Page 22 of Glass Half Full
He wheels his cart away. Renee is practically on the floor now.
“You’re insane!” she accuses.
“You’re insane!” I shoot back. “Look at you. You can hardly stand up.”
She throws her head back to stare at the ceiling and begs, “Why are there only four potatoes?”
I don’t know how long we stand—or try to stand—like that for. It really shouldn’t be funny, but it’s like everything I’ve felt since starting this job has finally found a point of release, like a pinprick of relief ripping itself into a widening tear.
“Excusez-moi.”
We’re both still trying to learn how to breathe again when a store clerk makes his way over, a bar above his nametag declaring he’s the manager.
“We do not permit intoxicated people on the premises,” he announces in French.
It shouldn’t make me laugh. It really shouldn’t, but of course it does.
“We—we’re not d—drunk,” Renee stammers, also in French, before she gives in and laughs too.
We’re being herded to the exit seconds later, still trying to defend our sobriety as we continue to snort after every second word.
“Well, I can safely say that’s the first time I’ve been kicked out of a grocery store,” I announce after the first hit of cold night air starts to calm us down.
“Oh really?” Renee asks. “That’s the third time for me.”
I do a double take. “You’re joking.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
She flashes a blue-lit smile.
“I honestly can’t tell if you’re joking.”
She doesn’t answer, just starts leading the way down the sidewalk. We should be jogging back— tonight just got a lot more complicated at Taverne Toulouse, and as the manager, I should never have left in the first place—but neither of us seems to have it in us.
I drag a hand down my face as we pass a souvenir shop that’s closed for the night. Maple flavoured candy and wooden moose statues sit in the darkened window display.
“Monroe is going to kill me,” I admit. Maybe it’s unprofessional, but professionalism is a lost cause for tonight. “Even Zach might get in on my murder, and that dude would literally not hurt a fly.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Once there was this wasp in the bar, and—”
“No,” Renee interrupts. “Why do you think they’re going to kill you?”
“I fucked up.” The words are out before I can consider stopping them. “I keep fucking up.”
“How long have you been the manager?”
I can see where she’s going with this, but it’s not an excuse. It’s not something I can console myself with.
“Long enough that I shouldn’t be making these kinds of mistakes.”
We separate to let a big group move between us and then join together again. Her arm is close enough that our sleeves would brush if either of us made the slightest change in where we’re stepping. I don’t think I’ve ever felt as charged before, as aware of someone else when they’re near me.
The heat running from my shoulder to my fingertips is a reminder to step away. Heat is dangerous. Heat burns. Whatever else I might be feeling for her, the last thing I want is to burn this girl.
“Everyone really likes you, Dylan.” Her voice drops lower, but I resist the urge to move closer. “I know I haven’t worked there long, but I can tell. It was the same at the poetry workshops. You...People like you.”
