They’d been assigned the poultry course for the evening’s menu.
Gemma takes a long slurp of tea and ponders the question. “I’m thinking roast pigeon, what do you think?”
“Okay,” Mebel says simply.
Gemma frowns at her. “Mebel, you’ve got to tell me your honest opinion.”
“I think pigeon is good.”
“Okay, or what about duck? We could do duck, or even turkey, since it’s close to Thanksgiving?”
“Thanksgiving? Isn’t that American holiday? To celebrate freedom from…you?” Mebel says.
“Well, yes, but it’s become popularized, and it’s less of a ‘Yay, we got away from the English’ and more of a ‘Ooh, let’s eat a load of food’ type of holiday now,” Gemma says. When Mebel continues to look skeptically at her, she says, “All right, not turkey. But what about duck?”
“We can do duck,” Mebel says agreeably.
“Mebel!” Gemma cries.
“What?”
“Don’t just agree with me. What doyouwant to do?”
Mebel pauses, thinking hard. It’s yet another moment when she’s having a mental block because she realizes she hasn’t been in a situation where she’s had to think about what she really wants. “I—ah—” She’s always just gone along with whatever Henk wanted. It seemed much simpler that way. She gives herself a little shake of the head, trying to clear her thoughts. “I want—ah—”
Gemma looks expectantly at Mebel.
“Maybe we throw a coin,” Mebel says.
“Mebel!” Gemma snaps. “Just make a decision. Right now! Duck or pigeon? Duck or—”
“Duck!” Mebel shouts.
Silence rings for a moment, then Gemma breaks into a laugh. “Yeah, way to go, Mebs! Look at that, you made a decision for yourself, for once. You are a baddie!”
Mebel looks at her, stunned, then the smile slowly takes over her face. “Yes, duck.”
“All right, duck it is. How do you feel?”
Mebel takes a deep breath. “I don’t know. Is very strange. Who cares about duck or pigeon or chicken or what? Nobody cares. I don’t care about such thing, but…”
“But it turns out you do care?” Gemma says.
“Yes.” Mebel cups her mug of tea and looks down at her lap. “But is like—it feels silly to care about such thing.”
“It’s not though, is it?” Gemma says. “Because you are spending so much of your time and effort to excel at this thing.”
Mebel struggles to try to explain her reticence about accepting the importance of this event. “You know, this kind of thing, in my circle of friends and family, is like a silly hobby.Unless is something that make a lot of money, then otherwise it has no value to us.”
“I understand,” Gemma says.
“You do? I thought you young people are all about, ‘Oh, I love to do this, that is all that matters.’ ”
“Okay, I’m gonna ignore the ageism there,” Gemma says. “Thing is, Mebs, we’re all raised in this capitalist society. I mean, I wish we could all be like, ‘Fuck money, we’re doing this purely for the love of it!’ But at the end of the day, I need to have enough money to be able to pay rent and buy myself some food to eat. So, yeah, I get what you’re saying and why your culture would place so much importance on ventures that earn you money.”
“You young generation are very wise,” Mebel says.
“Thank you. We are, aren’t we? It’s because of social media.”
