all together at once.
Her family. Which was now, in every way that mattered, my family too.
The only family I had really known, ever since that so-called “one night stand” with Bree, seven years back.
I needed all three of them together when I walked in, because for what I was about to say, for what I was about to propose, I was going to need approval from every single one of them.
I walked in and saw Melvin behind the counter, working through some numbers on a receipt pad.
The bell over the door dinged, and he looked up.
“Look who’s here now,” he said. “If you think one trip to the game changes anything, you’re mistaken, young man.”
I smiled, walking in. I don’t remember much at all about my own dad. But I’ve always hoped, if I got to pick, that he was something like Melvin.
“I need to talk to you, Melvin,” I said.
“And I don’t need to talk to you,” Melvin said.
I glanced over at the corkboard. My name was still up there, exactly where he’d written it the other day.
I already knew this wasn’t going to be easy.
Then, out of nowhere, Melvin seemed to soften just a little.
“You held the ball too high on that third-and-short the other night,” he said. “Right up around your shoulder. That gave that linebacker a whole extra second to close in on you.”
“Yeah, I saw that on film too,” I said.
“Snap it down tighter next time. Right against your chest. You give a guy like that an extra second, he’s going to make you pay for it every time.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll keep that in mind for the next season. My last one.”
“What are you going to do with yourself in the offseason?” he asked.
“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” I said. “You, and Bree, and Lauren.”
“Where are they?” I asked.
“They’re out back,” he said.
Then, without any warning at all, he turned his head toward the backyard and screamed loud enough to genuinely scare me half to death.
“LAUREN, HONEY! brEE, DARLING! COME HERE! SOMEONE WANTS TO SEE YOU.”
I heard Lauren shout back at the top of her lungs. “WHO IS IT?”
“THE JERK,” Melvin shouted back.
“WHAT DOES GAVIN WANT?” Lauren yelled again.
By the time she finished asking, Bree had already come through the door.
“What do you want, Gavin?” she asked.
Lauren came in right behind her. “What do you want, Gavin?” she asked, the exact same question.
I cleared my throat.
Here goes nothing.
“I want permission,” I said.
Melvin frowned at me. “You want us to ask you permission for what?”
“No,” I said. “I mean, I’m here asking you for permission.”
I looked at Bree. “I’m here to ask for your forgiveness,” I said.
“And both of yours too,” I added, looking at her parents, “for breaking your daughter’s heart.
But mostly, Bree, I’m asking you. I want to spend this whole offseason proving to you that I will never, ever leave your side again.
I want to show you exactly how much I love you. ”
I turned to Melvin and Lauren.
“And for that,” I said, “I’m asking you to hire me. As a waiter. Here, in your deli.”
Melvin blinked at me. “What now? Where do you get these horrendous ideas from?” He looked over at Lauren. “Have you been sending this boy your books?” He turned back to me. “You. A Redcoats quarterback. Want to work in this deli. As a waiter.
I nodded.
Why?”
“Because I want to spend my time next to Bree,” I said, “If it’s okay with her. I know this is where she wants to spend her days. So now I want to spend my days here too. Wherever she goes, I go. Of course, only if she agrees to it.”
Lauren looked very interested all of a sudden. “Now THAT,” she said, “is what I call going to any lengths to win your love back.”
“Mom!” Bree said.
“What? I have to give him credit. That’s a unique one. I’ve never once read that in a book before.”
Then Lauren’s expression turned serious. “You do realize you’re a celebrity, right?”
I nodded.
“And you realize this whole town is going to lose its mind the second word gets out that Gavin Blakley is waiting tables at a local deli?”
I nodded again.
“You realize you’ll have to work long hours, and you’ll be getting paid a laughable amount per hour compared to what you’re used to earning, and you still want to spend your entire offseason doing this?”
“Yes,” I said, looking at Bree the whole time I said it. “If Bree’s okay with it.”
Everyone turned and looked at Bree.
“What?” Bree said. “Why is everybody looking at me?”
“Soooooo,” Lauren said. “What do you think?”
Bree crossed her arms. “Okay. Sure. Fine, whatever. This will not last very long anyway.”
“You’ll have to go through the proper channels,” Melvin said. “This job is not easy to come by. Meat Cute is the best deli in New Haven. Don’t think you’re getting a shorthand just because you’re related to me.”
“Sure,” I said. “Whatever’s needed.”
Melvin reached under the counter and pulled out an actual application form.
“Name?” he asked.
“What?”
“Your name, young man. You want to apply for this position or not?”
“Gavin Blakley.”
“Age?”
“Twenty-nine.”
“Address?”
“13490 Oakdon Square, Foxborough.”
Melvin looked up. “How exactly do you plan on getting here from all the way out there every single day? I’ll tell you now, this deli opens at six-thirty. All staff has to be here by six.”
“I’ll be staying here in New Haven,” I said.
“Where?”
“I rented the studio across the street from your house.”
Bree’s eyes went wide. I could tell she was working very hard to keep it off her face.
Melvin looked up from the form, raised one eyebrow at me, and slid it back across the counter.
“Fill the address in there, then,” he said.
I took the form from him and started filling it, sensing Bree’s eyes on me the whole time.