The Bar Next Door Read online

  “Well?” Monroe asks as I take my first sip.

  I keep my face as neutral as I can. “It’s...drinkable. I haven’t had pinot noir in a long time.”

  Roxanne looks surprised. “How do you know that’s pinot noir?”

  “It has the lightest body of all the reds, which makes it hard to miss even though the flavour varies so much between regions. People say it’s a red that drinks like a white, which I usually agree with, even though—”

  I cut myself off when I realize they’re both watching me with their chins mockingly propped on their hands.

  “He sounds like you when you talk about craft beer,” Roxanne stage whispers to her friend.

  Monroe elbows her in the side. “Or you when you talk about coffee.”

  “Is Shock Top really craft?” I reply.

  “No,” Monroe says slowly, pausing to take a sip. I watch her lips press against the rim of the glass. “But I’m at a dive bar. You don’t come to a dive bar for craft beer—or pinot noir.”

  I shift back in my seat and survey the room. “Maybe it won’t be a dive bar for much longer.”

  “And what exactly would you like it to be?” There it is again: the flash in her eyes, the glint of steel that lets me know I’ve crossed a line.

  “I’m putting in a wine bar next door.” I figure I might as well go with the truth. “I can see a lot of potential in expanding the plans to use both properties.”

  “A wine bar?” Roxanne questions. “That’s a bit of a change from Cavellia.”

  She’s right; the club I opened two years ago is all about drama and over the top glitz. It’s not even somewhere I like to go myself; I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been in the place after dark, but I saw the lack of that sort of venue and knew I could build something to fit the bill.

  I followed the same process when I set up my first restaurant downtown five years ago. The house speciality? Portuguese chicken. At the time, I knew nothing about what makes good Portuguese chicken. I did know people really wanted to eat it, and I knew I could hire staff to make it. We’ve expanded to three locations since then.

  I sip at the pinot. It’s a crude flavour, like someone’s first crooked, disjointed attempt at tracing cursive letters, but I can still read the brisk notes of strawberry, still catch the trace of something pungent and wild underneath. My father always said wine had its own language, that you could read the dictionary front to back and still not find the right word to describe the place the liquid takes you to when you let it sit on your tongue.

  He said a lot of things, my father. I wish he’d been given the time to say more.

  “Call it a passion project,” I answer Roxanne.

  “Is your passion destroying beloved local places of business that have been part of the neighbourhood for decades?” Monroe narrows her eyes at me over the top of her pint.

  I set my wine down and rest my elbows on the table, leaning forward until our faces are only a foot or so apart.

  “You really don’t want me to buy this bar, do you?”

  I can’t figure it out. Nobody is this attached to their favourite watering hole, especially when it’s an actual hole in the wall like Taverne Toulose. Merde, there’s a sign that says ‘Don’t do coke in the bathroom’ on the wall, and yet she’s acting like I want to bulldoze the birthplace of Jesus Christ.

  My sudden proximity seems to throw Monroe off for a second. She blinks at me, eyes big and brown and uncertain. A strand of hair slips into her eyes. It wouldn’t be that hard for me to reach over and push it aside.

  Roxanne coughs. Monroe sets down her pint.

  “I care about the people who work here.”

  I let my confusion show on my face. “They work at a bar. There are hundreds of bars in this city. You really don’t think they’ll find other jobs?”

  “You don’t understand.”

  She shakes her head, glancing up at the ceiling and away from me again, but I don’t let her get away easy this time. I lean in as close as I dare.

  “Explain it to me.”

  “You...” She swallows, doing her best to avoid my eyes but ultimately giving into the pressure to lock onto my gaze. “You don’t seem like the kind of person who could understand.”

  I risk leaning even closer.

  “Tell me what kind of person I am.”

  Roxanne coughs again, and we both look toward her, startled. I almost forgot she was here.

  “Well, I feel like the biggest third wheel in the world right now,” she announces, “so I’m going to take this fruity beer over to the bar and keep Zach company while you two continue...whatever this is.”

  “Roxy, wait!” Monroe protests as she starts to get up.

  “Please, don’t feel you like you need to leave,” I add. “En fait, I probably have to leave myself.”

  I pull my phone out and find what I’m expecting: close to a dozen text messages and missed calls. Owning four businesses and counting is like trying to raise a family of exceptionally needy children; everyone always wants something, and no one ever knows how to find anything.

  “Duty calls.” I gesture at the phone before tucking it back into my coat pocket. I get up from the table as Roxanne sits back down.

  “You aren’t going to finish your wine?” she asks me.

  “Wine isn’t meant to be chugged—even that wine.” I open my wallet and lay a few bills down on the table. “Merci for the invitation to drink with you. I hope I didn’t wear out my welcome.”

  “Not mine.” Roxanne turns to Monroe. “Is your welcome for him worn?”

  “I haven’t decided.”

  She says it like a joke, but I doubt I should take it as one.

  “Maybe you’ll have figured it out next time I see you. I’ll be next door a lot dealing with the renovations. If you’re here as much as you seem to be, we might bump into each other again.”

  Am I really trying to flirt with her?

  At best, it’s a futile cause. At worst, it might make her actually hate me. I’ve just met her, and yet neither of those outcomes are things I want to think about facing.

  She answers as I’m about to leave the bar, tipping her beer at me like a challenge.

  “We just might.”

  Four

  Monroe

  COMPLEX: A wine that exhibits multiple flavours and nuances

  “He ordered wine, DeeDee! Wine! At Taverne Toulouse!”

  “Is he,” DeeDee puffs as we carry a keg in from the back entrance together, “stupid?”

  “The opposite, I think.” I stop moving, and we carefully set the metal container down on the ground beside the walk-in fridge. “I think he’s too smart for his own good—for anyone’s good. He’s this uppity prick who sits there drinking pinot noir in his fancy shirts. He talked about Taverne Toulouse like he already owned it, like he’s used to just waltzing into a room and taking whatever he wants. He didn’t even stop and think about what that might mean for other people. He was an asshole about it!”

  DeeDee crosses her arms over the crop top she’s wearing, not even bothering to hide her surprise as she stares me down.

  I know why her eyes have gone wide; I’m not a ranter. I’m not somebody who sits around calling other people names. If there’s a problem, I force whoever’s involved to take a seat at the bar. I pour them a beer, and we talk it out like rational adult humans with a sense of decency and respect for one another. I don’t take the low road, and I definitely don’t decide to write someone off as an asshole after spending less than an hour in their company. It’s been a few days since Roxanne and I’s reconnaissance mission, and yet absence has not made my heart grow fonder as far as Julien Valois is concerned.

  “Maybe I’m projecting,” I admit, “but I just...I just didn’t like him, okay?”

  Bullshit, sing-songs my brain—or more accurately, my hormones.

  There were a lot of things about Julien I did like. I liked the way his accent made his English words come out
soft and slow, like he was savouring the sound of them the way he savoured his wine. I liked the way his fingers curled around the wine glass. He didn’t have delicate hands. He had strong hands, thick and capable—hands for breaking and building, and yet the way he lifted his glass was almost a caress, a tender sort of restraint and awareness of the fragility pinched between his fingers.

  I push the hair back off my sweaty forehead.

  “He’s going to ruin everything,” I remind DeeDee, trying to ignore the fact that I’m probably more in need of a reminder than her. “Fucking Félix Fournier is already talking about selling, and now bar next door guy wants to buy. If we could just get our sales up, I know I could convince Fournier to give me more time to prove that Taverne Toulouse is worth keeping. Things will pick up in the summer. They have to. They always do, and Fournier will forget all about selling, just like he always does.”

  “Even with a wine bar next door stealing all our customers?”

  There’s no challenge in DeeDee’s question, only defeat. Her usual happy go lucky attitude slips for a second. Her shoulders slump, and the bubblegum pink of her hair almost seems to fade a few shades like a washed-out, wilted rose.

  DeeDee has been working here since she was nineteen years old. She could get a job at almost any bar in the city just by bouncing through the door, but Taverne Toulouse gives her something no lounge in the Old Port or bumping club on Saint-Laurent ever will. This bar is a place she can feel safe. The staff here are people she can trust, and when DeeDee showed up with shaking arms and sleepless purple circles under her eyes, she needed that much more than she needed a job.

  People like DeeDee are the reason I can’t let this bar go. Taverne Toulouse is a ship, and I am its captain. There’s no way in hell I’ll be anything but that last person to jump off.

  “Our customers aren’t going to go to a wine bar,” I insist, like the idea is ludicrous. “Julien Valois might know wine, but he doesn’t know this street like we do. We’ll come out on top in the end.”

  The assurance seems to perk DeeDee up a little, but I can’t help feeling they’re only empty words. As things stand, we barely have any customers for the wine bar to steal. We’re losing our main client base, and I know Fucking Félix Fournier won’t give me the funds or the opportunity to attract a new one. Investing thousands into remodelling and rebranding with no real assurance of any returns will look way less attractive than the fat pile of cold, hard cash he’ll earn from selling. From a business standpoint, I have to agree that keeping Taverne Toulouse doesn’t make much sense.

  Fournier’s never spent a day in his life behind a bar, though. He hasn’t whiled away dozens of afternoons on end polishing glasses and listening to retired old men lament their misspent youths. He hasn’t watched the beginnings of a lifelong love affair play out in the flick of a girl’s hair and the tilt of a boy’s head as he leans in to ask what she’s having.

  I know why people come to bars. I know that when they sit down and ask for a drink, what they’re really asking for is an experience, a memory, a possibility. I know how to give it to them. I know how to make sure they want to come back for more. If this place was mine—really mine—I know I could have it packed to the rafters every night, no matter what kind of bar anyone decided to open up next door.

  That’s just a dream, I remind myself. It’s just a fantasy.

  I’m a manager. I’m here to make sure everyone’s happy and that everything works out okay. Dreaming about the personal glory of being Nightlife Queen of Avenue Mont-Royal is not going to help anyone else.

  “One more keg,” I tell DeeDee. “We’ve got this.”

  By the time I’ve got all my work finished for the night and am locking the door to my office, it’s just past eight. I’ve been here since ten in the morning. Everyone always jokes about how I should keep a mattress stashed somewhere in the back. If there was room, I probably would. After my first year of managing, I realized I’d have to give myself a 9PM cut-off time if I didn’t want to totally burn out, but in high season, it’s easy for that hour to come and go without me noticing. Even with the level of business we’re doing now, there’s always something that needs my attention.

  “Fare thee well!” I call to Dylan, our main cook, happy to see that he’s got several chits on the board and is running around like there’s actually enough to keep him busy for once.

  “Have a good night, Monroe!” he calls back as he dumps a basket of fries onto a plate.

  The front of house is half-full for once. I weave between customers and wave goodbye to the servers I manage to spot as I exit onto the street. It’s dark out already, but the cold hasn’t been quite so sharp the past few days. It’ll only be another couple weeks before I get to walk home in the fading traces of daylight.

  The lights are on at the prospective wine bar. The paper on the windows still keeps me from seeing inside, but the front door is propped open by a large cardboard box, and a pile of similar boxes are stacked on the sidewalk.

  They must have started renovations already, and if they’re working this late at night, then Julien must be paying for things to get done fast.

  How rich is this man?

  He can’t be much older than thirty, and yet he owns an entire nightclub and just bought up property on one of the most expensive streets in the city. Most people twice his age wouldn’t be able to get a mortgage on this building approved, but he talked about purchasing Taverne Toulouse like it was a second hand coat at a thrift store and his biggest concern was whether or not it would fall apart.

  The sight of the boxes sends a wave of dread creeping up my spine. I thought I’d have months and months before this threat became a reality, but here it is, sitting on the sidewalk in front of me just days after the possibility marched up and announced itself.

  “Va te faire foutre, salaud!”

  The exclamation makes me pause. I can see someone’s shadow stretching out into the road from inside the building. They hunch over, and there’s a loud bang followed by more swear words and the hissing sounds of someone in pain.

  I take a few steps closer and call out, “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. I’m fine, I just—oh.”

  I move past the box pile to find Julien Valois leaning against the doorframe, clutching his foot.

  He stares at me. I blink at him.

  “I dropped the box,” he says eventually. He still hasn’t taken his eyes off mine. They watch me from behind his glasses, and my skin starts to heat under his gaze.

  “Are you hurt?” I manage to ask.

  The question seems to break the trance. He lowers his foot in its fancy leather shoe and tests his weight on it.

  “I don’t think so. Maybe bruised, but nothing’s broken, I think.” He grins at me through his beard. “I’m a crétin for trying to move these myself.”

  I do my best to ignore his charming bearded grin and the cadence of his accent. He’s clearly from France or somewhere close to it, but there’s an extra note to the way he speaks English I can’t quite place. It’s more than a little distracting. “I was just thinking that. Is there any reason you’re moving heavy boxes alone at night, or are you going to tell me that’s the secret to your success?”

  “I am a self-made man, Monroe.”

  I snort. His shoes say otherwise. No one wears shoes like that in a Canadian winter. It’s just asking for salt stains and frozen toes. My woolly Sorrel’s might make me look like an arctic explorer, but dammit if they aren’t as good as having a cozy woodstove blasting on my feet all the time. They’re also much better suited to manual labour than what Julien’s got on.

  “You seem to be doubting me,” he announces.

  It feels safer to doubt him than it does to doubt myself, which is what his perfect facial hair and come-to-bed-with-moi accent seem to be able to do. He’s luring me in, making me want to take him somewhere quiet and read his story like I do with the books on my shelves. My fingers are twitching with the need to trace
the words on his pages, to find out if there’s more to him than a nice jacket and a hefty bank account, but that’s not on the saving Taverne Toulouse agenda.

  I have to crush my curiosity, my need to know more. I have to wrestle my inquisitive scholar’s brain into seeing him as an obstacle and nothing more.

  “Really, though, why are you here all by yourself?” I ask, pushing for a subject change.

  “These tiles weren’t supposed to be delivered until next week,” he explains, throwing a dirty look at the box beside him, “but I got a shipment notification two hours ago saying they were about to drop them off in the middle of the evening. There are several thousand dollars of tiles here. I couldn’t leave them sitting on the sidewalk all night.”

  “I think you’ve already proved they’d be pretty difficult to steal.”

  He smiles at me again. I’m going to be forced to tell him to stop doing that if I want to maintain my resolve.

  “You didn’t call anyone to help you?”

  “Strangely enough, no one jumped on a last-minute opportunity to spend their Saturday evening lifting heavy boxes with me.”

  He shrugs and grins like he’s made a joke, but I hear the note of heaviness in his voice.

  My mom tells me I was born with something she likes to call a baby bird instinct. I can’t walk past someone in need without being overcome by this to intense, soul-searing need do something for them. It overrides all sense of self-preservation. Other people see a scary stranger lurking in an alleyway; I see a baby bird lying helpless on the pavement, pitifully chirping for help. My mom was always terrified of me getting abducted. I wasn’t allowed to walk to school alone until I was fifteen years-old.

  So I might be doing my best to convince myself that this guy is a threat to everything I’ve spent my professional life working to build, but right now, alone in the dark with a bruised foot and a near-impossible task no one could be bothered to help him with, he’s just one more baby bird I have to put back in its nest.

  “There’s a dolly next door. I’ll go get it.”