“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 aboutyou, 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 bybewith, 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’tknowa 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 noboyis 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 haveyourself. 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.”
