Yulia adjusted the strap of her emerald dress in front of the mirror, gave her reflection a critical once-over, and was satisfied. Forty. A terrifying number for some, but for Yulia it meant freedom, money, and, finally, the ability to say a firm “no.”
“Yul, the taxi’s waiting,” said Boris, her husband, peeking out from the hallway. He looked at his wife with undisguised admiration. “You look absolutely stunning tonight. Are you sure you don’t want to invite anyone?”
“Borya, we already discussed this,” Yulia said, picking up her clutch. “No guests. No cooking. No ‘slice the salad’ and ‘where are my slippers?’ Just you, me, an expensive restaurant, and silence. I want to eat my steak without listening to your mother’s advice on the proper way to chew food.”
Boris chuckled. He knew that Yulia and Larisa Semyonovna’s relationship resembled a cold war, with stretches of icy silence broken by artillery bombardments in the form of unsolicited advice.
“Deal. Your day, your rules.”
The restaurant, Golden Peacock, had not been chosen by accident. It was a pretentious, absurdly expensive place with ornate plasterwork, velvet curtains, and prices that would give any normal person a nervous tic. Exactly the kind of place where one could feel like the queen of the evening.
They entered the hall, expecting a cozy table by the window. Smiling broadly, the host led them deeper into the room. But not to the window.
“Your table is ready,” he sang out, gesturing toward the center of the hall.
Yulia froze. Instead of a cozy table for two, there was a sprawling setup for about twelve people in the middle of the room. And it was not empty.
At the head of the table, like an empress in exile, sat Larisa Semyonovna in glittering lurex. Beside her sat Uncle Vitya—a distant relative Yulia saw once every five years—greedily spooning caviar straight into his mouth. On the other side, Galya, her sister-in-law, was wiping her younger child’s mouth with a napkin, while the older one, a seven-year-old brat, was already picking at the upholstery of an antique chair with a fork.
“Surpriiise!” Larisa Semyonovna barked when she saw the couple standing there frozen. Her voice had been trained by years of working at the passport office.
The whole restaurant turned to look. Boris went pale and glanced at his wife. Yulia said nothing, but in her eyes there flared that ominous spark which usually meant someone was about to suffer greatly. Emotionally.
“Mom?” Boris forced out. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you mean, what are we doing here?” his mother cried, throwing up her hands and nearly knocking over a wineglass. “It’s our beloved daughter-in-law’s anniversary! Did you really think we’d leave the poor girl all alone on such a day? We’re family! Come on, sit down! We’ve already started a little while we were waiting for you.”
Yulia slowly approached the table. It was groaning under the weight of food: sturgeon, assorted meat delicacies, a battery of expensive cognac bottles, oysters that Uncle Vitya regarded with suspicion but devoured with the enthusiasm of an excavator.
“Larisa Semyonovna,” Yulia said, her voice flat as a dead man’s cardiogram. “We reserved a table for two.”
“Oh, don’t be such a grouch!” Galya waved her off, pouring herself more wine. “Mom called the host and said the person who made the booking had made a mistake and there would be more guests. She caused a whole scene, of course, but look where they seated us! Yulka, why are you dressed up like that? The dress leaves your back exposed. At forty, you really ought to dress more modestly—your skin isn’t exactly a peach anymore.”
“Galya, you’ve got mayonnaise on your chin,” Yulia said with an icy smile. “And I think your son is about to dump the sauceboat onto an eighteenth-century carpet.”
The crash of breaking crockery confirmed her words. Galya’s son had swept a flower vase off the table.
“It’s nothing!” Larisa Semyonovna shouted over the noise. “Broken dishes bring good luck! Waiter! Clean this up and bring more of that crab salad—it’s awfully good. And bring the hot dishes too!”
Yulia sat down. Boris lowered himself beside her, trying to shrink to the size of an atom. He knew that look in his wife’s eyes. It was the look of a sniper calculating for wind.
“So, you decided to surprise me,” Yulia said, unfolding her napkin.
“Of course!” Larisa Semyonovna was already reaching for her third piece of sturgeon. “We know you’re always saving money, always doing everything yourself. But this is a celebration! The whole family is here! Uncle Vitya came all the way from the region, even took time off work.”
“I work as a loader, threw my back out, need the rest,” Vitya mumbled through a mouthful. “And you’ve got good cognac here, Yulka. Not like that swill you served on New Year’s.”
The guests’ brazenness was growing exponentially. Galya started loudly discussing how Yulia ought to have a baby already—“the clock isn’t ticking anymore, it’s cuckooing”—and that careers were for men, while women were supposed to cook borscht. Larisa Semyonovna nodded along while continuing to order the most expensive things on the menu.
“I’ll have the lobster,” the mother-in-law told the waiter. “Never had it before. And one for Galya too. And desserts for the kids—the biggest ones!”
“Mom, that’s really expensive,” Boris whispered.
“Hush!” his mother snapped. “It’s your wife’s anniversary. You can afford to splurge for your mother and sister. We don’t celebrate every day.”
The climax came an hour later. Flushed with alcohol, Larisa Semyonovna stood up to make a toast. She tapped her fork against her glass, demanding silence.
“Well then, Yulenka,” she began in a syrupy voice containing more venom than a cobra’s bite. “So you’ve turned forty. A woman’s prime, as you know, is short. I wish you’d finally stop thinking only about yourself. Look at Galya—three children, a husband who drinks, sure, but at least he’s hers, a household to run. And you? Always in offices and gyms. You’re selfish, Yulia. But we love you anyway, because we’re generous people. To family!”
“To family!” Uncle Vitya bellowed.
Galya giggled. Boris clenched his fists, about to say something, but Yulia laid her hand over his. Then she slowly stood up. Silence fell across the room. Yulia was smiling, but the waiter standing nearby instinctively took a step back.
“Thank you, Larisa Semyonovna,” Yulia said loudly and clearly. “You’ve opened my eyes. I really have been selfish. I thought my anniversary was my celebration. But you’ve shown me that family is what truly matters.”
Her mother-in-law gave a smug nod, accepting what she took for surrender.
“And since we’re talking about generosity and surprises…” Yulia paused. “Waiter!”
The young man hurried over instantly.
“Bring us the check, please.”
“Already?” Galya said in surprise, finishing her second serving of lobster. “We haven’t even had dessert yet!”
“Eat, my dears, eat,” Yulia said sweetly.
The waiter returned with a leather folder. Yulia opened it and skimmed the receipt. The amount was impressive—enough for a used foreign car. In two hours, the relatives had eaten and drunk their way through the annual budget of a small African country.
“Wow!” Larisa Semyonovna whistled as she glanced at the check. “Well, Borya, take out your card. If we’re celebrating, let’s celebrate properly!”
Yulia snapped the folder shut and handed it back to the waiter.
“Young man,” she said loudly enough for the neighboring tables to hear, “my husband and I keep a separate budget from this company. Please split the bill separately: two Caesar salads, two rib-eye steaks, and a bottle of mineral water. That was our order.”
A deathly silence fell over the table. You could hear a fly buzzing over the aspic.
“What do you mean?” Larisa Semyonovna’s face broke out in red blotches. “Yulia, are you joking?”
“No jokes at all.” Yulia took out her card and tapped it against the payment terminal the quick-witted waiter had already extended. Beep. Paid.
“You can’t do this!” Galya screeched. “It’s your birthday! You invited us!”
“I did?” Yulia raised an eyebrow. “I did not invite you. You said it yourselves: ‘Surprise!’”
She stood, straightened her dress, and looked down at her mother-in-law.
“You barged into my celebration without an invitation. You ordered dishes I never chose. You insulted me and humiliated me on my own birthday. So here’s the rule, my dears: surprises are wonderful. But remember this—whoever arranges the surprise is the one who pays for it.”
“Borya!” Larisa Semyonovna wailed, clutching at her heart—a trick she had rehearsed for years. “Your wife has lost her mind! She’s leaving her mother in debt! Do something! My blood pressure!”
Boris slowly rose to his feet. He looked at his mother, at Uncle Vitya trying to hide an unfinished bottle of cognac under the table, at his sister and her sticky children.
“Mom,” he said calmly, “Yulia’s right. You wanted a celebration—you arranged it. Enjoy it. And we’re leaving. I think we still have plans for the evening.”
He took Yulia by the arm.
“You ungrateful monsters!” his mother-in-law shrieked, forgetting all about her blood pressure. “I’ll curse you! May you never have money! Galya, call the police!”
“There’s no need to call the police,” the manager cut in. He was an imposing man with an earpiece, and behind him loomed two sturdy security guards. “But the bill does have to be paid. In full. Right now.”
Yulia and Boris walked toward the exit to the accompaniment of shouting and swearing.
“I don’t have that kind of money!” Galya squealed. “Let Vitya pay—he ate the most!”
“Me?!” Uncle Vitya protested. “I only tried a bit of salad! It was your old lady ordering everything!”
“Who are you calling an old lady?!” Larisa Semyonovna roared.
Once outside in the cool evening air, Yulia took a deep breath.
“How are you?” Boris asked, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
“You know,” Yulia said, smiling—and this time sincerely—“that was the best birthday present I could have had. It feels like I just threw off a backpack full of bricks I’ve been carrying for ten years.”
“They’ll never forgive us for this,” Boris said with a grin.
“I very much hope not,” Yulia replied. “At least now they know that a ‘surprise’ can come flying back at them too.”
Epilogue (one week later)
Larisa Semyonovna’s number was on the blacklist, but news still filtered through mutual acquaintances. Retribution struck the “guests” instantly and brutally. Naturally, they hadn’t had enough money with them. The scandal lasted two hours.
The manager turned out to be a man of principle. In the end, Uncle Vitya had to leave his gold watch as collateral—a family heirloom he was immensely proud of—and sign an IOU. Galya had to call her husband, who arrived furious as the devil and tore into her right there in the restaurant parking lot when he learned how much they owed. As it turned out, he had been saving that money for winter tires and transmission repairs. Now Galya was facing a long and joyless period of ruthless economizing.
And Larisa Semyonovna? The mother-in-law tried to fake a heart attack, but the ambulance crew called by the restaurant diagnosed nothing more than acute alcohol intoxication and overeating. She had to empty the stash she had been saving for a new fur coat.
But the sweetest part wasn’t that.
The sweetest part was that the relatives turned on each other. Galya blamed her mother for stirring everyone up. Her mother blamed Vitya for drinking too much. Vitya demanded his watch back. The anti-Yulia coalition collapsed, devouring itself.
Yulia sat in her kitchen, drinking coffee and reading a book.
In silence.
The phone was quiet. No one was asking for money, teaching her how to live, or demanding love.
Justice is a dish best served cold.
