by Katia Rose
I get quieter and quieter as I sit there, letting the two of them handle the conversation while I watch DeeDee’s hands flutter around to illustrate her anecdotes, watch the cute way she wrinkles her nose just before she’s about to laugh. I know all her gestures, her quirks. I have the start of this story memorized, but we never seem to turn to the next damn page.
“And that is how I ended up without any shoes on in the Toronto bus station,” DeeDee finishes, while Paige doubles over with laughter.
“Oh my god, I’m taking you with me next time I go.” She takes a few calming breaths and goes to swig her beer only to find it empty. “Damn, that’s my second one. What time is it, anyway? I’m pretty sure my sleep debt has hit all time highs this week.”
“Quitter!” DeeDee teases as she reaches for one of the few remaining bottles on the table. “One for the road?”
Paige snorts. “The road is like two steps to my bedroom. I’ll pass.”
“Oooh, Paige,” I warn in a foreboding tone, “nobody passes on DeeDee’s one for the road offer.”
Paige shrugs and pushes herself up off the couch.
DeeDee turns to me. “Guess you’ll have to drink it, Zachy Zach.”
Warning bells start going off in my head, but I’m tired enough from my shift that a single beer has already made me mellow. I find myself reaching for the bottle opener.
“If I must.”
“By the way,” Paige calls out from her bedroom door, “I told DeeDee if she wants to take the couch until she gets her new apartment, it’s fine with me.”
Paige’s door closes, and it’s like the thud of the wood against the frame shifts the balance of the atmosphere. Something’s lying dormant here, something waiting for an excuse to wake up.
When DeeDee speaks, her voice is soft, eyes lowered to the coffee table.
“I don’t have to stay.”
“I want you to stay.” Even I’m startled by the force in my tone, so strained it’s close to anger. “I just...”
I set my beer down and spread my hands wide, indicating the magnitude of everything I can’t explain.
“I know it is a lot for me to be here. You have to work, and—”
“DeeDee, it’s not that.” I drag a hand over my eyes. All the frustration, all the confusion—it’s all coming out faster than I can stop it. “It’s not you. You are...You are the farthest thing from being a burden. I just...”
Her shoulders are slumped now, and I can’t take the sight of it. I can’t take the sight of her when she gets all small and shattered like this. I get up off my chair and sit beside her on the couch.
“Hey.” I force myself to sound as gentle as possible. “Hey. Look at me.”
That was a mistake. Her brown eyes lock on mine, and it’s like we’re back in the bathroom again, like the air between us has been set on fire and we have no choice but to breathe it in. She swallows, and the movement of her throat is hypnotic, but it doesn’t take my focus off her eyes.
This whole building could be falling down, and I wouldn’t be able to look away from those eyes.
“DeeDee.” Her name comes out as a raspy plea. I sound like I’m begging, and maybe I am. “I just need to know I’m not crazy. Please. Just tell me that.”
“Maybe w-we...” Her lips are trembling too much for her to speak. She presses them together for a few seconds before trying again. “Maybe we are both crazy.”
“Do you feel this? Right now. This. Do you feel this?”
This is the point of no return. Somewhere inside me, I recognize there will be no going back after this, but I can’t focus on anything except how desperate I am for her answer. Everything hangs on that.
“Yes, but—”
Two words. Just two damn tiny little words, yet the first is enough to lift me up only to have the second send me crashing back down.
“We can’t. This...we can’t. You’re not—”
“What am I not?” I sit up straighter. “Tell me what I’m not, and I’ll be it. Tell me what it would take. Please, I—”
A lump rises in my throat, forcing me to stop.
“You are not the kind of person I want to do this to, Zach. I...” I notice her twisting that ring she always wears around her finger. “It never goes well. I try so hard, and it never does. Something is wrong with me, and I...I...”
Tears are gathering in the corners of her eyes, and I know I should stop. I know I should tell her everything’s all right, tell her I’m here, tell her I’m her friend.
But I always do that. I always fucking do that.
“DeeDee, what...what do you think you’re going to do to me? Hurt me? Ruin our friendship? This, right now—this hurts. The not knowing. The questioning, the doubting, the up and down where I wonder and hope and convince myself I’m wrong. You...You know, don’t you? You know what I feel. You always have, haven’t y—”
She lunges forward and presses her hand over my mouth, tears streaking down her cheeks. “Don’t. Don’t say it.”
Her hand starts to fall away, but I grab it and press my lips to her fingers. It may not be how I’ve always imagined it happening, but this is the first time my mouth is touching her skin, and I pour everything I have into that single point of contact, hoping—praying everything I feel will somehow pass between us.
“What are you scared of?” I whisper, head still bent over her fingers. “Tell me what’s making you so scared.”
I see it now: the fear. She’s shaking with it, desperate enough not to hear the words that she’s trying to shove them back down my throat.
“Je ne peux pas le dire,” she murmurs.
I can’t say it.
“I will leave tomorrow.” She slides her hand out of my grip. “Monroe says I can stay with her, and Valérie is letting me have the room a few days early.”
“DeeDee—”
“No, Zach.” She gets up off the couch, her back to me, shoulders still bowed and trembling. “Good night.”
She heads to the bathroom and shuts the door.
Ten
DeeDee
STIR: combining the ingredients of a drink with a spoon or other mixing tool
“Tabarnak! Esti!”
Monroe stops on her way past the bar and tilts her head at me while I keep cursing. She comes over and takes a seat on a bar stool after I’ve gotten through all the Québécois swear words and start using them again in a different order.
“You want to talk about it?”
“It’s this maudit knife! It’s not sharp enough.” I’m cutting lemons on the little prep counter behind the bar. We’re only supposed to do it in the kitchen, but it’s Sunday afternoon and I’m too bored to just stand behind the bar and wait for more customers. “Look, I’m bleeding!”
I hold up my finger, and Monroe makes a face. “DeeDee, stop cutting lemons before you get blood all over them. Put those away while I get you a bandage.”
She’s in boss lady mode, so I shut up and do what she says. After everything is put away and my middle finger has a Band-Aid wrapped around it, Monroe sits back down at the bar.
“Let’s try this again. Do you want to talk about it?”
It has been going on for a whole week: a whole week of feeling like I’ve lost my best friend. No laughing with him. No talking with him. No sharing lunches in his apartment. Nothing more than awkward hellos when we see each other at the bar.
We don’t even text. I didn’t realize how much Zach and I texted until we weren’t doing it anymore. We tried, but the jokes felt forced, like making yourself laugh at your friend’s comedy show when they really aren’t funny at all. We let the conversation die out, and neither of us have sent any messages in days.
When I see him at work, he’s always busy, and I can’t blame him because when he walks past me at my station, I always pretend to be busy too, washing glasses I don’t need to wash and wiping counters that are already clean. It’s easier than looking at him and feeling like we’ve both forgotten a secret language we
used to speak, like we have so much to say and no way to say it anymore.
“It’s fine.” I sigh. “We’re at work. I should be working.”
“I know that. I’m your boss.” She laughs and then taps her fingers on the bar to the beat of the song playing on the speakers. “I also know you’ve been acting weird ever since you traded Zach’s place for mine a week ago, and he seems off too. Lisanne asked me if she should avoid putting you two on shifts together, and clearly whatever’s going on is affecting your work performance”—she nods at my Band-Aid—“so consider this both a personal and professional inquiry.”
“I’m sorry.” I slump over and bury my head in my arms on the bar top. “I just want everything to go back to normal.”
“DeeDee, I can’t hear you with your face in your elbow crease.”
“Ugh.” I tilt my head to the side. “I hate this.”
“What happened? I didn’t ask before because I figured you’d tell me if you wanted to, but this is getting...grim.”
“That means bad, right?”
“Yes, in this context, it means very bad.”
Very bad is exactly how I’ve felt all week. I wake up in the morning and things are just off. It’s like walking around in too-tight shoes or a sweater that’s a size too small. It’s like the floor is tilted just enough for me to feel it, and every light is a bit brighter than it should be.
“Did something happen between you and Zach?”
I still have my head on the bar. It’s a good spot, all cool and relaxing and...wooden. It smells a bit like stale beer and cleaning products, but at least I don’t feel like the whole world is driving me crazy when I have my head in a little arm cocoon.
“That is the thing,” I explain. “Nothing happened. Nothing! Rien! Rien du tout! And it’s still all fucked up. How is that even fair?”
“Ah, DeeDee, is life ever fair?”
I blow some hair out of my eyes. “We have very different bartender styles, Monroe. You ask questions like that, and I just pour people tequila.”
“Do you want some tequila?”
I lift my head an inch. “Can I have some?”
She taps her chin. “Hmm. No. Give me a more detailed answer instead. Something had to have happened.”
“He...I just...” I give up on my hidey hole and stand up straight, throwing my hands into the air. “It isn’t supposed to be like this! Dating, falling in love, all of that—it’s supposed to feel good. It’s supposed to make you feel better. It’s supposed to make all the bad stuff go away for a while. Right?”
“DeeDee, you and I have both worked behind bars long enough to know that love doesn’t really have any rules. It’s never what it’s supposed to be.” She holds up a finger when I groan at her I’m-a-mystical-fortune-teller answer. “But to a point, I agree with you. Yes, there’s a part of love that’s fun and light and easy to get swept up in. Of course there is. Society wouldn’t be so obsessed with love if there wasn’t. However, I think that’s far from the most important part.”
Monroe is in full-professor mode now. She has a fancy degree in English literature, and everyone knows that when she starts using words like ‘however,’ you better sit still and listen.
“I don’t think love is there to make the hard parts of life go away. I don’t think it’s there to make us forget everything except being happy. I think it’s there to pull us through the hard times when they do show up, to be both the light at the end of the tunnel and the lantern walking beside us.”
I rest my chin in my hands. “That’s beautiful, Monroe.”
She blushes. “I got a little carried away.”
“You really love Julien, don’t you?”
“I do.” She nods and gets this faraway look in her eyes, one I’ve seen plenty of people on the other side of the bar wearing, before shaking her head. “We’re here to talk about you, though.”
“Ha. Me.” I start twisting my ring around my finger. “I know you all think I’m crazy, you know, jumping around from guy to guy, living on couches whenever I don’t have a boyfriend. I know what it looks like. I’m twenty-five, and I...Well, I’m not like you and Roxy. I don’t have the fancy job, or the guy, or the engagement ring. I don’t have it all figured out, but I see all these people sitting at the bar being sad and alone, and I just think, ‘Tabarnak! Go! Go have fun! Take one for the road and go meet someone. It’s not that hard. There’s always something out there, and it’s better than being alone.’”
One of the two servers on shift shows up at the bar with an order for me. I pour the three pints and set them on a tray. When I look over my shoulder, Monroe’s still sitting there, watching me as I work like I’m a puzzle she wants to solve.
“DeeDee, I’m going to ask you something completely as your friend,” she begins. “You don’t have to answer, of course, but...do you want to be with Zach?”
I’m going to need to pour myself a double if we keep this up, but there’s something about Monroe that makes you start spilling all your secrets, whether you want to or not.
“All the time.” I know that’s not what she means by be with, but it’s what I’ve been feeling every second of every day. “All the time, I want to be with Zach. He feels good. He feels like home—a real home. When I’m with him, I feel the same way I do whenever I walk into this bar. I feel like I belong, like I’m always going to have a place.”
Monroe smiles. I know how much it means to her when her employees say stuff like that, and I know how hard she works to make this bar the home that it is.
“But every time we start to maybe be more than friends,” I continue, “it gets messy, complicated. I feel like something big is going to happen, and it’s...it’s so much.”
I realize I’m shaking. Monroe leans closer to me over the bar and speaks in a gentle voice. “Are you scared of what will happen if things don’t work out?”
I take a deep breath. “So scared. I...I don’t know a lot of people, Monroe. I meet a lot of people, yeah. I talk to everyone, but I don’t know a lot of people. Every time Zach and I get closer to...to...what we feel, I just think of what will happen if it goes wrong. I can’t lose anyone else, Monroe. I can’t be alone. I can’t.”
“DeeDee.” Monroe pushes herself off her stool and runs behind the bar. She throws her arms around me, and even though she’s so short I’m scared I’m going to knock her over, I lean my weight into her. “You are not alone, okay? You are never going to be alone, and no boy is going to change that, whether the boy is Zachary Hastings or not. You have me. You have Roxanne. You have your whole Taverne Toulouse family. You have yourself. I know I don’t know much about what you went through before...before you ended up here, but I do know you’re incredibly strong. You have so much to rely on, Dénise Beausoleil, and I’ll do whatever I can to make you see it.”
I snort. “Nobody calls me Dénise.”
I let a few of the tears I’ve been blinking back slide down my cheeks. I’ve never told her the whole reason I ended up at Taverne Toulouse looking for a job, but she saw just how broken I was and took me in anyway.
She holds me tight while I give in to one single sob and then straighten up. I hate crying. I never do it for long.
“This is probably not so good for business, hein?”
Monroe drops her arms and laughs. “Maybe not, but even I know some things are more important than business. Speaking of, why don’t you head out? I don’t have much left to do in the office, and it’s dead enough that I can bring my laptop out here. I haven’t pulled a pint in way too long. Have to keep my skills fresh, you know? Show the kids I’ve still got it.”
“Oh, you’ve still got it.” I smack her butt. She glares at me, but I just do it again. “Are you sure? You don’t have to do that.”
“I insist. No offence, but you look like you could use a break. I can’t risk you going knife happy in my bar and taking your frustration out on more than some lemons.”
“The lemons deserved it.”
“I’m sure they did. You have the spare key for my place, right? I’ll be home around suppertime. Roxanne wants to call us about bridesmaid plans and rehearsal dinner stuff. I can’t believe how close the wedding is. I was thinking you and I could watch a movie after that, though?”
“Aww, cute! Date night!” I bounce on my feet a little. “And I can’t believe it’s so soon either. We should watch some romantic comedy about weddings to get in the mood.”
I say goodbye to the rest of the staff after grabbing my stuff and head out. Monroe’s place is only a few blocks away, and I decide to stop at the grocery store along the way and pick up what I need to make my famous chili recipe. I get a roll of cookie dough too. If we’re having date night, we’re going all out.
Two hours later, the chili is simmering on the stove and I’m having a dance party in Monroe’s kitchen while I decide which of her fancy teas to try. She has so much tea. I didn’t even know this many kinds of tea existed until the first time I came over. She has almost as many mugs as she does flavors of tea, and I ask her to give me a different one every time I visit. I’ve been drinking tea all week, and I don’t think I’ve even made it through half of them.
“Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart,” I read off the blue and purple mug I pick. The words are written in swirly letters on the side. “Charles Dickens.”
Monroe is in love with Charles Dickens. She has a big painting of him on her living room wall. It’s kind of creepy.
I pour a cup of tea called ‘blueberry muffin blast’ and stir the chili again, singing along with Cyndi Lauper while I swivel my hips. “Oh, girls just want to have fun!”
When I was a kid, this was my favourite music video ever. One Christmas, I spent the whole month of December begging my maman to buy me Dance Dance Revolution. A few of the kids on my block had it, and I thought they might come over to my house more if we had it too.
