“Monroe,” he says, as close to gentle as the gruff and permanently pissed off tone of his voice will ever get, “I’m selling. The decision is final. Taverne Toulouse is going to close.”
“I’ll buy it.”
He and the lawyer share a look that makes me want to grab the nearest kitchen implement and whack them over the head.
“I know how much I pay you. You can’t afford to buy a bar.”
“I’ll buy a share,” I urge, his belittling comments about my salary just fuelling me on. “I’ve talked with my bank and...”
The words are falling on deaf ears. It wouldn’t even matter if I had all my documents and plans and sales projections in my hands. To them, I’m just the desperate manager willing to say anything to keep her job. I’m just the girl who has nothing to show for herself except this dingy dive bar. I’m the girl who’s too scared to face the fact that the only thing worthwhile in her life is what’s held between these walls.
Maybe there’s nothing else to see. Maybe that’s all I am.
“We’re making a good offer to the guy next door. He would be crazy to pass it up, but even if he does, there are other...”
I stop listening to what Fournier’s saying as the lawyer shuffles whatever papers he has for me. I stop the tunnel vision play-by-play of all my life’s meagre accomplishments that’s streaming in my head to a soundtrack of self-doubt. I shut it all off like it’s the chaos of a particularly screwy Saturday night and force myself to do what I always do when things get out of hand at the bar.
I think.
Fast.
Then I act.
This isn’t over. I won’t let this be over.
Seventeen
Julien
CLOS: An archaic French term for vineyards surrounded by walls
When she saidshe needed to see meright now, I thought Monroe meant it in an ‘I need to be on your dick right now’ kind of way.
The woman standing outside my apartment door does not look like she needs to be on my dick. She looks like she’s here to enforce some sort of conscription law and drag me off to war.
Then again, being on my dick might solve that problem too.
I push the thoughts of her skin and her screams away as I take in how worried and frazzled she looks. I’ve never seen her this upset before, not even when she stood on a sidewalk scattered with the shards of my bar’s vandalized windows. She was nervous then, ashamed even, but this is something different. This is something close to fear.
“Monroe.” I place my hand between her shoulder blades and usher her inside. “What’s wrong?”
She only takes a few steps into the living room before she turns around and faces me with her arms held tight to her sides. She doesn’t even move to pet Madame Bovary when the Yorkie runs over and starts butting against her legs for attention.
“I have to ask you for something.” She’s looking at me like I’m a firing squad. Whatever this is, it’s not a simple favour. “Actually, I have to ask you for two things. One of them I hoped I wouldn’t have to ask you at all, and the other I hoped I’d have more time to prepare for, but I’m running out of options. It has to be now.”
I start leading the way to the couch and take a seat on the grey cushions. “Well, that wasn’t cryptic at all.”
I give her a tentative smile and only get that same resolute grimace in return, but she at least eases up enough to sit beside me. I rest my hand on her thigh, half expecting her to slap it away, but my touch seems to neutralise some of her tension. I feel her sag into the cushions, and she lays her own hand on top of mine. She’s actually shaking.
“The owner of Taverne Toulouse is going to sell the bar.”
Now it’s me tensing up, but I try my best not to let her see it.
“I can’t convince him otherwise; he’s made up his mind now, and he won’t budge. They’re already scouting out potential buyers. The first one they’re going to make an offer to is you.” Her fingers clench around mine. “Julien, I...I know you still don’t really understand what that place means to me. I know it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but that ‘little dump’ has a piece of my heart. Many pieces of my heart.”
We both exhale a quick laugh at the reference to our first meeting, but the atmosphere in the room turns breathless once more as soon as the moment passes.
“When I look at that bar, I see so many dreams that have come true. I see all the customers I’ve talked to over afternoon pints, the ones who come in beaten down by their day and walk out ready to fight it with all they’ve got. I see the employees I’ve taken a chance on, the ones I’ve hired when no one else would, and you know what? They usually turn out to be the best ones. I see all the bands and DJs and poets who got their start on our stage. I see my friends. I see their smiles. I see the memories we’ve made. Hell, some of the most momentous events in Roxanne and Cole’s relationship have happened at Taverne Toulouse, and now they’re getting married. That place is so full of hopes and dreams, and...and now when I’m there, I don’t just see other people’s dreams. I seeminetoo. I see what Taverne Toulouse could be if I had the guts to reach out and get it, and I want to, Julien. I want that so bad. I never let myself realize just how much until I met you.”
