// Toriv

I hate winter. I feel like I need to say that again. I HATE winter. Witness, by my conspicuous use of all-caps, just how much I hate it.

Where some people see a winter wonderland, I see only the slushy sidewalk that ruined my favourite pair of lace-up boots. Where most city-goers look forward to downhill skiing and other winter sports, I can only think of my poor pent-up motorbike, forced to hibernate for almost half the year in a cold and lonely garage, unridden. How tragic is that?! Some creatures just need to be free, yo.

Plus in the winter you can’t go anywhere without suffering from the cold at some point. Montréal has plenty of underground malls and subway stations and things, but no matter how well you time your travels you’re going to end up shivering at a bus stop eventually, or accidentally stepping into an ice-cold slush puddle (RIP boots), or getting snowed on so hard you can’t see across the street. Winter is balls, is what I’m saying.

So you can understand if I spend maybe more time than is strictly necessary standing at the window to the café and gazing wistfully up at the grey winter sky, sighing as I try to will the seasons to take that final turn into springtime. I guess the end of February is still a bit early for it, but a guy can dream.

“I need a vacation,” I said this afternoon to no one in particular. “Somewhere warm. Tropical, maybe. I’ll go to Puerto Rico. Mom, let’s go to Puerto Rico.”

From the table closest to the counter, my mom put down her paperback and said, “What?”

“I said let’s go to Puerto Rico. To visit the motherland, you know.”

“Ay, caramba. You don’t even speak Spanish. I don’t even speak Spanish. I’ve never even been.”

“So let’s go. Rediscover our roots.”

“Our roots are here, baby,” she said sagely. “Anyway, I was trying to convince your father to go for our fortieth wedding anniversary.”

I turned around and put on my most Scandalized Son face. “That’s in ages! And I can’t go with you if it’s your anniversary!”

“Well that’s not on me, is it? Get a rich boyfriend and get him to take you.”

“Problem solving,” I sighed. “Just like my daddy taught me.”

“If I’ll have managed to teach you nothing else,” my daddy said as he very inconveniently walked in.

It was just lucky Loriev was in the back doing dishes, because it is really annoying when my dad makes a jab like that in front of other people. As it was, all I had to give him was a face. You probably know the face. A kind of “how are you even my dad” face. He gave me a kind of “how are you even my son” face in return. That’s me and my dad in a nutshell.

“I seem to recall you forbidding me from ever touching the solderer for the rest of my life.”

“I seem to recall you declaring you’d never be a jeweler anyway.”

“Didn’t want to make any competition for you,” I said, which made my mother smile and my dad roll his eyes.

I abandoned the window to go fix my father’s coffee, while he kissed the tip of my mother’s nose and sat down with her. My parents are the kind of couple who have somehow managed to remain stupidly in love despite being together for over half their lives. And I mean disgustingly in love, the whole renewed wedding vows thing and everything. I’m pretty sure they would willingly kill a man for each other. I’m pretty sure they would kill a man together. They would for me too, I guess, but they kinda have to considering I’m their kid. When you’re with someone, it’s usually because you choose to be. You chose them out of a potentially infinite number of people. It’s a lot more charged, somehow, if you ask me.

I’ve been in love a few times. It never really panned out, as you can probably tell by my single and swingin’ status, but it was good while it lasted. The problem is always when it stops lasting. The bigger problem is when it stops lasting for one of you and not for the other. It makes for very many awkward situations down the line, so awkward that I’ve kind of just stopped putting myself in the way of them.

That’s not cold-hearted of me, is it? I don’t think it is. If anything, it’s practical, it’s what I need in my life right now. No one should have to force themself to have a relationship and be in love if it’s not their jam.

Though I have to say, growing up with my parents, it gets a little complicated to figure out what someone like me wants from love. I could aspire to have the same kind of fairy tale, fireworks romance the parentals have, but how often does that happen in real life? I’m pretty sure my parents just got super lucky or are blessed by the gods or something. What they have is a rare thing, I can tell you that much.

But what about me? Well, what about me. I guess I figured early on that being unattached works better for me. Not just because finding someone worth being in a relationship with is so difficult, but I just plain don’t have the time for it. Running a coffee shop is pretty big deal. I work most days, either behind the counter or on orders and accounts. Sometimes I’ve even got to make a field trip to one of our suppliers so we can talk business. The barista life isn’t all fun and games, you know. I’m technically, like, CEO of café Vanellas. I should get a nameplate for my desk at home. TORIV VANELLAS, CEO. Bet that’ll bring all the boys to the yard.

Anyway, all that to say, I don’t exactly have the ideal lifestyle for fostering a new relationship. It’s the darn truth. I’m sure that under normal circumstances, I’d love to have a boyfriend. It sounds nice. But who has the time?

Later that same day, I was sitting around during my break trying to write when I noticed my parents looking at me from their table. Maybe I was typing too intensely.

“May I take your order?” I said.

“Just wondering what you were up to,” Mom said.

“Writing. You know, that thing I was telling you about.”

“Your autobiography?”

“Something like that.”

“Have a title yet?” Dad asked.

“It’s a bit early for a title.” I thought about it for a second. “What about ‘Sex, Coffee, and Rock n’ Roll’?”

My mom laughed so hard she choked on her lactose-free latte, and my dad thumped her on the back while looking sidelong at me and making The Face again. That’s parental encouragement for ya.

“It needs work,” I admitted.

“You’ll get it, baby,” Mom hiccuped. At least I made somebody’s day. “Can I read it?”

“Um, no way.”

“Oh come on. It’ll be like when I’d go over your essays for school.”

“Exactly! You ain’t touchin’ this.”

“Vriev, tell our boy to let his mother read his writing project.”

“I’m not getting involved in this,” my dad said around a mouthful of coffee.

“My daddy is a wise man,” I said, and then immediately regretted it when the professor walked in, just in time to hear me say ‘daddy’ loud enough for the whole store to hear.

I must have made a face just then because my mother went into another laughing fit, almost ruining her paperback book with coffee in the process. The professor stopped dead in the door, looking politely confused behind his fogging-up glasses.

“Am I interrupting something?” he asked as my mom continued to cackle in the background.

“Not at all,” I said. “Just my parents being insufferable.”

“Don’t badmouth us to the clientele!” Mom exclaimed.

“Don’t ridicule me in front of the clientele!” I exclaimed back.

“You did that yourself!”

“I can pretend I didn’t hear anything,” said the professor amiably.

“Thank you,” I said.

I hopped up to get behind the counter for his order, although there were technically still a few minutes left to my break. The things I do for these people, honestly.

“Your parents hang out here, then?” the professor asked as I rang him up.

“When I don’t annoy them too much. Say hello to monsieur le professeur, Mom and Dad.”

“Does the professor have a name?” Mom said, smiling her winning I’m-a-lot-older-than-I-look-but-tell-no-one smile.

The professor hesitated. “Singh.”

“It’s nice to meet you, professor Singh. I’m Evanis and this is my husband Vinoriev. And you’ve met our son Toriv.”

“I have.” He smiled at me out of the corner of his eye. “Just a few weeks ago, in fact.”

“Thinking of becoming a regular?” I asked.

For a second he looked startled, like he did the other day when I spoke to him while he was working. I guess he’s the kind of guy who isn’t used to attention. It’s kind of cute, to be honest.

“I think so,” he said finally. “This is a very nice place.”

“Isn’t it?” my mom said earnestly. “Toriv built it all himself, you know. My own small business manager.”

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t have an ounce of shame in my body, but it’s hard to not be embarrassed when your mother gushes over you in public. “When you’re done being my entire PR department, Mom.”

“Sorry, baby.” She did not look sorry at all.

The professor left soon after with another of café Vanellas’ specialty mochas. The larger size this time and extra hot. Guess he likes it. Chalk one up for the coffee guys.

My mom looked thoughtful for a while, her paperback open but idle in her hand and one of her ankles propped on my dad’s knee. Like me, Evanis Vanellas is never silent for long, so it was a little weird.

Finally, she said, “What’s he a professor of?”

“What?” I’d been counting our remaining stock beneath the counter and took a second to clue in. “Uh, I don’t know. Something serious and academic, probably.”

“He does look pretty serious.” She lapsed into a suspicious silence again, then closed her book and smacked it on the table, like some big decision had been made. My dad didn’t even look up from his daily newspaper at the noise and my mother’s loud declaration of: “You should ask him out.”

“What? Mom, meddling much?”

“All I’m saying is you could do worse than dating a professor.”

My dad made a characteristic kind of grunting noise to support her words, though his eyes were still on the paper. At least he’s long since given up arguing with me over the company I seek out in my free time.

“Teachers are undateable,” I said ultra-emphatically. “They always love rules more th–“

“–than they love you, I know.” Guess she’s heard that one before. “Fine, it doesn’t have to be him. But I’m getting worried about you.”

“Mavae. I’m fine.”

“Of course you’re fine. I always knew you’d be fine. But I want for you to be better than fine.”

Would you believe me if I said we’ve had this conversation about every six months since I was twenty-five? Just like the seasons. I’m going to have to start thinking up new material if I ever want to escape the cycle of parental anxiety.

“What’s even the big deal?” I said, counting up bottles of syrup with the half of my brain that wasn’t negotiating with the worry warts across the counter. “It’s not like I’m middle-aged or anything. I’ve got plenty of time if I want to settle down later.”

“That time runs out faster than you think.”

“Come onnn. As if you weren’t totally a swinger once too.”

“Oh, unfair. That was only until I started seeing your father.”

“So.” I stood up, stretched, and moved to another cabinet to continue the count. “Maybe I’m just waiting for the right guy.”

“Let the boy find his own way, Vani,” my dad said finally. He still hadn’t looked up from his paper, just kept on reading and turning pages, but I knew he had been listening closely the whole time. If my mom is the meddler, then my dad is the listener. They really do go well together.

It was annoying, but somehow that conversation continued to bother me even after my parents had gone to do their groceries. I’m not really sure why. It wasn’t much different from all the other versions of that same exchange: my mother suggesting I start seriously dating, me arguing against her, my father closing it all down. We’ve done it over dinner, at the movies, at the corner store. Everyone who works here in the café with me has probably heard it almost as many times as I have.

Maybe it was because of the guy she suggested this time. The quiet wallflower of a professor. Glasses and book bag and shirt tucked into pants. Not that he isn’t good-looking — he is, in a mature, scholarly, dark-haired and dark-skinned kind of way — but he’s not really the type I look twice at. Not when I’m out on the prowl, anyway.

My mother’s words had planted a seed, though, as they often tend to do. I turned the idea over and over in my head for a while after that. For so long, actually, that spring had already begun to spring.

// Mahendra

Springtime in Montréal brings a number of things around, every year like clockwork: the insidious reappearance of every hidden pothole in the city, until then cunningly filled in with hard-packed snow, and final exams.  Often these two things tend to work against each other. I’ve had more than one student complain of nightmares related to tardiness caused by poor road and traffic conditions. It’s the reason I don’t drive myself.

And because I don’t drive, and because my graduate students are generally nice people, I’ve occasionally been offered rides to and from the university. I don’t know if this makes me a popular professor or not. It’s possible they feel sorry for me, always sleepy-looking and arriving and leaving alone, but who knows.

I don’t remember ever having any special feelings for any of my college professors, but then again I had been a little withdrawn as a student. I had always done excellently in school, of course, not that I had much choice in the matter. Those of you who have had strict parents (apparently, in my mind, there are now several of you hypothetical readers) will understand. Always do well, but don’t raise your head too high. Speak, but not too loudly. Be yourself, but not too much. Lessons that a person, as an independent adult, sees as largely ridiculous, but lessons that are difficult to shake off, as ingrained behaviour typically is.

Still, I try to convey the best parts of those lessons to my own students, especially to my grad students, with whom I spend more time. I’m well aware of how daunting it is to stand before an assembly and defend an academic thesis. You feel like your words are going out into the void. It takes courage just to stand from your seat, to gather all your wits and research and note cards and to face an audience that probably knows much more about your own field than you do. Graduating from that kind of environment is truly a trial by fire, so I do all I can to help the students under my care to withstand it.

And generally, they survive it well. One doesn’t attend graduate school on a whim, after all. Most of them are tough stuff to begin with, passionate and eager for more knowledge, more discussion, and always, more sleep. Such is the up-and-down life of an academic.

I suppose, since I spend so much time advising them, that I shouldn’t be surprised that quite a few of them seem to like me personally. I rather like them myself, especially this year’s new bunch, many of them still fresh from undergrad. I’d call them fresh-faced and eager, but to be perfectly honest, the end of the winter semester usually brings with it a handful of red-eyed, overwrought, caffeine-chugging individuals whose only desire on this Earth is a flat surface upon which to lean and steal a nap.

So it isn’t a stretch to say they’re dear to me, though they always leave at the end of their two year stint. A few of them have returned over the years, to consult on some matter of grave anthropological importance, to request a letter of recommendation, or simply to visit. The corkboard in my office is covered in printed-out photos of some of my past students on their various adventures around the world. I always did think that anthropology graduates had the tools to be some of the most interesting people in the world, and my students prove it every day.

And here I am, aging and sedentary, feeling awfully protective and parental about them and too afraid to really show it. Perhaps I should follow Charlotte’s lead and go on vacation as well, somewhere warm and dry that hasn’t seen snow in decades.

Speaking of snow: I sloshed into school on a late February morning to find most of the hall to my department trailing with the grey, watery remnants of it, right up to where the common study area for medical anthropology graduates was located. When I entered, the room was a chaos of damp winter coats, scattered rubber boots, and mass hysteria of the variety that can only be mustered in a school environment.

“Professor Singh,” someone wailed. “My research proposal is ruined!”

If I had a dollar for every time I heard that. “I’m sure it’s salvageable, dear, but let me just hang up my coat–“

“Professor Singh! Someone’s throwing some serious shade in that journal you like!”

“Do I need to put out a hit?”

“Professor Singh, a certain two Cultural and Linguistic Anthropology profs have taken up again. Living in delicious, delicious sin, if you know what I mean.”

“I expect the gossip on my desk by this afternoon.”

“Professor!” the first one yelled. “My proposal!”

And so on. Just another day at the office, really. They’re a lively group this year. The one of the devastated dissertation is Annamaría, the only grad student I have in this batch who is older than I am. The others are younger folk of the formerly fresh faces: Lucien, the former medical student whose field you really would not guess at first glance; Sangeeta, the college valedictorian whose surname also happens to be Singh; Marie-Claire, the newly minted academic who turned out to be a fierce debater in close quarters; and Chem, the once painfully shy art major who has since become a sort of den mother for the group.

They milled about in the graduate common room as I ducked into my office to hang up my winter coat and to change into proper office shoes. The scent of freshly brewed coffee was thick in the air, warm and heady after an early morning spent navigating the streets in a brisk wind. I wrapped my scarf back around my neck to stave off a remaining chill and reemerged into the common area, ready to face a day of academic toil. “Now, where are we at?”

“Total disaster,” Annamaría moaned, her head down on a table, an ancient laptop and piles of notes scattered before her. Chem was standing next to her, patting her back in a comforting manner, and looked to me beseechingly.

“Here, now, dear,” I said gently. “Let’s see what we have. The rest of you get set up, please. We’ll go over everyone’s progress in a bit.”

I sat a while with Annamaría as the other students settled around the large conference table with their myriad electronic devices and stacks of research notes. Many of them were already arguing despite the early hour, trading good-natured barbs about this or that academic source or big name in the anthropological world, though some of them, like Annamaría, only sat looking weary and distraught. ‘Tis the season, I suppose.

It took some doing, but I finally calmed Annamaría down enough to get a few coherent statements out of her, and was able to provide some guidance as to the direction of her proposal. The deadline for the submission of the research proposals was quickly approaching, and pressure has a way of getting to even the hardiest of people. I remember spending more than a few nights lying awake in my underheated Montréal flat — then the first of many — staring at the dark ceiling and wondering vaguely if my life was spiralling out of control or not.

Soon after that, we had our little weekly session, where everyone settled with their first, second, or third coffee of the day and shared their progress with their research proposals. Spirits were a bit low that day, probably due in part to the awful weather. I’ll spare you, hypothetical reader, from the dreary details, but suffice it to say that my students were not at their happiest by the end of the round.

“Chin up, everyone,” I said once everyone had had their turn. “Remember that only proposals are necessary for this semester. The bulk of your research need only be done over the summer.” I was trying for reassuring, but everyone looked at me like they knew what my game was, and that they weren’t pleased with it.

“So when do we get to sleep?” Marie-Claire asked crossly.

“What is this sleep you speak of?” Lucien said, his nose in his frankly immense coffee tumbler.

“I promise once your proposals are submitted, you’ll already feel much better,” I reassured the circle of glum, sleep-deprived faces. “Now go off to your classes or naps now. You know where to find me if need be. And monsieur de Beaupré, you told me you were cutting back on caffeine.”

“I lied!” Lucien declared, pumping a fist in questionable triumph as he exited the room.

Everyone’s departure left me to my own devices until midday, so I spent the time getting caught up on grading and cleaning my small office space of the remnants of midterm exams. All very boring teacherly stuff, the kind that keeps one from getting third dates, I assume. A few colleagues came and went as well, looking nearly as windswept and chilled as the students. It’s the time of the semester where everyone keeps their head down, noses in books and coffee mugs, to ensure that they come away with those few precious numbers on a page that will determine where they’ll be next semester, or a year from now, or five years from now.

Sitting alone in the muted light of my office, I found it strange, all the stress and running about and obsession over arbitrary numerical measurements. It’s true I’ve never been a fan of the numerical grading system — as an anthropologist, especially, one does come to see the folly of measuring all people by the same system — but there isn’t much I, as a teacher, can do. So I spend my time educating my students in the best ways I know how, all while doing my best to help them scrape those much coveted grades onto their plates. Academia is a strange world.

After a quick lunch and consult with a fellow teacher, I found it was already time to go. No other classes for me on this day of the week, so I usually reserved the afternoon for running the errands I usually didn’t have time to do any other day. Today it was groceries, so I set off into the cold again, writing the shopping list in my head as the people of the city bustled past, staring blank-faced past me as they thought of their own shopping.

I ended up in one of the more diverse neighbourhoods and found my spirits lifting at the thought of some nostalgic homemade dinners this weekend. Many of my happiest childhood memories have to do with food: the scent of naan warming in the oven and of warm plates of rice fragrant with spices are sense memories I hold very dear. There are some things a person just can’t leave behind, even across oceans, and even through grief and anger.

The ageing woman at the cash of the Indian grocery nodded wearily at me as I entered, and I answered in kind. Immigrants of my parents’ age tend to look tired around here. From the cold, perhaps, or something far more bone-deep. I am fortunate in that I’ll probably never know for sure.

Strolling the narrow aisles was strangely comforting. Indian spices have a way of making even the chilliest day feel warm. I picked up a few packets of things, mentally filling out the spaces in my spice rack at home. A plate of warm food, then a mug of tea and a book by the warmest radiator in the sitting room — it sounded like heaven already.

I was so preoccupied by thoughts of supper and warming up that I didn’t pay much heed to the person sitting back on their heels in the next aisle over. It took until I was nearly upon them — nearly stepping on them, in fact — for me to clue back into reality just in time to avoid what would have an embarrassing collision. As it was, I did still manage to brush them with the edge of my coat, and when they looked up, my automatic apology died on my lips, because it was Toriv Vanellas of café Vanellas fame. He pushed the hood of his winter coat back, smoothing the dark hair back from his brow in the same motion, and smiled like he had never been more pleased to run into someone like me in a dingy grocery store aisle. “Hey there, Prof. Come here often?”

“No,” I blurted out, then amended in a much calmer voice, “No, not really.”

“Me neither,” he replied cheerfully. “Actually, I’m here doing research.”

“On–” I glanced over at the shelf he was crouching by. “–tea?”

“A most excellent observation.” Toriv stood, holding a little cardboard box of tea in each hand. “And since you’re here and you are very British and also probably Indian, maybe you can help me out.”

“I am very much British,” I conceded, “and most definitely Indian. I’m not sure how I can help, though.”

“Just tell me which one’s your favourite.”

“Right or left?”

“And which one you might probably drink as a latte. Maybe with espresso…?”

“With espresso? I’d have to be mad.”

“Seriously? Not a fan of the dirty chai, huh…” He looked a bit put out at that and spent a long moment staring at the two tea boxes like they had personally offended him.

I felt a little bad for ruining what seemed to be his latest big idea, so I added, “Everybody likes a good tea latte. Perhaps chai, like in those big chain coffee shops–”

“Everyone and their grandma has a chai latte, though,” he sighed. He juggled the boxes like he was considering tossing them over his shoulder and trying again. “I need something different. To make us competitive, you know?”

I didn’t know, but I kept quiet and scanned the rows of tea boxes instead. A plain little box off to the side caught my eye, so I gestured to it with my gloved hand. “What about that?”

“Masala?”

“It’s all staple ingredients back home, but here it might be different enough to stand out.”

He plucked the box of generic masala from the shelf and read over the ingredient list, his lips pouting thoughtfully. Then he looked around furtively, saw the aisle was empty but for us, and quickly flicked the box open to sniff at the silver packet of spices inside. Then he turned away to sneeze violently into his sleeve, nearly bending in half from the spice-induced spasm. A laugh escaped me before I could tamp it down, causing him to turn and look at me accusingly before he lowered his arm and broke into a sheepish grin. “Could have warned a guy.”

“Sorry. It’s potent stuff, isn’t it?”

“For sure. Smells good, though. I could finagle a little something from this.”

“You think so?”

“I mean Starbucks slash Verismo has already got something like it, but I bet I could make it better. And with a ton more love.”

Toriv dropped the packet of masala into the shopping basket hooked on his elbow then gave me a comradely little knuckle punch to the arm. “Thanks, Professor Singh. I might call on your expertise again sometime.”

“I am available for taste tests as well,” I said.

Toriv smiled again, and the sight of his grateful, teasing smile stayed with me all throughout my shopping and the long windy route home. It probably went quite a ways to warming me up later, along with the nice meal I managed to whip up with the products of my grocery.

With internet radio music piping gently through my laptop speakers and with the nice cutlery on the table, it looked and felt a bit like a date night. All it was missing was the date itself. Unless I counted the date as myself? It wasn’t every night that I treated myself to carefully prepared homemade meal, after all.

As I was swiping the last dollop of stew from my plate, I found myself suddenly thinking of chai and espresso. What had he called it? A “dirty chai”. The thought of polluting a perfectly good cup of tea with coffee certainly felt dirty, not that I had ever actually tried it. It was just such a strange thought, though I suppose no stranger than convincing myself that I was wining and dining myself in order to not care that I so rarely had anyone to share such wining and dining moments with.

It could be different, I remember thinking to myself as I carried my wineglass to the sitting room. It won’t be like in books, but it could be different. You could be happy.

I’m happy now, I answered to myself, as I settled on the couch with a blanket and the bookmarked historical romance novel at the top of the pile. Happiness is a good book, a good meal, and the memory of a chance encounter warming your insides.

Thankfully, I had begun to get absorbed in the book, and my inner self decided to leave me in peace for the rest of the night.