Page 53 of Glass Half Full
I take another sip, and of course, he chooses right then to nudge me again. It really shouldn’t be this funny, but I have to cover my mouth to keep from splattering him. That only makes him laugh harder as I give him the finger with my free hand and choke down the chai.
“Who’s being a little shit now?” I complain after I’ve swallowed.
He shrugs and leans back against the wall. “I’m just trying to show you what it’s like.”
“I have never purposefully tried to make you spit your drink out.”
“Oh really? I’m pretty sure I’m on the verge of spitting my drink out every time I see you walk into a room. I can’t do any heavy lifting with you around because I just end up dropping things on my feet. Hell, I’d probably walk straight into traffic if I ever saw you standing across the street from me. You’re a hazard, Renee Nyobé.”
“A hazard? Wow, flattering.”
I am flattered. I can feel the heat climbing up my neck again.
“So.” I scramble to change the subject before this moment gets way too sexually charged for a coffee shop. “I told you about my best friend. Now you tell me about yours.”
He taps his chin. “Hmm. My best friend.”
“You have to think about that?”
“Hey, Renee, I’m a popular guy. I have more friends than I know what to do with. There’s a waiting list to become my friend. You don’t realize just how lucky you are to be getting this one on one session with me. You just jumped ahead of people who’ve been in line for years.”
“Ha ha.”
I know he’s not exaggerating all that much. He is a popular guy. He’s done well enough in the spoken word scene that he could be featuring at slams all across the country. I’m sure even now, years after his last time competing at nationals, he’s still getting invitations to do workshops and guest speaking.
“As far as work goes, I’d say I’m closest with Zach,” Dylan answers, still tapping his chin. “I’m pretty close with Monroe too, but that’s more of a...I mean it’s weird to call it a ‘motherly’ relationship, so she’s more of an equal parts strict and caring...godmother?”
I raise my eyebrows. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard someone describe their boss as a godmother.”
“What should I call her, then? A bar mother? A beer mother?”
I’m glad I don’t have any latte in my mouth as I let out an involuntary snort. “Beer mother. Wow. Okay, let’s go with that. So that’s who you’re closest with at work. What about outside of work?”
“Uh...” He stares off into the distance like he’s genuinely struggling to come up with an answer. “I mean, Stella and Owen, the poets I used to run the workshops with, we’re all still pretty close. They’re actually the driving force behind the Montreal slam group now. I don’t see them as much as I did back when we ran the workshops, but they’re good friends. It’s hard not to get close when you’re all splitting your souls open sharing poems every month.”
I nod. That’s part of the reason Tahseen and I became so important to each other so fast. Poetry has a way of cracking open people’s shells, of splitting apart the layers it takes most people years to chip away at when they only see one another in passing.
It’s probably why I ended up crushing so hard on Dylan, why even then I was convinced I recognized something more in him than just a teenaged fantasy.
“What?” Dylan demands, snapping me out of my temporary daze. “You have this goofy smile on your face. What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing!” I gulp down more of my drink to cover for myself.
“Nuh-uh. That was not a nothing smile. What were you just thinking?”
“I was just...remembering some stuff about the workshops.”
“Was it something stupid I did? I know I used to come up with a lot of weird exercises for you guys to do. Sometimes they worked really well. Other times you guys were just like, ‘Hell no, Dylan, we are not doing that.’”
“Oh!” I snap my fingers, a memory I haven’t thought about in years resurfacing. “Like the time you wanted us to eat all those different foods while we said our poems?”
“Hey, that was a good idea!”
He brought in a bunch of strongly flavoured food items to a workshop one day—lemons, chili peppers, coffee grinds, anything bitter or spicy enough to make you pull a face while eating it—and had us perform our pieces in between taking bites. The goal was to show us how much delivery impacts a poem, how you could be telling the sweetest love story known to mankind and still leave the audience on a sour note if you spit your words just right. That’s what we call it in the spoken word community: spitting. It’s a high compliment to be told you spit good.
“The chili peppers were taking it too far,” I argue, “and don’t tell me you forgot about that girl’s lips swelling up because she was allergic to lemons.”
Dylan throws his hands up in the air. “Who the fuck is allergic to lemons?”
