Page 9 of Glass Half Full
“Oppression,” Dad grumbles as she storms out, a?ai bowl in one hand and cell phone in the other. I can hear her pounding up the stairs as he calls out, “Hurry it up, Michelle! You’ve already been late for tutoring once this week!”
“Oh, she’ll be late today,” I assure him, waiting until I’m sure she’s out of earshot before continuing. “She’s probably setting up a special backdrop now and rearranging all the lights in her bedroom to get the perfect shot.”
Dad raises his eyes to the ceiling. “Three artistic women in the house. Some days it is a blessing, and some days it is a curse.”
We’re an artistic household overall. My dad is a curator at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. My mom is the creative director of a well known Canadian jewelry company. My sister’s knack for photography and making anything you put in front of her look cute and pretty has turned her into a teen Instagram sensation.
Then there’s me, the writer.
The writer who no longer writes.
“You’re heading out soon?” Dad crosses the kitchen to place a kiss on my forehead. “I’m glad you’re doing something fun today,ma petite lionne.”
My little lioness.
We usually stick to English at home; Mom’s French is passable at best, but Dad did his best to make Michelle and I bilingual. We don’t practice French together as much as we used to, but ‘ma petite lionne’ is a phrase of his that’s always stuck.
“Merci, Papa.” I force the words out, doing my best to sound like I don’t have a lump of emotion lodged in my throat. He usually knows just what to say to me, but I can’t tell if the reminder of all that name represents—bravery, courage, fearlessness—is making me feel worse or better this evening.
I shouldn’t deserve the title of lioness just for leaving the house to get coffee with my best friend, but considering how I spent the first few weeks—okay, months—of this summer, I can see why he’d want to congratulate me.
I drum my heels against the cupboard beneath me as Dad finishes up at the sink and leaves the room. When the kitchen is silent again, I pull myself together enough to hop off the counter and head to the front hall. I’ve just zipped up my jacket when my phone rings.
“Hello?”
I expect to hear my mom or Tahseen, the friend I’m heading out to meet, coming through the speaker—I’m not exactly a popular target for phone calls from anyone else—and my spine stiffens in surprise when a man replies instead.
“Hi, Renee? It’s Dylan. Dylan Trottard. You know, that cool guy who did your interview yesterday?”
My heart starts to race at the same time my spine relaxes, that combination of nerves and warm familiarity flooding through me just like it did at the interview. Even though it’s coming through a phone, his deep voice so close to my ear is enough to make me shiver. He has a poet’s voice: rich and resonant. Liquid. His words pour over me, trailing rivulets along my skin.
“A cool guy?” I lean against the little table in the entryway where we all keep our keys. “I don’t remember meeting a cool guy yesterday.”
It’s been years, but I slip back into our old routine without thinking: the routine that consisted of relentlessly teasing each other every chance we got. Everybody at the workshops liked to tease Dylan, but he and I were straight up savage with each other.
The heat that rises in my cheeks and spreads down my neck and chest at just the sound of him speaking is nothing new either.
“I’m sensing some sarcasm there, Renee. You might want to watch how you speak to your new manager.”
“What?”
“Congratulations. You got the job.”
The job?
I blank for a second, and then it hits.
The job!
Of course he’s calling about the job.
“That’s great! That is so great! That’s fantastic! I am so excited to start.”
Slow down there, eager beaver.
“I’ll admit I expected a more original response than ‘great,’ coming from you,” Dylan drawls. “Fantastic is a little better, but might I suggest a thesaurus? They’re very useful tools.”
“Asshole,” I shoot back before realizing I’m talking to my new boss. “Oh, shit. I shouldn’t call you that, should I? And I said shit. Am I allowed to say shit? I’m sorry. This is so weird.”
