He tips his head back and laughs. “Adequate. I’ll take that. Shall we?”
I let him hold the door open for me as we step inside. The wave of garlic, oil, and spicy Piri Piri that meets my noise as soon as I’m over the threshold settles what was left of the nervousness tying knots in my stomach. All I can think about for a few seconds is food.
“Mon dieu,” I moan, “that smell. I haven’t been here in forever. I used to come all the time when I was studying at Concordia. Have you had this stuff before?”
“I have, actually,” he admits, “a time or two.”
It’s the kind of place where you order at the counter and then have your food brought to your table. I strip my coat off and leave it lying across a booth to claim our spot. I turn back to Julien, expecting him to have already joined the small lineup, but he’s standing stock still in the middle of the restaurant, staring at me.
“What?” I demand, glancing down at my shirt to check for whatever giant stain could be causing his reaction.
“Nothing. Um, just...” he stammers, eyes still wide and slightly unfocused behind his glasses, like he’s just taken a hit of some overpowering drug. “You look...adequate.”
Heat creeps up my neck, and all I can manage is a super suave reply of, “Oh.”
I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so pleased to be called ‘adequate’ before. I really do owe Roxanne a beer.
We take our place in line, and I dash up to the front to grab a laminated copy of the menu before passing it off to Julien. I already know what I’m getting, and I take the opportunity to observe the warm decor of the room: blue and red walls that match the brightly tiled counter, striped blankets hung like tapestries to give the place an intimate feel. It’s far from fine dining, but the soft lights are comforting and the music pumping through the speakers always sounds like it might be drifting in off the streets of Lisbon.
“I like this place,” I muse while Julien scans the items on the page. “I know it’s probably not up to your classy standards, but there’s something to be said for hominess. I always feel like I’m walking into someone’s quaint little living room in Portugal. There’s this one family who has three generations working here. It’s a pretty amazing story. It all started with this one guy, Bento, who came over to Canada by himself. I used to chat with him when I was a student. He barely spoke English when he arrived, but he got a job here when the place was opening, and he worked so hard he’s the manager now. He was able to bring his whole family over because of this place. Hismomworks here, and now it’s his son’s summer job too. It’s just a little hole in the wall chicken place, but it changed their lives.”
I can’t take Julien seriously in that ball cap, but there’s something so intense in his expression it almost makes me forget he’s dressed like a jogger.
“I didn’t know that,” he says slowly, the words laced with a pensiveness that doesn’t make sense to me.
“Why would you?” I question.
We make it to the front of the line just then, and I’m quick to order the combo that fueled me through so many long days of lectures. Julien orders the same. I don’t even know why they bother having a full menu; everyone gets the combo.
“Good evening, sir,” says the girl behind the register, flicking her big brown eyes to Julien and then dipping them back down like she’s embarrassed. She can’t be older than twenty.
“Good evening,” he replies. “How are you?”
That seems to bolster her courage a little. She gives him a shy smile. “I’m good, thank you. We’ll have your food ready for you as soon as possible.”
“Does that happen a lot?” I ask Julien as I take the little rod with our number clipped to it back to the booth and set it on the table.
Julien slides into his seat after whipping the cap off his head, but not before he ushers me to take my seat first. “Does what happen a lot?”
There’s something so effortless about his old world manners. I’m all for female empowerment, but chivalry is my guilty pleasure, and Julien has it in spades. He’s the rare kind of gallant that doesn’t feel affectatious or stifling; he holds the door for me and takes my arm on staircases like it’s all part of a graceful dance he’s asked me to join him for.
“Young women getting flustered by your charms,” I answer him.
He looks confused for a second and then glances between the counter and me.
“Oh, no.Non, non, non.She wasn’t flustered because of mycharms,” he protests. “She was just nervous because—”
He falls silent.
“Because?” I prompt.
“Um, never mind. Maybe it was my charms.”
I squint at him. “You’re acting weird, Bordeaux boy.”
“I’m just overcome by your beauty. You do lookextremelyadequate in that shirt.”
My squint turns into a glare. “Don’t try to flustermewith your charms. It’s not going to work.”
