by Rose, Katia
But it is crazy, and the last thing I want to keep being is the crazy girl.
“So, uh, Monday at four, right?” I choke out.
“Yep.” The silence stretches for just a moment too long, his breath loud enough for me to imagine it brushing my cheek, caressing me with its heat. “I’ll see you then.”
“See you then,” I echo.
Four
Dylan
BLASON: A form of poetry that describes and praises the physical attributes of its subject
I have made two management mistakes today.
Mistake number one: failing to put my new employee’s start time in my calendar. That led me to mistake number two: failing to have the necessary documents on hand, resulting in me running around like a bat out of hell with no idea how to work a photocopier.
As soon as I spot Renee walking through the door of Taverne Toulouse, I realize I’m on my way to committing mistake number three: stopping mid-stride in my way across the room to stare at said new employee with the shock and wonder of someone who’s just found themselves caught in the middle of a lightning storm.
But that’s what she is.
She’s a goddamn lightning storm. She raises the hair on my arms and makes the air crackle with sparks. I didn’t know what I was facing when she walked into the office last week. I didn’t have time to prepare, but now I’ve got the forecast. Maybe it’s just the collision with the past, the sheer power of coincidence that forces itself to be felt as you face someone you never thought you’d see again, but the sight of Renee Nyobé seems to have the power to split my atmosphere at the seams and light up the rifts in the sky.
Which Monroe will kill me for if she finds out.
Renee’s got jeans on today, dark denim that hugs her legs and exposes an inch of ankle above her black sneakers. Her shirt is black too, the front of it exposed under a grey wool coat. The fading sunlight is streaming in through the windows behind her, catching on dust particles as they swirl through the air, and it lights up her hair like a curly halo as she tries to push it out of her face.
I’d paint her if I had any talent for painting. I’d tell her to stay exactly where she is and raid Monroe’s office for some pens and highlighters. I’d grab a barstool and sketch her on a piece of printer paper in blue ink with fluorescent orange and yellow streaks of light around her face. It wouldn’t be good enough. It wouldn’t even be close to good enough, but someone should try. The sun is begging for someone to turn her into art.
Fucking hell. Monroe really is going to murder me.
“Um, hi.” Renee’s eyes land on me, and she gives a little wave. “I’m a bit early.”
“No problem,” I assure her. “I’m just getting some forms you need to sign all ready. Why don’t you take a seat? Unless you know how to deal with a malfunctioning photocopier.”
“Ben là, just hit it. That’s what Monroe always does.”
DeeDee’s voice makes me jump. I turn to find her leaning over the bar, shaking her head at me. She’s grumpy about the fact that I’m having her start early so Renee can get some training in before the evening rush.
“I’m not going to start hitting the photocopier, DeeDee.”
She shrugs and mutters something in French that sounds like an inappropriately sexual comment about the photocopier liking it a little rough.
“Actually,” Renee chimes in before I’m forced to reprimand DeeDee for not playing nice around the new kid, “I might be able to help. This sounds weird, but I’m kind of good with photocopiers.”
“That does sound weird,” I agree. It sounds especially weird given DeeDee’s remark about photocopiers liking it rough, but I do my best to ignore that. It’s not a thought I can afford to entertain. “But I will take help wherever I can get it. Follow me.”
I lead the way to the office, where the combination printer and photocopier is displaying a half dozen blinking error messages that mean absolutely nothing to me.
“I believe it’s possessed,” I explain. “We may need to perform an exorcism.”
“I think I can sort this out, but maybe have some holy water on hand just in case.”
She’s already pushing buttons on the screen and checking various cables.
“Is this what you wanted to photocopy?” she asks less than a minute later, holding up the paper I left sitting on the machine.
“Yes, that.” I grab the rest of the forms off the desk behind me. “And these.”
She makes a ‘gimme’ gesture, and I fork them over. An embarrassingly short amount of time later, I have a pile of papers in my hand I spent the better part of a half hour trying to obtain on my own.
“Okay, wise one, how did you do that?” I tease, hoping she’ll reveal some sort of photocopier secret that will save me from ever having this problem again.
“Well you just have to press this when it says that, and then you use this button here and select that option.”
Yeah, I will be having this problem again.
“And how did you become such an office technology guru?” I motion for her to grab one of the spare chairs as I take a seat at the desk.
“I used to help my dad a lot at his office,” Renee explains. “He works at the art museum, and I loved going to work with him when I was a kid. I still loved going when I was a teenager, honestly. I spent way too many of my high school summers there. I always did the photocopying for him and all his coworkers. There were a lot of jokes made about illegal child labour.”
I chuckle along with her as she grabs the first form and starts filling it in.
The din of the kitchen is still filtering through the office walls, but as I watch her hand move across the page, I almost forget where we are. There’s this ache in my chest, one that surges with a strangling intensity every time I look at her. I’ve missed her. I want to talk like we used to, about anything and everything. I want to ask her what she’s been up to. I want to see the world through her eyes again the way I did every time I heard her poetry. Nobody sees things quite like Renee.
“Did you ever think about working there yourself?” I ask.
Her pen hovers in the air. “Not really. I don’t think I’d ever want to have to go there. It was nice to have it as an escape.”
“Nice,” I can’t help teasing. “You sure you don’t want to take me up on that thesaurus advice?”
That earns me an eye roll.
“The thesaurus joke is dead, Dylan. Let it go. Let it be free like a butterfly on the wind.”
“Ah, I was wondering if I’d ever hear your poetry again.”
Her body goes so stiff I can see her muscles tighten, see her spine snapping back until she’s sitting ramrod straight. The line of her mouth gets tight like she’s holding in a yelp of pain.
I’m sorry. I just meant it as a joke.
I’m about to say the words before their echo in my head makes me take a good, hard look at myself.
I don’t want to be that guy.
I back my chair up a few inches and face Renee. She’s relaxed a bit by now, but her pen is still hovering over the dotted line waiting for her signature.
“That was an unprofessional thing to say,” I admit. “Just because we have a casual atmosphere going on here, that doesn’t mean this isn’t a business based on respect. If anyone ever says anything that makes you uncomfortable, including me, you can go to Monroe, or a shift leader—whoever you feel best talking to. I promise you that you’ll always be taken seriously, and I promise you that I’m going to take this seriously. Just because we used to know each oth—”
“Dylan, it’s not that.”
She’s been staring at her paper the whole time and finally looks up at me, eyes wide with alarm.
“I mean, thank you for saying that. I really appreciate it. I also appreciate that it’s all written down here.” She taps the document with the tip of her pen. “I never doubted this was a place that takes complaints seriously. Only I don’t have a complaint. You didn’t say anything wrong;
it’s just that—My writing, it...”
Her eyes sink to the desk again, her shoulders bowing like a branch under the weight of too much snow.
“It’s just hard to talk about it right now.” Her voice sounds so small.
My hands twitch with the urge to offer her something, anything. I want to ask. I want to listen. I want to help.
I just don’t know if that’s my job. It’s sure as hell not part of this job—the one that has me assigning her shifts and logging her hours. It’s not my place to pry. It probably wouldn’t even be my place to pry if I wasn’t her boss.
I might feel like I know her, but I don’t. I might feel like a connection that looped itself around us three years ago is pulling tighter every second I’m near her now, but she’s probably not even aware of the rope.
“Oh, hey Renee.”
We both nearly shoot out of our seats when Zach’s head pokes around the edge of the office door. The rest of him appears, hands in the pockets of his jeans, his flannel hanging open over a t-shirt and giving him that farmer boy look we all like to give him a hard time about. He doesn’t help himself out by walking around whistling all the time.
“Hey. It’s Zach, right?”
He gives Renee one of his could-be-used-to-market-old-fashioned-apple-pie smiles. “Finally! We’re going to have a bartender who remembers people’s names.”
“DeeDee is terrible with names,” I explain to Renee, “which is strange, considering half the city of Montreal seems to know her.”
“And love her,” Zach adds, before tugging on the collar of his shirt and paying very close attention to the floor, like he didn’t mean to say that out loud.
Our young Zachary is the picture of unrequited affection—although I’d bet money on DeeDee feeling more for him than she lets on. Between the morbid state of my management and the continued saga of Zach and DeeDee, we’ve got ourselves a fucking Greek tragedy going on in this bar today.
“You ready for the meeting?” Zach asks.
“The meeti—Oh, yeah.” I catch myself before I can admit I totally forgot about our meeting with Monroe. “So ready. I was born ready. I’ve been waiting for this meeting my entire life. Are you ready for this meeting?”
“Whoa, curb your enthusiasm there, Beefcake.”
I glance at Renee. “Could we at least have let the new employee get through her first shift before anyone started calling me that? I’m trying to give the impression that I’ve actually some control over you guys.”
“What a pleasant thought that is, Beefcake. If only it were true.”
“Okay, Zachy Zach.” I pointedly use the nickname he hates hearing from anyone but DeeDee and turn back to Renee. “See what I mean about sarcasm fitting in around here?”
“Yeah, I do.” A sly grin curls her lips as she adds, “Beefcake.”
I sink back in my chair and groan as Zach gives her a high five.
“I’m finished with all the forms now,” Renee continues. “Should I head out to the bar?”
“Yeah, DeeDee will be ready for you by now. She’s going to show you, uh, bar stuff.”
“Bar stuff. Got it.” Renee pushes herself to her feet and heads out as Zach wishes her good luck.
My eyes trail after her as she goes, memorizing her shape.
“Bar stuff?” Zach questions once the door is shut.
“I don’t know what the hell they do out there,” I admit, unable to hold back the outburst. “Fuck, Zach, how did Monroe do all of this? There’s so much fucking stuff to know.” I wave a hand at the desk in front of me like it contains all the inner workings of the establishment.
Zach’s eyes widen. “You, uh, okay, man?”
I run a hand down my face. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”
He doesn’t look convinced.
He’s my best friend at this place, but I’m also his superior now. I doubt it’s professional to whine about how hard my job is to him. Then again, who else would I talk to? I can’t face Monroe’s disappointment, and I’m not about to grab the nearest prep cook for a chat. If I’m going to let the cracks in my got-it-together armour show, Zach’s probably the best person to see them.
I lean my elbows on the desk and blow out a breath. Zach takes it as signal to sit down in Renee’s chair.
“I was so fucking excited to be a manager,” I admit. “When Monroe asked, it was like...It was a proud moment for me, you know? I’ve come a long way to get here. For someone to have that kind of faith in me, it...”
“Yeah,” Zach agrees when I can’t seem to go on. “It means a lot.”
Monroe initially asked him to manage the front of house while I took over the kitchen. He turned her down to focus on some kind of ecommerce business he’s been running from home. As far as I can tell, the dude is making a killing, but he still comes in here for a few shifts a week.
No one has had any difficulty guessing why.
Still, I know for a fact that Monroe offering him the job couldn’t have meant as much as it did to me. Zach may be my best friend here, but Monroe knows more about my past than anyone on the Taverne Toulouse team. There are things I told her when I got hired, things I knew she might find out on her own. I wanted her to hear them from me.
I’ve watched people run from those words. I’ve watched people shut me out and write me off as soon as I say them, but Monroe didn’t bat an eye.
“Is this going to affect your work here?” I remember her asking that day I shuffled into the converted closet she used as an office back before the renovations.
I shook my head.
She gave me a single nod and said, “Then it doesn’t affect my opinion of you.”
I’ve spent every minute at this place working to prove she made the right choice.
“I don’t know what the problem is,” I explain to Zach. “Every day, I wake up knowing exactly what to do here and how to get it done, but then I show up, and I feel like I’m barely keeping it together. I couldn’t even work the damn photocopier today.”
He joins in my laugh at my own expense.
“I want to be the best boss I can be for you guys. I want to be someone the whole team can depend on. I want to be there for this place the way Monroe always has been, but I don’t know if I’ve got it in me to...be there for people like that.”
The sounds of the bar creep into the silent office. Zach sits there looking like he’s working on a particularly challenging jigsaw puzzle while I listen to the cooks crashing around in the kitchen and tap my foot to the distant throb of the music coming from the front of house.
It must be a full minute later before Zach crosses his arms over his chest and rocks his chair onto its back legs. He looks like he should be chewing on a piece of wheat as a tumbleweed blows by.
“Okay, first off, no one is ever going to be here for this place like Monroe because Monroe is possibly not even human. You have to be some kind of demi-god to run this place the way she does.”
I nod my agreement; he’s got a point there.
“Secondly, you’re the most trustworthy guy I know. When you say you’re going to do something, you do it. You give everything you’ve got to the things you commit to. You’re that guy who’s always there, you know? Probably being loud and overenthusiastic and making some stupid joke, but you’re there, man. We all see it. We all appreciate it. We’re not going to start a mutiny because of a few mistakes or oversights. You’re not walking the plank just yet, my friend.”
“Yeah, if you guys get all Pirates of the Caribbean on me, I’m busting out my sword.”
Zach eyes get wide with excitement. “Wait, you own a sword?”
“No, I do not own a sword, you dipshit.”
“Swords are cool!” he protests. “Don’t get my hopes up about swords!”
“Okay, I can agree that swords are pretty fucking cool. I will not mess with your emotions as far as archaic weaponry goes.”
We keep shooting the shit for the next few minutes until Monroe shows up. This is wha
t I’m good at—not that dicking around at work is a skill, but there’s something to be said for creating an atmosphere where people feel comfortable. That’s what I was thinking of when I said “Fuck yes!” to becoming a manager. I want to make people feel good about being at work. I want them to believe that even though they’re stuck chopping up potatoes or serving drinks to dickhead customers, they’re still doing something fun because they’re surrounded by fun people.
I want to be like that one radio announcer who always has you laughing like an idiot alone in your car. Yeah, you’re stuck in an hour of traffic on icy as fuck roads as you try to get home in time for a dinner date you’re probably going to miss, but the tunes are good and the commentary is killer, and at the end of the day, life is pretty fucking great.
That’s how I want people to feel when they walk into this bar: I want them to remember that life is pretty fucking great.
I just didn’t know it would involve this much paperwork and spreadsheets I don’t understand. I didn’t know it would feel this heavy to have everyone’s livelihoods riding on me figuring that shit out.
Monroe breezes in right on time for our meeting about the grand reopening. Instead of nodding along and pretending to be keeping up like I usually would, I pull my chair closer to the desk and pore over the documents with her. I ask questions. I’m sure they aren’t the smartest questions, but I ask them anyway.
Zach said I’m always there, and I’m going to do a better job of being there now. I may not be sure I’m the right guy for this job, but it is my job. I promised myself a long time ago that I was done being the guy who always makes mistakes.
Five
Renee
ALLITERATION: The repetition of the initial letter or sound in a group of consecutive words
“Yeah! You did it! That is a perfect pint, ma belle.”