“Ah,enfin! I think they want the bill.”
DeeDee jerks her head toward the group of customers, who are scanning the room like they want my attention. I head over and get them all settled up. Once they’re gone, we finish our final tasks together and joke about all the ways we used to pass the time during the long closing shifts while waiting for the stragglers to head out.
“Remember when we used to do the origami competitions?” DeeDee asks.
“Yeah, and you always beat me.” She can make swans out of napkins. I can make lumps. “Do you know how many YouTube tutorials I watched? A lot, that’s how many. I swear the whole world is trolling me. There’s no way you can actually make that stuff out of paper.”
Her laugh follows me down the hall as I take the garbage out. When I get back from dropping the trash bags in the dumpster behind the bar, she already has her coat on.
“You good to go?” she asks.
“I’ll just grab my jacket.”
Once we’re out on the sidewalk, DeeDee gets the door locked up while I take a few deep breaths of night air. Taverne Toulouse is on Avenue Mont-Royal, one of Montreal’s best streets for eating, shopping, and sitting in bars. Everything on our block is closed for the night, but there are lights and people swarming around farther up.
“It’s actually kind of warm out.”
For the end of March, which is still a winter month in Montreal.
“Ouais, I think all the snow will be gone after this weekend.” She tucks her keys into her pocket and smiles at me. “I can’t wait for summer.”
Sheisthe summer. With her candy-coloured hair, bright brown eyes, and jacket hanging open to reveal a sliver of bare stomach, she’s all heat and sunshine and ice clinking in glasses filled with something sweet. Sometimes I think her parents must have made up a last name for her instead of giving her their own.
Beausoleil. Beautiful sun.
“Do you, uh, want me to walk you home?”
“Aww, that’s sweet.” She grins again. “I’m okay, though. I’m meeting X at a place up the street, and we’re going home together.”
Right. X.
The boyfriend.
The boyfriend who wears muscle shirts every day of the week and whose party trick is crushing beer cans against his forehead.
Thatboyfriend.
Another thing I’ve learned about DeeDee during the many hours we’ve spent at Taverne Toulouse together: there’salwaysa boyfriend.
Two
DeeDee
FREE POUR: the act of making mixed drinks without a measuring device
“DeeDee, youalwayshave a boyfriend.”
I glare at my friend Roxanne where she’s sitting on the other side of the bar, a plate of nachos in front of her.
“Pas vrai. Not true. I do not always have a boyfriend, and anyway, I’m the one who’s bad with names. You don’t have an excuse for forgetting his.”
I put down my bar towel and grab one of the nachos off her plate. Her eyes get all big and wide like I did something terrible, and I’m about to tell her she owes me when Monroe shows up, putting a hand on Roxanne’s shoulder and looking between the two of us.
“Roxy, why do you look like you’re about to cry?”
We’ve been talking in French, but we switch to English for Monroe. She’s bilingual, but Roxanne and I are both native Québécois, and we’re a little hard to keep up with when we get going together.
“She ate my Ultimate Nacho!” Roxanne wails.
