Page 1 of Glass Half Full
One
Renee
CAESURA: A pause or pivot within the rhythm of a poem or sentence that is used to create dramatic impact
“Mademoiselle!”
The shout echoes through the bustling metro station, bouncing off the tile walls and getting swallowed up by the rattling roar of the train approaching down below—the train I’m supposed to be getting on.
I start running, fumbling for my wallet in my backpack behind me and doing my best not to collide with anyone as I charge toward the turnstiles.
“Mademoiselle!” The shout is closer this time, more insistent. “Avec les cheveux!”
That halts me in my tracks. It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s referred to me as, ‘Hey, you with the hair!’
I’ve yet to find elastics that last me longer than a week before they decide to give up on life. Almost every Christmas, someone gets me a bottle of volumizing shampoo as a joke. Salons fear me. That’s one of the things you get with a white mom and a black dad: hair no one knows how the hell to handle.
“Madamoiselle!” The voice is panting now, hoarse like a smoker’s and out of breath.
I turn around to find a man with a grizzled beard and a Van Halen t-shirt hunched over with a hand braced on his thigh as he tries to catch his breath. He’s looking at me, holding something out in his other hand.
“Is this yours?” he asks in French.
My attention flicks to the turnstiles behind me, to the people flooding up the staircase as a few desperate stragglers like me try to weave their way down through the crowd. I take half a step closer to whatever it is the man is holding. There’s a scrap of fabric clutched in his fist, something purple. I only have to move a few inches closer before I recognize it.
It’s a thong—a purple thong, patterned with tiny Neapolitan ice cream cones.
It’smythong, the one I stripped out of after hot yoga and shoved in my bag with the rest of my sweaty gear.
I glance up at the man again. He smiles.
Then he winks.
“Nope, not mine!”
I don’t look back as I sprint away, one hand still flailing for my metro card like the doomsday countdown is about to reach zero and the only way I can stop it is by slamming my card against the machine. I somehow make it down the stairs two at a time without falling on my face and launch myself onto the platform just in time to see the train’s doors closing.
The ding-dong sound that announces departures is the only thing that keeps me from throwing myself against one of the doors and begging for mercy.
That’s a slight exaggeration.
I just stand there, shifting my backpack up on my shoulders as I watch the train pick up speed, faces blurring in the windows as they whip past me and disappear into the tunnel up ahead.
I’m going to be late for my interview.
I glance at the arrival times on the screen hanging over the other side of the tracks and then lean against the wall, taking stock of myself.
One of my shoes is wet from stepping in a puddle, the moisture just beginning to soak into my sock and leave me with a swamp foot. I was so sweaty from yoga that the light makeup I slapped on wouldn’t set, so I’m sure most of it is sliding down my face. I don’t even want to know how much of my hot-yoga-enhanced hair has escaped the thick braid I pulled it into. I dropped a thong in the metro station, for god’s sake—asweatythong.
It’s one of the first cold days of the season, but that hasn’t stopped me from being Montreal’s hottest mess.
“Breathe,” I mutter to myself.
The order comes out more like an army command than the gentle encouragement I was going for. The rushing river of nerves I’d managed to calm to a faint trickle with yoga today gushes to the forefront of my mind, picking up speed like a tidal wave as I try to throw up the dams.
“Breathe.”
Saying it out loud just makes me realize how bad things have gotten, makes me step outside my own body and assess myself as a stranger, feeling all the judgement and aversion of someone watching a sweaty girl on the platform mumble to herself with her eyes closed. I start repeating the order in my head instead.
