(Just so everyone’s clear on this, Anika and Mason showing up was about the last thing I wanted to happen at this juncture. I did my best to prevent them from coming—I tried to lure Mason to change his plans with a glimpse of a blockbuster action movie poster on the drive home from school, and Anika even had some, ahem, mysterious car trouble. But it was no use. Anika’s mom is a whiz with cars, and Mason cared far more about potentially healing his friendship with Gael than any movie, no matter how many car chases it promised.)
For Gael, the minutes stretched by endlessly, as his dad began to get anxious about whether the waiter had forgotten about their appetizers. As his mom made a show of unfolding and refolding her napkin and trying to avoid his dad’s eyes. As Piper looked just a touch too happy, probably na?vely hoping that after one joint dinner his parents would actually make up. As Mason made a totally Mason comment about how it was good to see Mr. and Mrs. Brennan together again, and his parents scrambled to say how they had such a good friendship, and it was all going well, and blah blah blah. As Anika caught his eyes, and delivered a compassionate glance that only made him fume inside. If she was really so sorry about what had happened with his parents, she wouldn’t have destroyed him like she did.
After another agonizing few minutes of placing their orders, his parents fumbling because they always got the “Sushi for Two” special, Anika fiddled in her bag and pulled out a cellophane-wrapped Blu-ray. “I wanted to give you this,” she said quietly.
He stared at her, shocked. “A birthday present?” he whispered angrily. “I don’t want anything from you.”
“Just take it,” she said. “I had to order it special.”
She shoved it into his hands and smiled.
“What’s that?” his mom asked.
“Nothing,” he said.
“Vertigo!” his mom said. “I introduced this to you, Gael, remember?”
“I know, Mom,” he said.
She took it out of his hands. “Deluxe edition and everything. What a thoughtful gift. Is this from you, Anika?”
“Yes, Mrs. Brennan,” Anika said sweetly. She sounded so fake. Had she always sounded so fake? Gael wondered.
“Well, you sure know Gael, I’ll say that much,” his mom said. “He loves old movies. Unlike Arthur.”
In the past, his dad would have responded by delivering an impassioned argument about why new movies were so much better than old ones, but his parents didn’t have those types of playful discussions anymore. His dad just shrugged.
“I never watched any Hitchcock before Gael got me into it,” Anika said. Her voice was super high-pitched, about an octave higher than normal. Mason, for his part, was staring at his fork, avoiding everyone.
“It’s not that amazing to buy a movie,” Gael said. “One click on Amazon. Boom. Anyone could do it.”
His mom gasped. “Gael. I think it was a very thoughtful gift from your girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” he spat.
Everyone went quiet, looking at him like he’d just farted, including perfect little gift-giving Anika. She stared at him like this was somehow his fault.
Gael didn’t want to do this here, not in front of his family—and Mason and Sammy and the whole freaking restaurant—but he couldn’t stop. “You seriously think a stupid gift will fix everything?”
“Gael, stop.” Anika’s eyes started to well with tears. “Don’t do this.”
Gael threw his hands into the air. “It’s not even from the Criterion Collection!”
“They don’t have Vertigo in Criterion,” Anika said meekly.
“Well, if you really knew me, you’d know I’d have wanted to wait until it comes out in Criterion,” he said, his voice fully a yell now.
“Hey, come on, dude,” Mason said, placing a hand on the back of Anika’s chair.
Anika didn’t look at Mason. Instead, she closed her mouth and put on her saddest, feel-bad-for-me eyes and said: “I’m sorry. I didn’t think—”
“Of course you didn’t. You two only think about yourselves.”
Gael turned to face his audience. “Guess what, family? Since we’re all here together, watching me have a total breakdown, you might as well know that she cheated on me! With him!” He pointed to Mason.
For the briefest of moments, Gael saw a look of shock pass across his dad’s face—or was it actually guilt? Gael paused. His parents had never given him a reason for why they’d split, and over the past couple of weeks, Gael had started to wonder if it might be his dad’s fault. His dad had taken to running into his bedroom when his phone rang, answering with the door firmly shut, almost like he had something to hide. Maybe his own father was no better than Mason or Anika.
But he didn’t have time to figure it out. Because that’s when the waiter came out with a caterpillar roll with a lit candle in it, a group of people around him, singing in Japanese to the tune of the “Happy Birthday” song.
(I’d tried to delay this: In the kitchen, the candle went out no fewer than four times due to a mysteriously overactive exhaust fan, but unfortunately, all the waiters had lighters in their pockets.)