by Rose, Katia
I know they must be expecting what’s coming, but this is the first actual indication I’ve made. Not even DeeDee was in on the announcement.
“Taverne Toulouse is closing down. Monsieur Fournier is selling the property. They wanted me to hold off on telling you for a few weeks since we’ll still be open until a buyer is found, but I know many of you will want to start looking for new job. I’m not going to blindside you after everything you’ve done for this place, and I’ll be more than happy to give you all excellent references.”
‘Happy’ is the farthest thing from what I feel. It’s the farthest thing from what’s written on faces of the people looking up at me. A few show traces of shock, like they’re still processing what’s going on, and the rest are a mixed bag of dismay, alarm, and grim resignation.
It’s almost like staring into a mirror.
I did my best to push Julien’s rejection aside. I tried my hardest to not sit there waiting for a phone call that never arrived as I turned over every leaf in the book searching for a way to save this bar, but I don’t have the money to buy Taverne Toulouse. I don’t know anyone who does. The numbers aren’t there. The math doesn’t add up. This is one quandary I can’t solve with duct tape and few whacks from a wrench. This equation has no favourable outcome—at least not for me.
Or the people in front of me.
The best I can do is lead them out of here with my head held high. I’ll personally walk them into every bar in this city until they all have new jobs. I’ll do what it takes to make sure they don’t end up worse off because of me and the things I failed to accomplish.
My dreams aren’t going to come true, but then again, I’ve always been much better at chasing other people’s dreams for them.
“You should buy it!”
The shout comes from Dylan, and a few other staff members echo their agreement.
“You do everything for fucking Fournier,” he continues. “This place is already more yours than his.”
I’m always careful to avoid using my fond epithets for Fournier in front of the staff—DeeDee excluded—but they’ve adopted them all the same. I bite back a grin to keep myself from looking too pleased about it.
“Believe it or not,” I reply, “I did consider that. I looked into what it would take to buy this place—even just a share—and it’s just not going to happen, guys. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Admitting I failed them hurts more than admitting I failed myself. I reach behind me and grip the edge of the bar for support.
“I’ll buy a share!” Dylan shouts. “Hell, I’ve bought a share’s worth of beer from this place over the years. Might as well start putting my money into something useful.”
“Seconded!” Zach calls out. “Put me down for a share too.”
“I think I can only afford a mini share,” DeeDee admits, “but I’ll give you whatever I’ve got, choufleur!”
She pulls her wallet out and waves a twenty around before jumping to her feet and making her way around the group, demanding they fork up whatever is in their pockets.
I watch the five and ten dollar bills pile up in her hands, and the tears I’ve been stubbornly keeping at bay start to prick the corners of my eyes. It’s like a bunch of kids deciding they’re going to buy a swimming pool with the nickels and dimes they collect at a lemonade stand; it’s not enough to even make a dent in the cost, but it means the world to see they’re willing to try.
I’ve always known how much Taverne Toulouse means to me. This is the first time I’ve come face to face with how much it means to them.
“Thank you,” I manage to force out past the lump in my throat. “This is incredibly sweet. Maybe we could donate it to—”
“Woah, woah, woah,” Dylan interrupts as DeeDee walks up and deposits the cash into my shaking hands. “The only place that’s being donated to is your future ownership of Taverne Toulouse. I was serious about buying a share. I’ve been thinking about investing in something. What’s a better investment than Monroe?”
He looks around the group for support and gets a chorus of agreement.
“My bank keeps telling me I need to ‘make my savings work harder for me,’” Lisanne, one of our longstanding servers, chimes in. “Who’s going to work harder for my money than Monroe? I’m in.”
“I just paid off my student loans. What’s another few years of debt?” one of the cooks jokes.
I shake my head. “You guys can’t be serious.”
“There’s, what? Fifteen of us?” Dylan levels with me before doing a quick head count. “Make that sixteen, plus however many other people we can round up. I think sixteen people should be able to buy a bar together.”
“It’s a bar on one of the most desirable streets in the city,” I remind them. I’ve already received my reality check. I hate to be the one to deliver theirs, but they need to face the facts before they get carried away. “This isn’t just some kind of fundraiser. This comes with a risk. You’re tying your assets up in a business that’s already failing. Even if it was possible for us to somehow afford it together, that’s a huge commitment to make.”
Zach gets up and makes his way over to stand beside me.
“I’m not afraid of commitment,” he tells me before turning to face the group, “and I think we can do this.”
Dear lord, how is DeeDee dating a guy with a spider tattoo on his neck when she could be with this wonderboy right here?
One by one, they all get up and join us at the front.
I look at each of their faces. There’s no hesitation. There’s no fear. I know most of these people wouldn’t be able to spare more than fifty bucks. There’s only a handful who could actually afford a significant share. A few of them could probably secure the same kind of loans as me, but that’s not a risk I would ask of anyone but myself. This is too much. It’s far too much.
“I really appreciate this, but—”
“Watch it with the butts, lady,” DeeDee orders.
“We can at least run the numbers,” Zach adds, “and see what we’re actually working with.”
“I know for a fact you’ve done at least fifty favours for everyone in this room,” Dylan states. He gives me a stern look, and I know we’re both thinking of more than what I’ve done for his slam group. I hired him despite the fact that he did jail time for dealing. “You took a chance on a lot of us when no one else would. Let us do something for you. We all know how you feel about this place. Let us help you save it and turn it into something even better than it is now.”
“Staring with those maudit bathroom tiles!” Lisanne shouts to general applause.
The bathroom tiles really are awful.
“Well.” I pause and survey the group a final time. “I guess it couldn’t hurt to run the numbers.”
Dylan thumps me on the back as DeeDee pulls two twenty dollar bills out of my grasp and scurries behind the bar.
“Tequila!” she shouts in explanation, waving the money like a victory flag before dropping it in the register. “On me!”
She pours the shots in record time like the seasoned pro she is and passes them out without spilling a drop. When we’ve all got our hands on some alcohol, she raises her own shot glass to make her trademark toast.
“One for the road, hein!”
“To Taverne Toulouse!” Zach adds.
“To Monroe, the best boss I know all you fuckers have ever had!”
Dylan’s toast is the one that gets echoed, “To Monroe!” falling from everyone’s lips before they tilt their heads back and drink.
It’s the first time an entire room of people has toasted me.
* * *
This is crazy. No sane person would look at this and consider it a sound financial move, but the numbers are there. If what’s showing on my computer screen is correct, we have enough to make Fournier a competitive offer.
“He’ll take that, right?” Zach asks. He, Dylan, and I are holed up in my office together a few days after the staff meeting. “
He has to at least consider that.”
“He could get more from someone else,” I remind them. “Probably much more.”
While most of the staff were happy to throw in anywhere from fifty bucks to a few hundred purely as a donation, only Dylan and Zach could actually come to the table as investors. I knew Dylan had a side gig working for his cousin’s construction company and has been saving up for years. It turns out Zach runs some kind of online ecommerce business that’s making him a fair amount of cash.
“You both realize this is a terrible investment, right? We’re going to have to take out even more loans to do any of the improvements I have in mind, and there’s no guarantee we can get this place off the ground, especially with a wine bar going in next door.”
I still haven’t heard from Julien. I almost cracked and gave him a call. When I walked out of his apartment, I thought I was giving him the push he needed to change his mind. Deep down, I didn’t really think I was saying goodbye. Every day that passes without word from him makes me less certain he ever felt what I thought he did at all, and when I really let myself acknowledge it, the pain is enough to crush me.
Only I don’t have time to analyze all those early morning hours I passed wrapped up in his arms. I can’t spend the day in bed with his words on repeat in my head, trying to pick out which ones were true and which weren’t. I don’t have time to torture myself.
We don’t have time for that.
“Wow, Monroe, you’re a very convincing saleswoman,” Dylan jokes. “You’re really making me think this is worth my while.”
“I don’t want you guys to regret this,” I explain.
“Business is about risk,” Zach states. “It’s also about trust. I trust you. Ever since you interviewed me, I’ve been wondering why you didn’t just buy this place for yourself. The only reason Taverne Toulouse is failing is because Fournier blocks all your best ideas at every turn.”
“You’re sure?”
They both groan. I crack a smile in spite of myself; I’ve asked them the same question about twenty times today.
“Just checking. Let me call Fournier and tell him he needs to come in.”
The two of them file out to give me some space as I scroll to Fournier’s name in my contacts. I have him listed as FFF—for Fucking Félix Fournier, of course.
“Monroe,” he greets me in the same gruff tone as ever. “I was going to call you.”
“Oh?”
I wonder what innumerable faults in my management skills he has to share with me today.
“I met with that Valois mec from next door yesterday. We signed the papers.”
“The...papers?” I repeat, alarm signals going off in my head. “What do you mean?”
“He took the offer,” Fournier snaps like I’m out of a loop I should be in. “He bought Taverne Toulouse.”
The phone falls out of my hand.
Nineteen
Julien
BREATHE: The process of allowing a wine’s flavour profile to develop through exposure to air
I love my grandmother. I do. I’ve never been close with either of my mother’s parents, and they never quite forgave my father for being less than a French aristocrat—despite all the success he brought to the family—but still, I love my grandmother.
I just wish she’d found a more convenient time to fall fatally ill.
The flight attendant comes by and asks what I’d like to drink. I accept the miniature bottle of sauvignon blanc and pour it into the plastic cup. It’s hard to make sauvignon blanc absolutely terrible, but this one is, quite truly, absolutely terrible.
I drink it all in three sips.
My phone feels like it’s burning a hole in my pocket, and I’m about ready to risk electromagnetic interference to see if Monroe has returned any of my messages or calls.
I asked that Fournier clown to let me give her the news myself after admitting to our ‘friendship,’ but now that I’ve been summoned out of the country and still haven’t managed to get a hold of her, I doubt he’ll keep his mouth shut for long.
She’s going to be furious. Worse than that, she’s going to be disappointed. Again. I could take anger from her. I could take screaming and fists pounding against my chest, but that’s the thing about Monroe. She doesn’t get furious; she gets righteous instead. She makes it clear you’ve let her down, and somehow, that’s a million times harder to accept. When she tossed my words back at me before walking out my apartment door, I thought the floorboards would crack open to let me tumble into the pit of my own shame.
The first day I met her, I felt like I’d failed a test. As I paced my apartment in the moments after she left, I realized I couldn’t live with feeling that way again. I tracked down Félix Fournier and called him myself before he’d even made me his offer. We had the deal complete within a few days.
The only thing left is to hand the whole place over to Monroe.
Only she doesn’t know that yet. I’ve been trying to get a hold of her ever since, but she won’t answer my calls.
When I called my mother and told her I’d need to speak to our family lawyer about finally receiving my trust fund money, she asked me what was wrong in a horrified voice that suggested my legs must have been crushed in a tragic accident or something equally cataclysmic. Even after several minutes spent trying to convince her I was fine, she wouldn’t believe I simply decided I wanted the money. I ended up being forced to tell her I met a girl.
This of course prompted another round of convincing wherein I tried to tell her I wasn’t being fleeced by a gold digger. It took me the better part of an hour to actually get the damn lawyer’s contact information.
When Maman’s name showed up on my screen yesterday, I was expecting to face another interrogation. Instead, I picked up to hear her sobbing into the phone. For the past year, we’ve been living with the knowledge that my grandmother didn’t have much time left. It was down to a question of when, and when seems to be now.
The plane lands in Paris, and the first thing I do is switch my phone on. There’s still nothing from Monroe. I find my grandparents’ driver waiting for me in the arrivals area. It’s only once I’m buckled into the back seat of the Audi and settling in for the five hour trip to Bordeaux that I realize I haven’t felt even a flicker of hesitation since I heard my mother crying. Before I even knew what she was crying about, I made the decision to go to her.
There was a time in my life when even my own grandmother’s impending death would have made me consider the pros and cons of taking an unexpected absence from work. There was a time when I would have asked just how certain the doctors were. I would have tried to wait it out and see if things got better—not because I didn’t care and not because I didn’t want to be there, but because there was always a much stronger compulsion than any of my cares or wants. There was always this gnawing, teeth-gnashing need to succeed. I was like a horse being spurred on by a carrot dangling over its head, and I never stopped to question who had their hands on the reins.
I’m starting to see past the fucking carrot.
Paris streaks by the windows, imposingly beautiful with those blue and white Haussmann houses stretching up from the meticulous grid of the city in all their chilly splendor. They’ve been softened by time and human hands, by flowers in the window boxes and cracks running up the walls, but I’ve always found Paris to be cold.
I only feel like I’m home once we’re past the final arrondissement and headed into the countryside. I roll down my window to get a breath of the afternoon air, baked by the sun and seasoned with the earthy tang of the grass. That’s when I know I’ve arrived. I haven’t breathed that air in six years, but I’d know exactly where I was even if I’d woken up in this car with a blindfold on.
The gravel drive leading to my grandparents’ chateau is long and winding. I remember the way those rocks felt slicing into my knees and palms when I hit the brakes on my bike too fast and flew over the handlebars. My mother carried me back up to the ho
use, blood staining the pink silk of her blouse.
It’s suddenly agony to wait even another second to be with her.
They’re keeping Grand-mère in a room on the first floor. Maman told me she knew things were bad when the hospital doctors suggested Grand-mère might be more comfortable at home. The housekeeper shows me into the room, and I find my mother sitting in an armchair, reading out loud from the book in her lap. The figure in the hospital bed beside her is frail and shrivelled, with an IV in her wrist and a cannula under her nose. She almost appears translucent, like she’s little more than a hull. The shallow rise and fall of her chest is a shock when she’s this close to gone.
Maman stops mid-sentence and looks up toward the door. The tears flood her eyes in an instant.
“Mon fils!” she gasps, jumping up from her chair. “My son! My Julien! My son.”
She knew I was coming, but she latches onto me like the shock of my arrival has completely knocked her over. I steady her with my hands on her back, and she sniffles into my chest until she manages to collect herself enough to step away and look at me.
“You came!”
“Of course I did.” I say it like I had no other option, but she knows as well as I do that she’s right to be surprised by it—happy, but still surprised, like this is an outcome she didn’t dare hope for.
“Where is Grand-père?”
Maman’s expression darkens. “Probably locked up in his study again. He says he can’t look at her like this.”
“Did he know I was coming?”
Maman nods. “I told him you’d be here this afternoon, but I doubt we’ll see him until dinner. He didn’t leave her side for days, but after they told us it’s not likely she’ll wake up again, he—he just...he couldn’t—”
The tears threaten to spill over again, and I put my arm around her as I lead her back to her chair. Part of me wants to be furious at my grandfather for leaving her alone like this, but the other half of me understands. I can barely look at the figure in the bed, the one who is nothing like the woman I remember, with her thick white hair piled high on her head and those long, slender fingers like my mother’s always wrapped around a teacup. Now they look like skeletal where they rest on the bed sheets at her sides.