The scores vary from eight and a half to ten.
“Higher!” I find myself shouting along with half the crowd when the eight and a half gets announced.
I give up on trying to analyze Monroe’s thoughts for the rest of the show. I do my best to let myself be here—reallybehere. It’s not hard when all the poets are nearly as good as Dylan. Some of the poems are funny and ridiculous; there’s an ode to selecting the right Snapchat filter and another one about how to pose when sending nudes. Others leave the audience stricken with horror and sorrow as they listen to stories of sexual assault or losing friends to suicide. What the links them all together is the way they use language not only as a means to get their message across but as a part of the message itself. Sound almost becomes personified in some of the pieces, taking on a character and a voice.
“So?” Monroe turns to me as soon as the intermission between the first and the second rounds is announced.
“That did not disappoint.”
“And that was just the first round,” she informs me. “Shit gets real after the intermission.”
“Does everyone go again?” I ask.
Monroe shakes her head. “Just the top scorers, and then we found out who the winner is—unless there’s a tie, which I think everyone always secretly hopes for because poetry face-offs are epic.”
“Poetry face-offs?” I repeat with a laugh. “Shit does get real.”
“It does indeed. I’m going to go say hi to some friends now.”
Monroe starts pushing herself up out of her chair and then gives me an expectant look when I don’t follow suit.
“You know you’re allowed to come with me, right?”
“You want me to meet your friends?”
It’s a simple enough question, but that simplicity is only a smooth outer surface meant to hide the complicated network of circuitry underneath. There are implications here, ones we haven’t yet given ourselves an opportunity to discuss.
This woman takes me straight to the deep end; there are no shallow waters when it comes to Monroe. I knew the second she walked up to me outside Frango Tango in her skinny jeans and Blunstones that there was no way this was ever going to be just ‘casual.’ It didn’t feel like any of the casual dates I’d been going on for years. Holding her hand did not feel casual. Watching her sip rosé on my couch did not feel casual.Sacrement, just looking into those damn eyes of hers feels more intense than some of the nights I’ve spent between the sheets with other girls.
It was easy to come up with that ‘six weeks’ plan when the whole thing was just pillow talk. When you’re lying naked in bed with someone, spending six weeks doing more of the same and dealing with all your problems later seems like the best damn idea in the world, but reality has decided to jump in bed with us too.
As the crowd mills around the room, talking and laughing, Monroe and I spend a few seconds caught in a complete standstill. I know we’re both wondering the same thing.
How far are we going to take this? How tangled in each other’s lives are we willing to become?
“We’re just saying hi to my friends,” she finally replies. “It’s no big deal. Come on.”
As I follow her towards a group of people across the room, that old Victor Hugo quote my father used to caution me with comes to mind:
When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes.
Her words said this was no big deal. Her eyes say she might be just as afraid as I am.
* * *
“Did you have a good night?”
Monroe and I are walking up Avenue Mont-Royal, close enough that our arms brush against each other every few steps. It’s well and truly spring now, and Monroe has let her jacket slide down to her elbows to enjoy the nearly-acceptably-warm night air. Music and laughing people looking for their evening’s next stop spill out of the bars we pass, and I know she just asked me a question, but all I can think about is whether or not I should reach for her hand.
“Julien?” she prompts. “Earth to Julien.”
“Désolé.” I run my hand through my hair before it can start seizing opportunities of its own volition. “Yes, I’ve had an excellent night.”
We stayed at the bar after the show, lingering over a beer with Monroe’s friends until people started making their excuses and heading home. I feel myself grinning with the satisfaction of knowing Monroe is heading home with me; we didn’t say anything about it, but I didn’t fail to notice that our absent wandering is in fact leading us straight to the closest metro stop.
“How long have you been hosting the slams there?”
“About six months now.”
