Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
Slowly, syllable by syllable, the command changes from a word to an action, my inhales lengthening and exhales deepening as the squeezing in my chest loosens. The fingers that feel like they’re clenched around my heart get pried off one by one. I open my eyes just in time to see the next train shoot out onto the tracks.
I’m the first one on, so I manage to get a seat. I watch the dark walls of the tunnel fly by, resisting the urge to check the time on my phone. I’m already late. All I can do is accept it and keep moving forward.
At least, that’s what my yoga teacher would say. My therapist would agree.
I hate being late. It isn’t like me. Then again, nothing about this situation is like me. Fighting off a major freak out in a metro station isn’t like me. Applying for food service jobs in the middle of September because my bank account has been drained dry by a summer of unemployment isn’t like me.
Putting my studies on hold with only a year left in my degree isn’t like me either. Giving up scholarships, a guaranteed internship, and a once in a lifetime chance to study overseas—none of it’s normal. Moving back in with my parents after having a nervous breakdown that turned me into the campus freak show everyone whispered about behind their hands is the very definition of being unlike me.
Yet here I stand.
Or sit.
I get off the train at Station Mont-Royal and exit into the grey light of a cloudy afternoon. The bar I’m interviewing at is several blocks up, and I take in the sight of the storefronts and restaurants as I trudge my way along the sidewalk. Hipster cafes and ratty thrift shops with racks of vintage band shirts sitting outside their doors are nestled between boutique furniture stores and hole in the wall souvenir outlets.
That’s one of the things I missed most about Montreal when I was away: how anything and everything gets crammed in together, the ramshackle buildings painted in vibrant hues as disparate and unique as the businesses they hold. The face of the city is always shifting, changing, growing and shrinking with the passage of time, but the soul underneath its surface stays the same.
I spot Taverne Toulouse from a few metres away. A metal sign shiny enough to prove it’s brand new displays the name in a typewriter font, the industrial vibe a compliment to the garage door style windows that make up almost the whole front of the bar. Before I can talk myself out of it, I brace like I’m about to spring off a diving board and walk inside.
It’s dim enough that I have to pause and blink a few times, adjusting to the string lights looped along the ceiling and around the three-sided bar. When I dropped my resume off, the place was still under renovation, and I didn’t even get to come inside. Everything in sight is shiny and brand new, which makes it extra surprising that the space feels so homey, so worn-in. Mismatched couches and dark wooden coffee tables make up most of the seating, with a tiny stage tucked away in one corner surrounded by some empty space for dancing. The atmosphere is like walking straight into an old friend’s living room, somewhere you can plop down on the sofa and kick your shoes off while complaining about how much you need a beer.
It’s a dive bar, that much is clear, but it’s not the grimy get-smashed-and-go-hard student bar this place used to have a reputation as. This room feels like a place to relax, a place you can laugh or rant or dance like no one’s watching. It’s the kind of space you go to meet old friends and end up making new ones too.
It feels like a bar that was built for being yourself.
If only I knew who ‘myself’ was.
“Desolé, sweetie. We’re closed for another twenty minutes.”
I turn away from studying a framed photo collage of old Polaroids on the wall and find a girl with bright pink hair hanging down past her shoulders smiling at me from behind the bar.
“I’m here for an interview?”
That’s not a question. Why did I say that like a question?
“Oh!” She leans forward on the bar, her smile getting even wider as she starts to bounce a little with excitement. “Then welcome to Taverne Toulouse, choufleur. You know what? You look like just what we need around here.”
If what they need is a girl with foundation sloughing down her face like a mudslide, I’ve come to the right place.
“Hey.” Pink hair girl beckons me closer, whispering in her thick Québécois accent like she’s about to share a secret. I cross the few steps between me and the bar.
“You know what always helps me when I have to do something scary?” She ducks behind the bar and then pops up with a bottle of Patrón, lifting it above her head and shaking it. “Tequila shots!”
I start to think she might be crazy, but it’s the kind of crazy you can’t help wanting a piece of. I grin back at her as she sets the bottle down on the counter.
“DeeDee, who are you—oh no, not again.”
A guy who looks like a cross between a hipster and a farmhand appears from somewhere behind the bar, his woodsy red flannel open over a white t-shirt, a scruffy blond beard covering half his face.
“Câlice, Zach. We’re having fun. Don’t spoil it.”
“Maybe you should have this kind of fun later. I take it this is the interview?” He waves at me as the pink haired tequila enthusiast responds in the affirmative. “I’m Zach. You can come around the back here, and I’ll take you to the bosses.”
He unlocks a gate at the far end of the bar, and I follow him down a little hallway after calling out a thank you to answer the shout that my tequila will be waiting for me when I’m done.
“Yeah, she’s uh, she’s something, as I’m sure you can tell.” Zach chuckles and scratches his neck. Even in my bracing-for-an-impending-interview state, I can tell just what kind of ‘something’ he thinks she is. It’s too dim in the hall to tell if he’s actually blushing, but he might as well be. It’s kind of adorable.
“I’ll just tell them you’re here, and then you can go on in.”
He pops his head into a doorway before motioning me inside, wishing me good luck as I go. I’m about to thank him as I step into an office as shiny and new as the rest of the place, but the words die in my throat.
My mind blanks. Everything blanks.
Out of everyone I could have imagined facing behind this doorway, he is the very last one.
Yet there he is, his presence sucking all the air out of the room as he sits in a folding chair pulled up beside a woman behind the desk. I note her round, smiling face, and I know I should smile back. I should smile at both of them, but instead I stare at my hands, at the desk, at the woman behind it—anywhere but at him.
Smiley woman is now saying words I should be paying attention to. Her voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater, dulled by the thumping of blood in my ears. I barely catch her name and her explanation that she’s the bar’s owner before she’s offering me her hand. I zombie-walk toward it, offering my own name in return, but all I hear is his.
Dylan Trottard.
I almost called it out, nearly yelped it like it was a swear word and someone had just stepped on my foot. I don’t think I ever fully understood the term ‘shocking’ until I saw him sitting there.
That’s what it feels like: a shock, like someone zapped my brain with electricity and left me short-circuiting. Live wires are sparking inside me, all frayed ends and billowing smoke where just seconds ago a steady connection used to flow.