“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 thismauditknife! 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?”
Ithas 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 badis exactly how I’ve felt all week. I wake up in the morning and things are justoff. 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.