Zack lets out a sheepish chuckle. “I mean, you do look kind of like a burglar.”
Ingrid whoops and raises her hand so the two of them can high-five.
I groan. “Come on, assholes. We’ve got to move.”
By the time we make it down two flights of ancient, creaky stairs covered in disintegrating carpeting, we’re too late to wait for an Uber. I start leading the way to the venue, speed-walking up the darkened city street as my gear box bumps against my leg. It’s hot for early September, and the air is humid enough that it only takes a minute or two for me to break into a sweat. We pass a few groups of tipsy students out to start their Saturday night, the sounds of laughing and distant music growing louder as we get closer to Avenue Mont-Royal.
My heart is thumping in my chest, from both the stress of being late and the exertion of running the last couple blocks, but when we turn the corner onto one of Montreal’s main nightlife strips, my pulse picks up with a different kind of thrill.
I can hear everything: the cacophony of clinking glasses, slamming car doors, and clamouring voices shouting greetings into the night. Pulsing bass beats spill out from dimly-lit bars and speakers set up on street-side patios. The sounds blend together, overlap and enmesh themselves into intricate patterns. There’s a rhythm to this night, to every night like this—when the air is thick with heat and smoke and intentions. There are no words to this song, but there is a dance, one that twists itself into the shape of a thousand possibilities.
This is Saturday night.
“Fuck yeah!” Ingrid comes to stand at my side, panting from our two-block sprint, and I know she feels it too. We both live off this energy—figuratively and literally.
I very literally need to get my ass into the packed bar across the street or risk losing one of the only steady sources of income I’ve got.
“Onwards!” Zach’s clearly in better shape than both of us. He takes off running past Ingrid and I like he could sprint around Montreal all night. “We’ll go in through the back!”
Taverne Toulouse, the bar I will be bestowing my musical offerings on tonight, has played a big role in all three of our lives. Zach’s been working here since well before I met him—something like four or five years now, first as a server and now as their social media manager. He scored me a few one-off gigs before his girlfriend—also a Taverne Toulouse veteran—talked the owner into giving me a regular set.
It’s also the place where Ingrid and I met, when I DJ-ed after a gig her band played here. We ended up getting pizza at four in the morning after one of the craziest nights in Taverne Toulouse history, and we’ve been hanging out and telling each other to fuck off ever since.
We hurry down the narrow alley at the back of the building, tripping our way through the dark before a motion-sensor light clicks on and illuminates a few big metal garbage bins and countless cigarette butts littering the pavement. Zach yanks a door open, and the strains of some alternative rock hit I think I recognize fill the alley, along with the din of drunken voices screaming over each other.
The door leads to the bar’s kitchen, which is closed for the night. The fluorescent tube lights overhead reflect off the dormant appliances as we step inside.
I’m about to charge straight out into the bar area and make a break for the DJ booth when a blur of denim short shorts and vibrant pink hair comes shooting down the hallway that leads out to the main room.
“TABARNAK!” A long string of Quebecois swear words follows that first shriek as Zach’s girlfriend, DeeDee, starts hugging all of us. I go rigid at the personal space infiltration, but ‘personal space’ isn’t really part of DeeDee’s vocabulary.
“Mon dieu, Paige, we thought you died!” Her signature throaty voice makes her French Canadian sound extra thick as she lets go of Zach and turns back to me. “Quick, put these on, and we will get you onstage.”
It’s only then that I register what she’s wearing: the denim shorts that are basically her trademark, a pink bikini top, a pair of shutter shades with lenses shaped like palm trees perched on top of her head, and a gold necklace with a giant charm that spells out ‘Beach Queen.’
The real statement piece, though, is a pair of pink inflatable water wings with little flamingos on them pushed up over each of her biceps.
She’s holding an identical pair out to me.
“You want me to...wear those?”
“Duh, Paige. The theme of the night is beach party. Everyone is dressed like this.”
“DeeDee, those are not going on my body.”
She sighs like she saw this coming. “Okay, how about my sunglasses, then? You need something. Everyone’s supposed to dress like they’re going to the beach. Don’t tell me that’s what you’d wear to the beach.”
I look down at my hoodie and leggings and then back at her before raising an eyebrow. She sighs again.
“Okay, maybe youwouldwear that to the beach, but—”
“DeeDee.” Zach cuts her off and steps forward to start steering her down the hallway. “My darling, Paige needs to get on stage.”
Whatever she says in reply gets lost by the roar of the crowd as we head down the hallway. I round the corner, and then I’m face to face with a room full of people hungry for a show.
Everything else empties from my mind.
This is what I’m made for.
