Paige
CROSSFADER: A control in a DJ system used to transition from one audio source to another
“What’s your poison?”
Youssef nods to the collection of liquor bottles behind the bar. We’re in some hipster place whose theme seems to be house plants and vintage light bulbs. At 4PM on a Monday, we’re the only people in here besides the bartender and a small group of thirty-somethings holed up in the back corner having what looks like a book club discussion.
“Vodka if we’re hitting the hard stuff.”
Youssef chuckles, and I glare.
“What?”
“It’s just so weird to hear you talk about drinking. We’re grownups now, you know?”
“We drank in high school.”
He leans back in the bar stool next to mine and shifts a little to face me better. “I drank at like, two parties and that one time me and you split a bottle of your mom’s wine. I don’t know if we were exactlydrinkers.”
The memories hit before I can stop them. I remember the buzz from the wine that night, the way it made everything look so much softer, feel so much easier while we sat on the swings in the park. He and I were still barely more than acquaintances then, but after a glass and a half, I felt like I could break through all the unspoken moments between us and finally give a name to what happened in my chest whenever I was near him.
Nothing happened that night, though—nothing like that. We got tipsy, and he started talking about how disappointed his parents would be if they found him drinking. He told me about his family, about his dad coming over from Egypt to be with his mom and how he was never really sure what side of his relatives he fit in with more.
I’d never met someone from a family like mine. I’d never talked to anyone who asked themselves the same questions as me. With a Vietnamese mom and a dad who’s part white and part Puerto-Rican, I’d been asking myself questions my whole life, and people didn’t hold back from asking me questions, either.
What are you?
Why do you look like that way?
Do you really think you’re Asian enough for that?
Youssef had heard his share of questions too. He celebrated two sets of holidays just like me, but sometimes they didn’t feel like they belonged to us. He spoke three languages and I spoke five, but there were still so many times we couldn’t find words that felt right.
So we both turned to music. We both turned to music for so much.
By the time we left the park and dumped the empty wine bottle in a garbage bin, he already knew me better than anyone else in my life.
“Paige?”
“Huh?”
I zone back into the present and find Youssef and the bartender staring at me.
“Can I get you something?” the bartender asks. He fits right in here, with a septum piercing, horn-rimmed glasses, and what looks like the top of a mandala tattoo reaching up over the edge of his v-neck shirt.
“Vodka soda.”
“For sure. And you?” He looks at Youssef.
“Rum and coke. Thanks, man.”
It only takes him a few seconds to mix the drinks and slide them onto coasters in front of us. Youssef wraps his hand around his glass and clinks the edge to mine.
“To the best set The Cube Room has ever witnessed.”
I smirk in spite of myself and take my first sip, then another as the silence stretches on.
“So,” he says, the ice in his drink clinking as he sets it back on the coaster. “How long have you been in Montreal?”
