Page 29 of Glass Half Full
“Yeah.” I laugh along with her. “That makes sense.”
“He’s also a really good guy, you know,” she continues, throwing a meaningful look down the hall. “I wish you got to see him before this whole manager thing. He’s been different, more...lost, maybe. I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s how he looks sometimes: lost. Well, except...”
That DeeDee gleam comes back in her eyes as she turns to me, but we’re interrupted by a new flood of orders coming in from the servers.
“I shouldn’t say it,” DeeDee urges, squeezing my arm before I can jump into action mode, “but when does Mamma DeeDee keep her mouth shut,hein? I’ve never seen him look as happy as he does when you walk in the room.”
Eight
Dylan
AMPLIFICATION: When a writer embellishes a sentence with additional information in order to increase its clarity and worth
Something with cats on it.
I scan the items on display in the very hipster gift shop I’m searching. Everything is arranged on tables made of repurposed shipping pallets and shelving units created from rustic boards and old pieces of metal piping. It’s the kind of store you can find in all the trendier Montreal neighbourhoods. This one is only a block away from Taverne Toulouse. They sell greeting cards with classic art memes on the front and pins featuring cartoon avocados for you to stick to your backpack or denim jacket.
Stella loves this kind of shit. She also loves cats. I haven’t seen her or Owen, my two co-leaders from back when I did the poetry workshops, in longer than I care to think about. Taking on the management position at Taverne Toulouse meant I had to cut back on the time I devote to the slam scene, but it’s a shitty excuse for not making time to see my friends. I missed Stella’s birthday last week. This place better have the hippest cat-related gift wear in the city. I have some reparations to make.
“Hey there! Can I help you with anything?”
A girl with purple hair, two eyebrow piercings, and what has to be every damn button in the store’s inventory pinned to her shirt smiles at me.
“Oh, thanks, just looking,” I turn back to the shelves before deciding I might actually need the help. “But now that you mention it, what would you recommend for someone who likes cats?”
The girl puts a hand on her chest. “Ilovecats.”
Ten minutes later, I’ve got an armload of feline-featuring notebooks, stickers, mugs, and jewelry. There’s even an iridescent pink hip flask adorned with an illustration of a cat wearing a unicorn costume. I have no idea what social situation would require drinking out of a flask with a unicorn-cat on it.
‘Every social situation’ would probably be Stella’s answer. She’s going to love it.
“Do you want a basket?” my cat spirit guide asks me after I almost drop a mug on the floor.
“Uh, yeah, that would be great.”
I watch her take off toward the cash register and get stuck ringing a few people up. I’m holding so much stuff I’m scared to move, so I stand stock-still where she left me, like some kind of human display advertising a special on pet-related merchandise. I’m still rooted to the spot when the bell over the front door chimes and in walks none other than Renee Nyobé.
It shouldn’t surprise me; weareright near work. Her shift would have just finished, and I’m on my way over to the bar myself, but I nearly drop the mug again. It’s like my muscles still can’t get over the shock of seeing her, of being near her after all this time. They start twitching with the need to be even closer before I can tell them not to.
She looks damn beautiful, as always. A few strands of frizzy hair are hanging loose around her face, the rest of it pulled back in a ponytail. She tugs the strap of her purse higher up on her shoulder and then scans the shop. When she spots me, her lips form an ‘O’ of surprise before shifting into a smile. She gives a cute, awkward little wave, and I raise my hand to do the same.
“Oh, shit.”
One of the notebooks tucked under my arm drops to the floor. I start to bend over to grab it before realizing that’s just going to make half the stuff I’m holding slip out of my grasp too.
“Here.” I look up and find Renee right in front of me. “I’ll grab it.”
All I can do is stare like an idiot as she braces a hand on the table beside us and retrieves the notebook. She scans the cover once she’s straightened back up.
“‘I work hard so my cat can have a better life,’” she reads.
I meet her raised eyebrow with a grin. “It’s totallypawsome, right?”
She blinks once and then bursts out laughing.
“I can’t take credit for that one,” I admit. “It’s from this mug I’m about to drop.”
“Don’t they have baskets or something?” Renee grabs the mug just as the handle is about to slip from its precarious perch around my pinkie. “And why did you grab so much stuff in the first place?”
