“Hundreds? Whatever for?”
“Mostly networking and business deals.”
“Wow, that’s… I don’t even know what to say. Growing up, I usually spent it with my family. We would go to a restaurant of my choice. Later…” She pauses, and something flickers through her face, wiping away that casual, relaxed smiling expression. “My mother left, and I would go out with my friends, but my father always waited for me with a bottle of Zinfandel. Ever since I was seventeen.”
“Illegal.” I mock outrage.
She giggles. “He allowed me only a sip or two at first. My first official drink happened when I turned twenty-one. It was more of a ritual than a drinking event. He talked about his dreams for the bistro… After Mother left, he never recovered, and the bistro was his only reprieve.”
“He must be so proud you took it over.”
She sighs. “Yeah,I hope he is.”
She looks away, and I wonder if we went too deep into the personal and spoiled the mood.
“I guess we had very different birthdays growing up,” she says, smiling at me again, but the ghost of whatever the conversation triggered prevails in her eyes, now veiled in sadness.
“My version was fucked up, but at least I got a lot of gifts.” I shrug.
“I have a feeling you didn’t really need anything growing up.”
“In a material sense, perhaps not.” I’m not ready to dissect that, so I cut the topic short. “Talking about gifts...” I pull out the envelope and hand it to her across the table. “Happy Birthday.”
She scoots forward and grabs it eagerly. “What is it?” She opens the flap and pulls out the paper, unfolding it. She frowns for a few moments, which seems to last long enough for me to doubt the gesture. “What is this?” she asks again.
“A deed.”
She rolls her eyes. “I can see that. But it’s for a piece of land, and there are only numbers and coordinates on it.”
“It’s an island in the Pacific Ocean.”
I have experienced a lot of excitement—fake or genuine—after I gifted a lot of useless expensive shit towomen over the years, so I’m pretty sure I fucked up the minute I said the words.
The deed falls from Cora’s hands, and she blinks a few times, her jaw slackened. The worst part is she doesn’t say anything, so I’m not even sure if my internal freak-out is warranted. Maybe she is just surprised.
“I have a feeling it’s not a pleasant surprise,” I say.
She opens her mouth and closes it. Then she repeats the motion a few more times before she finally utters words. “I don’t want to be ungrateful, but this is the kind of gift you give someone who doesn’t need anything. And even then… what am I supposed to do with it?”
“Nothing; it’s just for fun, so you can say at parties that you have an island, or have it named after you…” I peter out because the words sound frivolous to me.
Fuck. She may have put it in her journal, but I guess I annihilated my lawyer to deliver on my impossible request for nothing, because when I look around this place, she would have benefited from a thousand other gifts.
The silence between us is next-level uncomfortable. I should probably leave, and avoid her from now on.
“Well, thank you.” She lets out a laugh that sounds a bit deranged, her sincerity wiped out by the stupid gift. “You’re right, it’s a funny gift. Unforgettable, forsure. Maybe next year you can gift me a plane ride to visit my property.” She gulps down her wine and refills it quickly.
I don’t even know what to say. I have never thought of gifts in terms of their practicality. She was right; I’ve never needed anything, and neither have people I know. Gifts have always been a question of originality, fun. Now they feel like empty gestures. Fuck.
“Cora—”
“No, Xander, don’t say anything. I understand you meant well. I understand we fly in different orbits. But as they say, it’s the thought that counts.” She drinks some more.
I take another sip. “Okay, lesson learned. But I think our orbits collide more than you’re willing to admit.”
She looks at me, the smile waning. “You seemed to have a rich social life this week.”
We both flinch at her sudden change of topic. Or I flinch at its direction, but it’s an opening to dig us out of the awkwardness, so I lean into it.
