// Toriv

The moment the professor left my shop that evening he asked me to go on a date with him, I opened up my phone’s planner app and dutifully typed in: Tuesday, 6PM, date with Prof.

But that felt weird, so after a second I changed it to Tuesday, 6PM, dinner with Prof.

“God, no.” Dinner with Prof. Singh. “Damn it.” Date night with Mahendra. “Goddd.”

“Your mom is going to love this,” Maveliv said from the counter. She gave me the cheekiest smirk her sixteen-year-old part-timer self could muster and lifted up her phone.

“If you text her about this, you are fired,” I told her distractedly, because I was still kind of trying to process what had just happened, and apparently my struggle with the title of my upcoming appointment was the way I had chosen to work it all out. Dinner with Mahendra? That was nice and neutral. Maybe I was just being weird because it was the first time I was using his given name.

Mahendra. Mah-hain-druh. I thought it sounded musical, almost like an elven name. Not like that opinion of mine has any stock in it, considering my own name is just two drab little syllables. Tore-iv. You should hear the French try to say it. Though I guess it’s probably even worse for the musically-named Professor Mahendra Singh.

I guess I was in shock for the whole rest of our encounter that day, because it wasn’t until later, when Mav The Part-Timer and I were closing up shop, that it sank in: “He asked me out.”

“And I’m not allowed to tell Auntie Vani about it, I know,” Mav said grumpily.

I waved at her impatiently with the handle of my mop. “No, I mean–the professor. Asked. Me out.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Like. Me? And him?”

“Are you just going to keep rubbing it in or–”

“Does it sound like I’m trying to rub it in? I’m honestly more confused than anything.”

“Why?” Mav nudged my mop bucket out of the way so she could Windex the next table. “He’s good-looking. You’re good-looking. You’ve already got at least one thing in common.”

“Well, yeah. That’s not the bit I’m surprised about.”

“Sooo…?”

“I don’t know. It’s weird. You’re just a kid, why am I telling you all this?”

She stopped wiping the table to give me a spectacular eyeroll. “Uh, what happened to me ‘having buckets of potential’ and being ‘so much more mature than my years’?”

“You do have buckets of potential! And more maturity than most people, including myself. But it’s different in matters of…going on dates.”

“How, exactly?”

“It just is,” I insisted, really professionally.

She gave me a very teenage “whatever you say” look and went back to cleaning surfaces. I felt a bubble of affection rise up in my throat as I watched her. When I first met her, she was eleven years old, undersized and skittish as a squirrel. Barely said a word when spoken to. Even now, in times of uber stress, she can still shut down, decide to not use her words until the danger is well past. But she’s gotten a lot better over the years. This must be what a proud parent feels like. Or a proud big brother, as it were.

“You know,” I told her, leaning on my mop and gazing at her like how I imagine a mama doe gazes at her fawn, “sometimes I feel like you’re the one who’s the big sister and I’m the little brother.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works,” Mav said, but I could hear the smile in her voice.

We finished cleaning up soon after. I double-checked all the fridges and locked the doors then we went our separate ways.

“Call me up if you need anything,” I told Mav like I always did.

She hugged me quick and tight around the waist, then took off down the bumpy sidewalk on her longboard, waving back at me as she went. Great kid. I might have gotten a little choked up on my way back to my apartment.

It was quiet when I got in. It always is, for I am blessed with quiet neighbours, despite the general rowdiness of this corner of the Elven Quarter. The only noises in the apartment were my pet rats shuffling around in their cage. I went to hold them right away, and as usual they climbed all over me, chittering excitedly like they hadn’t seen me in a million years. That always kind of gets me. I love being a rat daddy.

I made a little salad for dinner, setting aside some pieces of cucumber and carrot for the rats. Traffic passed by outside. A siren blared in the distance. A dog barked hello. City noises, the comforting background noise of my life. I really couldn’t live anywhere else.

Even with the lingering chill in the February air, I opened the window a crack so I could lean out towards the fire escape as I ate my dinner. I like winter just fine when I’m inside, I guess. The whole fluffy sweaters and hot chocolate and warm yellow lights aesthetic is kind of my thing, aging hipster that I am.

And there’s something magical about Montréal in the winter, if I’m being fair and honest. It’s vibrant and fast-paced and brilliant even in the dead of winter. All the main streets are lit up and the Quartier des Spectacles is aglow all night long, right down to the Starbucks on the corner. It’s exciting and breathtaking and romantic when you’re in the moment. There’s no place like it at all.

And then you step in a puddle of freezing cold slush and ruin your favourite pair of boots, so that kind of breaks the spell, but I’ll take the good as long as it’s available, right?

My phone rang as I was fishing the last leaves from the bottom of my salad bowl. I jammed them hurriedly into my mouth and answered, which in retrospect was probably a mistake. “Mmf, hello?”

“Mmf, hello to you too,” said the familiar grinning voice on the other end of the line.

I swallowed so I could talk without spraying bits of spinach all over my living room floor. “Red! Home at last?”

“To stay, this time,” my buddy Red answered. “I missed this place like crazy, believe it or not.”

“Just means the ass end of the mountains isn’t your thing. When’d you get in?”

“Like an hour ago.” He exhaled slowly, a smoker’s exhale. I could hear the wind in the background on his end of the line. “Facetime me? I wanna see you.”

“You old romantic. Gimme a sec.”

I ran to drop my bowl in the sink, wiped off my face hurriedly, and made sure the rats were securely sitting in their cage before I flopped onto the couch and flicked open the app. Red’s face popped up a moment later. He was outside in the dark, probably on the roof of his apartment building, where he liked to sit and smoke even when it was cold as balls. Dragonkind have it easier in the winter than most of us, seeing as they generate so much body heat. Something to do with vestigial fire gizzards. I don’t really know the science or anything.

He waved at me with his cigarette hand then took another drag. The end of the cigarette glowed a freaky overbright reddish-gold, like a firework. The light looked weird on the phone screen, like it wasn’t quite capturable. It glinted over the dragon crest that started in the middle of his forehead and ran up into the line of his hair. I noticed he’d had his firetruck red hair shaved on one side, punk-rock style.

“Nice hair, dude. Très cool.”

“Thanks. I needed a change.”

His grin faded and he looked up and away to exhale his cigarette smoke. Even the smoke glinted gold in places. Fire gizzards, man.

“What’s up, Red?” I said. “Something happen in Dragonland?”

He snorted into his cigarette so that it shot a few stray sparks into the air. “Will you quit calling it that? You don’t see me calling the elven homelands Elftown.”

“Sorry, sorry. You know I’m just kidding.” I angled the phone differently, like I could see him better if I changed my perspective. “Seriously, what’s wrong? You look out of it.”

“Eh. Just disappointed, I guess,” he said. He nibbled a bit on the end of his cigarette, which is a thing he does when he’s thinking something over. He was about as depressed as I’d ever seen him. “They told me no.”

“They? Told you no? The other dragonkind?”

“Who do you think?”

“But I mean–why?”

“Dunno. Guess I’m too much of a city slicker for their tastes, or too young or too liberal or what-have-you.” He puffed again, shooting out little gold sparkles as he exhaled hard. “My old granddad tried to vouch for me, but I guess they weren’t taking any newcomers.”

“Jesus. I’m sorry, Red.”

“Thanks. But whatever. It’s not like I had much of a chance anyway. There’s no one left of our clan now but Granddad and my mom and me, so it’s not like we had much sway to begin with.”

“Still!” I said loudly. Righteous anger buzzed in my head. “It’s the Northern Dragon Council. It’s your place.”

Red shrugged. “Yes and no. I mean there’s all that history, right? Clan versus clan bullshit from like six hundred years ago.”

“Yeah, I know the stories. Sort of. But even if the dragon clans were fighting, it’s not like the red dragons were responsible for the Great Silence or anything.”

“Nah, that was you guys,” Red said, smiling ironically around his cigarette. “If the stories are actually true.”

“The stories are so true,” I whined. “My dad’s told them to me like a million times.”

“Old Vinoriev? Like I’d believe a story about the quote unquote legendary hero told by an elf who’s actually descended from him.”

“I thought you didn’t believe him!”

“Yeah, well, I’m not risking it.”

The conversation got more normal after that. Red still looked down, but the nicotine was starting to perk him up, and soon we were laughing and joking around like we always did. It’s kind of funny how you can still feel the current of connection with a person even through a tiny phone screen. I almost felt like he was right in the room with me, chilling on the couch on a Monday night. I might be just a little bit biased when it comes to Red, but we’ve got history that doesn’t really fit in this one paragraph, so I think I’ll leave it for later.

Eventually, after Red had gone through his third cigarette and was shaking a fourth out of the pack, he said, “Hey, Toriv.”

“Yeah?”

“Can I come over for coffee? You wouldn’t believe this, but there isn’t anywhere to get decent coffee for miles around even the outpost to the homelands.”

He had formulated it like a question, but the way he was looking at me over the tip of his fresh cigarette was expectant. “Coming over for coffee” had become almost like a secret code for us, since I’d met him on Saint-Laurent street about five years ago. And in the five years that I’ve known him, I’ve never yet said no.

But I hesitated. I don’t why I did, when before my answer would have been automatic: “Sure, I’d be glad to have you. In all the senses of the word.” Something like that.

I thought back to my planner. Tuesday, 6PM, dinner with Mahendra.

Well, shit, I thought at that moment, while Red was looking at me with bedroom eyes and my rats were grooming and chittering in their cage and being totally oblivious to my predicament. Was I really going to be the kind of guy who’d sleep with someone the day before a date with another person? Who even does that?

Most of the guys I know probably would, honestly. Red would. Why should he care? Why should anyone care, when it’s all just in good fun?

That’s when the annoying voice in my head started up. I bet you know the one. That voice most everyone has that will pipe up at the least convenient moments, reminding us about things like common decency and honour and stuff. My Annoying Voice sounds a bit like a cross between Loriev and my dad, which should give you a pretty good idea what it was telling me at that exact moment.

Then the voice in my head, or in my heart or my spleen or whatever, made me say, “Hey. Uh. Sorry.”

“What?”

“Sorry,” I repeated louder. I tried to sound really casual, like it wasn’t a big deal. “I’d love to, but I have to be up at the asscrack of dawn for work, so–”

“That’s fine. The shop’s right across from your place.”

“Yeah, but I’d hate to leave you naked and alone in a strange place.”

He looked at me for a full three seconds like he couldn’t believe his ears, but then he laughed and puffed on the last little nub of his cigarette, sucking so hard the whole thing burst into flame — poof, a tiny fireball on the screen — before crumbling to ash.

“It’s fine, then,” he said dismissively. “You worked today too, right? You must be tired.”

“Yeah, exhausted,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound relieved for the wrong reasons.

“And I didn’t sleep at all on the bus over so I should–I’ll just go to bed.”

“You do that, bro.”

“Even without anyone here to tuck me in.” He flicked his bedroom eyes towards me again and something was different, but I couldn’t really tell if he was upset or not.

“Another time,” I said. “I’m always up for making a cup for you.”

“Yeah. Another time.” He looked up at the sky for a second, like it was still possible to see the stars through the halo of all the city’s streetlights. “Thanks for talking.”

“No problem. Go to bed. Take care of yourself.”

“You too.”

We hung up. I lay on my couch for a lot longer than necessary, contemplating the nature of the universe and what combination of events had somehow led me to refusing a night with one of my most reliable bedmates.

After a while of thinking about this and making absolutely no headway, I rolled off the couch to go lie in front of the cage, watching the rats as they went about their ratty business.

“Hey, Sys. Hey, Dia. Do you think he’s worth it?”

They didn’t seem to grasp the seriousness of the situation, judging from the way they kept on nibbling on their vegetables like nothing was wrong. It must be nice to be a rat.

I went to bed after that, trying not to think about anything much. One thing I’ve learned is tomorrow is usually soon enough to worry about tomorrow.

// Mahendra

It was sort of funny how the day after I had told Anushka that I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d been on a date, dates were all I could think about.

I spent the whole of classes on Tuesday doing ridiculous things like almost knocking my first-lecture-of-the-day tea over or accidentally launching a dry-erase marker across the room. My hands just would not behave, as they tend to do when I’m nervous. They become jumpy, like my heart rate isn’t quite right. My lecture notes on the board were near indecipherable. I could have scrawled I have a date tonight and I have no idea what to do across the whiteboard and probably no one would have caught on.

My Tuesday classes are at the college too, the one at the very end of the island of Montréal, so the train ride back into the city gave me plenty of time to agonize over my predicament. The feelings of giddy excitement and triumph from the previous evening had been replaced by a more familiar sort of dread as the film strip of my mind went into neo-realist overdrive to recount, in excruciating detail, all the instances of me embarrassing myself on dates. Mainly this involved long, torturous silences that neither of us could really manage to break. Cinematically artistic, perhaps, but realistically about the worst thing that could happen when one is trying to get to know someone.

Toriv seemed to be a talker, which I thought might be enough to save us for a bit, until my worrying began to turn in another direction. Who was to say he wasn’t just humouring me, being polite and cheerful for the sake of it? After all, it was his job to be polite and cheerful. And I, like a fool, had gone and asked him on a date in the middle of his own workplace.

Then again, he didn’t seem the type to placate someone with soft yeses and an indulgent smile. So had he been sincere? How was I supposed to guess, having only known the man for a scant few weeks?

Anushka and even my sister Charlotte would have said There’s no way you can know, so don’t worry about it. To which I would inevitably reply How am I supposed to not worry about what I don’t know! How, indeed. Sometimes it seems like that question is one my entire life revolves around.

I must have worried myself to oblivion, because when I returned to reality with a snap, I found the train had stopped at the terminus and people were disembarking. I exited into the chill February afternoon, avoiding the icy patches in the pockmarked train platform. Despite it still being full-on winter, the days were lengthening steadily, so there was still a bit of daylight left for me to while away until the time of my dinner appointment rolled around.

Once I had closed the door of my flat behind me and hung up my coat, I found I had made a grave mistake. Now I had nearly two hours to myself, alone in the comfort of my home, to figuratively bite my nails. Brilliant.

I showered to get the nervous sweat off, then had a light snack and a cup of tea, minty and herbal to ease the stomach and keep the caffeine jitters to a minimum. These practical tasks done, I proceeded to stand in front of my closet for a quarter of an hour, staring at all of my clothes and finding absolutely none of them satisfactory.

“What am I doing,” I muttered, quite uselessly, to the closetful of work-appropriate attire.

I finally chose a pair of slacks like every other pair of slacks I owned, then closed my eyes and picked three dress shirts from the rack at random to narrow my range of choices. Navy blue, white, and lilac. The blue seemed depressing, like a stormy sky, and the white too plain, so lilac it was. More of a spring colour, but I wasn’t about to argue with fate when it was the clear the power of choice was getting me nowhere.

I was debating over whether to wear it with the matching tie when my mobile phone buzzed on the dresser, scaring me nearly out of my skin. There was a text message from Toriv: hey, Prof. Rendez-vous at my shop in 45 mins?

I messaged back, Of course. What are you hungry for?

hmmm I’m thinkin thai P: was his answer. I puzzled over the last couple of characters for a whole minute before realizing it was probably a hungry face. I would have to remember that one, seeing as my nieces had begun to drill me in emojis. To keep me current, they said, like I was a hundred years old instead of forty. I suppose to a nine and twelve year old, it’s all the same.

Sounds good, see you soon, I dashed off, then hastily set down my mobile and returned to the harrowing task of getting myself dressed.

Twenty minutes later, I was out the door again. I had to force myself to walk slowly instead of at my usual brisk pace, lest I arrive at the shop door much too early. Who knew that leisurely strolling could be so difficult? It was all I could do to not do a couple of turns around the block, just to burn off this sudden surge of energy.

I was still at the door of the café Vanellas earlier than I would have liked, but now that I was here it was silly to move on past, so I pushed into the cheerful evening warmth of the shop. The two elves I had met before were there behind the counter, the boy and girl who looked so alike they were most likely brother and sister.

“Hey there, Professor!” said the girl at once. It felt strange to be recognized in a place like this. I didn’t think I had yet frequented the shop enough to be considered a regular. “Lookin’ good.”

“Thank you,” I said bashfully. “Is, erm, your boss here?”

“Toriv just left to get ready. He should be back in a bit. He said if you got here early, you could just wait in here.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

“No prob,” she said easily. “I’m Daecianis, by the way. And this is my twin brother, Kivariev.”

“It’s just Kiv,” the boy said. He was leaning casually against the counter, his hands lifted and positioned in front of him as though he were strumming an invisible guitar.

“And I’m just Daeci,” the girl rejoined, flipping her lush and wildly curly red hair over her shoulder. “Nice to meet you, officially.”

“Nice to meet you both. You can call me Mahendra.”

“Professor Mahendra,” said the twins in unison, before breaking into identical grins.

“Just Mahendra is fine. It’s not like I’m your teacher or anything.”

“It’s got a nice ring to it, though,” said Daeci.

“Very professorial,” said Kiv.

“Totally hot,” they concluded together, with such eerie synchronicity that I wondered if they’d ever had to practice it, or it was just a thing twins knew how to do from the womb.

To avoid the impulse to say “thank you” a third time, I smiled at them both and went to sit at one of the café’s little tables. I did my very best to keep from fidgeting, though I could feel Daeci and Kiv’s eyes on my back throughout my entire wait, even as evening customers were coming and going by the counter.

Finally, at the stroke of six oh five, the chime above the door sounded and the owner of the establishment glided in amid a gust of winter wind, grinning past a huge fluffy scarf and cold-reddened cheeks.

“Well, look what the catfish brought in,” Toriv said to me, his eyes twinkling.

Before I could reply, Daeci interjected from the counter. “Boss!” She said imperiously. “He’s been here for ages. Who do you think you are, to keep a guy waiting like this?”

“Uh, fashionably late?”

“It’s fine,” I said quickly. “I’m the one who was early. It’s no trouble.”

“You heard the man.” Toriv gestured grandiosely in my direction, then beckoned me to my feet. “Now if you’ll excuse us, kids, we’ve got a town to paint red.”

“Have fun,” the café employees called, before returning diligently to their tasks.

Toriv held the door open for me and followed me out and suddenly we were alone together, standing under the streetlamps bright as spotlights. Toriv turned to me, smiling his cat-like smile. “So, were we agreed on Thai for dinner?”

I said, “I believe we were. Unless you’ve changed your mind in the past–” I checked my watch. “–forty-nine minutes.”

Toriv laughed. “No way. I’ve been craving pad thai since like last week. Going out with you finally gave me an excuse to indulge.”

I fell into step with him as he started down the street. He stuffed his hands in the pockets of his rugged, well-loved leather jacket and walked with a kind of swagger I could never replicate, especially since most of my motor control was currently going towards not slipping on the spots of sidewalk that had iced over again after sunset.

“Is it your cheat day, then?” I asked, which for some reason made him laugh even harder.

“Cheat day!” he repeated, like I’d just uttered some sort of blasphemy and it delighted him thoroughly. “I founded and work in a place that sells sugary drinks and pastries. Every day is a cheat day, as far as I’m concerned, and I think that’s beautiful.”

I grinned. “How decadent.”

“It’s the truth. I mean, I still try to be as good as I can, for my figure. You know how it is.”

“Actually, I can’t imagine it. Being surrounded by chocolately goodness all day and not constantly succumbing?”

Toriv bumped my arm with his in a playful manner. “So he’s a chocoholic. That is valuable information. Next I just need to find out when your birthday is so I can give you the gift of chocolate and totally make your day.” He bounced a bit on his next step. “So when’s your birthday?”

If he noticed the flush that had risen to my face, I hoped he would put it down to the cold. “I may tell you, depending on how dinner goes.”

He bumped me again and said plaintively, “Seriously? Am I being evaluated without my knowledge here? I thought surprise quizzes were illegal.”

I nudged him in return with my shoulder. Not as hard as he had bumped me, but even just that little bit of daring almost took my breath away. “You are being evaluated. Enough notice?”

“No! I didn’t get to study!”

“It’s a practical exam. Understanding is key, not memorization.”

“Wow,” Toriv said, in one long drawn-out syllable. “You are teacher-ing me right now. I demand you stop.”

The film strip passed in my mind again. Talking too much about work, the classic plot turn. “Sorry. Sorry.”

He did a little half-turn as he walked so that he was now proceeding backwards along the treacherous sidewalk. His expression was bemused as he said, “You didn’t have to say sorry twice. I was just kidding.”

“Sorry,” I said again.

“And a third time, just for good measure?”

“Oh, no. I am so–”

“Stop.”

Toriv halted mid-moonwalk and grabbed me by the arm to stop me. A few people filtered past us, hurrying on to their destinations in the cold.

Toriv exhaled a slow breath that misted in the evening air, his hand still on my arm. “Look. Mahendra. You can relax a bit. I don’t bite. And don’t!” He cut me off the moment I opened my mouth to speak. “Don’t apologize again. You haven’t done anything wrong, as far as I can tell.”

The first thing I thought to reply was “sorry”, but I swallowed that down and said instead, “Oh.”

“Better already.” He released my arm and smiled again, gentler this time. “We’re just two guys having dinner and getting to know each other, right? No big deal.”

I took a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly. Then I smiled my very best smile in answer to his, which seemed to please him.

“Better already,” Toriv said cheerfully. “Come on, the place I’m thinking of is just a couple of blocks down.”

We continued our walk in the cold, side by side with our shoulders nearly brushing. Within a few steps, we had reached the heart of the Elven Quarter, with its northern style garlands and hangings and brick wall graffiti. When I confessed to never really venturing this far down the street, Toriv took it upon himself to point out all his favourite places to me, proclaiming this tiny bakery to have “the best damn croissants in the city” while this hole-in-the-wall boasted “a dimsum menu to absolutely die for”.

“The best coffee is ours, though,” he added, like he couldn’t resist throwing in the little sales pitch.

The Thai restaurant Toriv led me to was small, like most of the establishments lining this particular street in the Elven Quarter. He waved me in with all the grace of a fancy French restaurant’s maître d. The restaurant was narrow almost to the point of being cramped, but there was no denying the warmth of the atmosphere. More importantly, the fragrant smells emanating from the kitchen were impossible to ignore, even from the street.

Toriv greeted the single waitress and gave me a little push in the small of the back to get me to move into the restaurant. It was hard to think for just a second as he touched me like that, but I managed to remain proper and adult-like about it as I squeezed myself next to the tiny table. Toriv sat across from me and promptly ordered a beer. When I ordered a ginger ale, Toriv leaned his chin in his palm and asked, “Don’t drink?”

“I do. On occasion.”

“Well, invite me over next time you do.” He winked. “I wanna see you gettin’ lush. Bet you do a complete one eighty.”

I waved the notion away with my hand. “It’s nothing much. I just get a little giggly, like my sister.”

“You have a sister? Tell me about her.”

So I did. Broad details, like where Charlotte worked and how many children she had. Toriv was interested in them, for some reason, and asked after their names  (“Celeste and Anastasia! Those are Disney princess names.”) and ages and interests. His eyes went wide when I told him about Celeste’s talent at violin and Anastasia’s love of gymnastics. When prompted, I pulled out my mobile and showed him a couple of videos: Cel’s latest recital, Annie’s medal-winning floor performance.

“These kids,” Toriv said emphatically, “have more skill in their little fingers than I have in my entire body. I mean I work out, but that doesn’t even blip on the radar compared to this.”

That remark launched us into a discussion about sports, or an attempt at one considering Toriv thought about as well of sports as he did about saving one’s sweet indulgences for cheat days. To that man, football was akin to “a bunch of dudes in shiny shorts kicking a hot potato around”, while rugby was dubbed “that game where everyone tries to climb all over each other and grab each other’s nuts”. Tennis was pronounced “cardio hell”, while cricket received the verdict of “more violent baseball” (baseball was “boring as shit” and merited not another word).

“There has to be at least one sport you enjoy,” I said in exasperation. “Luging? Archery? Race-walking?”

He answered after taking a gulp of his yellow ale. “Wrestling?”

I could tell from the tilt of his smile that he meant it lasciviously. When I rolled my eyes, he laughed then seemed to seriously think about it before he said, “I guess MMA is kind of cool. It’s technical.”

“There we go. Finally a not-stupid sport.”

“I mean it is kind of stupid because it’s two people trying to beat each other up for points. But it’s kind of sexy too.”

“Really,” I couldn’t help myself from replying.

I must have thought too hard about modulating my tone because Toriv looked at me strangely, and I was forced to hide my embarrassment by taking a quick sip of water.

“What,” he said after I had resurfaced.

“Nothing,” I said, then admitted, “It’s just that I used to box.”

“You? Used to box? Really?”

I was considering in which manner to be insulted by those five little words when Toriv added, “What do you mean ‘used to’?”

“Well…I did, and now I don’t anymore.”

“How long?”

“Erm…since university, I suppose.”

“Which waaas?” He had a way of extending vowels in a way that was equal parts needling and endearing.

“In two thousand two, so…fourteen years ago.”

He sat back in his chair and just looked at me for a while. Then he put a hand to his forehead and exclaimed, “Man, I told you not to make me do any math!”

I smothered a nervous laugh and another extraneous apology. “I turned forty years old on my last birthday, in case that’s what you were trying to calculate.”

“Forty,” Toriv repeated. He began to count on his fingers. “So…nineteen seventy-six. Are you going to tell me when your birthday is now? Because you totally owe me for making me do arithmetic.”

“I do not,” I said, with perhaps more glee than necessary.

His reaction of dismay was rewardingly extravagant. He seemed about to ask me more questions about it, but then our food arrived, steaming attractively in plates much larger than I had expected. Toriv dug into his much-coveted pad thai with relish, profusely thanking the waitress — and the chef, peeking out from the window to the kitchen — even as the first forkful was on its way to his mouth. I tried my pad sew and found it to be excellent, and for the next few minutes we were both focused on our dishes. It seemed the conversation had given us both a healthy appetite.

Some small, strange part of me still had trouble believing I was there, sitting across from a man so attractive I sometimes had trouble looking right at him. The setting, the street, even the day of the week — Tuesday! — seemed so mundane that it made the event all the more extraordinary. A simple dinner date with Toriv Vanellas, CEO of Café Vanellas, Mathless Wonder, was already seeming too good to be true.

And yet there he was, close enough to touch. Did someone like me even have a chance with such a person?

“So, Mahendra,” Toriv said suddenly, after drinking deeply from his warmly-coloured ale. “Tell me about this boxing thing. Were you any good?”

“Oh. I was all right.”

“You were ‘all right’?”

“Actually, I was rather good, I think.”

He grinned widely. “That’s awesome. I never would have pegged you for a jock.”

“I wasn’t, really,” I said. “There was a club for it at Oxford, but for me, the training itself was mostly a solitary thing. Except for when the coaches were involved, of course–”

“Wait, wait, back up.” Toriv waved his fork at me, coming perilously close to stabbing me in the wrist. “Did you say Oxford? As in the Oxford? As in often paired with Cambridge?”

“The very same?”

“Don’t look at me like you don’t know how big a deal that is! Just getting accepted at a place like that automatically makes you at least five times smarter than me.”

“That isn’t true–”

“Don’t even. So what did you study at Oxford University while also studying punching other guys in the face?”

“I didn’t–anthropology. I was in the department of physical anthropology.”

He took another pull of his beer then said, “You’re going to have to explain that to me.”

“It’s the study of people, simply put. Cultures, traditions, social mores. Physical anthropology deals more with the, well, physical aspects of this. The way their bodies are shaped by their activities, and all the things they leave behind.”

“So, like archeology?”

“Sort of. It depends on one’s field of research.”

“So do you do any digging?”

“Oh, no. I changed fields after my undergrad. To cultural anthropology. That’s what I teach. Specifically, medical anthropology.”

He thought about all this for a few seconds, holding another forkful of food poised before his mouth. The waitress drifted by to replenish our water glasses.

“So,” Toriv said eventually. “This means you’re actually about ten times smarter than me.”

I frowned. “Stop that. An advanced degree isn’t an indication of overall intelligence.”

“Uh, says the Oxford man to the almost high school dropout. The only reason I have a diploma is because everyone kicked my ass so hard I had no choice but to do otherwise.”

“But obviously you’ve been successful in other departments,” I insisted. “You have a flourishing business and a close family and plenty of interesting friends.”

Toriv laughed a little into his water glass. “I guess so. Not too shabby for the class loser, huh?”

I couldn’t find anything to say to that, so we continued to eat in silence. Was the evening about to be ruined because I was overeducated? The thought sent me into a wild panic for about half a second, before I made a supreme effort to pull myself together in between sips of ginger ale. Calm down, Mahendra, no one has ever broken up with anyone over an Oxford education. I hoped.

“So why boxing?” Toriv asked abruptly.

His mood didn’t really seem affected in one way or another, so I thought it safe to resume the conversation as though nothing had happened. “Oh, you know. It was a high pressure environment, very competitive. So I needed a way to blow off steam.”

He looked up at me through his lashes, showing the little bit of his crooked eyetooth. “And you chose boxing?”

“Well, one of the members was a young man from my department whom I dearly wished to punch in the face, so that was a plus.”

Toriv laughed so loudly that the waitress’ head whipped around in surprise, and just like that, the tension of our previous bit of conversation had dissolved, and we went back to talking about trivial things. We finished up our meals soon after that, politely declined dessert (“We’re trying to be good,” Toriv told the waitress, with a conspiratory glance in my direction), and paid our separate bills. Then we set out into the street again, with Toriv calling enthusiastic thanks back into the little Thai restaurant as we exited.

It had gotten colder, so our steps were quick as we headed back the way we had come. It was with a strange, surprising pang that I realized we had already returned to the door of the Café Vanellas. I paused awkwardly under the streetlamp by the door, wondering what to do now, whether I was meant to invite him to go somewhere else or whether we were meant to part ways.

Toriv walked right past his own place of business, however, and headed for the next street crossing. When he realized I had stopped, he looked back and waved with fingertips already going reddish from the cold. “Uh, are you coming?”

I remained stupidly rooted by the lamppost. “That…depends?”

“I was just gonna invite you up to my place for coffee or something. Wouldn’t want to send you back into the cold without something warm in your belly.”

An invitation. My heart almost stopped, before I reminded myself it probably didn’t mean anything one way or the other. Or perhaps that it did, but that it wouldn’t do to think too far ahead.

“Unless, uh…” Toriv dug his hands into the pockets of his coat. “You’d rather just go into the shop? The coffee’s just as good in there.”

“Yes,” I said, relieved despite the knot of anticipation that had settled in my stomach. “The shop is fine. If you don’t mind.”

We entered into a lovely coffee-scented warmth, fielding exclamations from the twin baristas at being back so early. Toriv slipped up to the counter to order something — I had given him permission to “surprise me”, statement to which his only response was a devilish grin — while I settled at a table by the bay window to watch the streetlamps flicker in the gloom. Although it was the last week of February, it was still too early to anticipate the end of winter by Montréal standards, so at least one last heavy snowfall was to be expected. As I gazed upwards into the purplish dark of the night sky, I thought I saw a couple of snowflakes glinting by the light of the skyscrapers, but it might have been only illusion.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Toriv said as he returned. He placed two stout little mugs on the table, both of them steaming with something that smelled wonderfully sweet and chocolately.

He stepped away for just another second to grab a bowl of minuscule pastel-coloured marshmallows and another of what looked like freshly whipped cream, then sat across from me, his knees almost touching mine under the tiny table.

“Nothing, really,” I replied. “Daydreams.”

He nudged the bowls of marshmallows and cream towards me and sat looking at me expectantly, so I picked up the serving spoon and piled a few generous dollops of both atop my drink. When I was finished, he gave me a very serious, satisfied nod, then held his hand out for the spoon.

I drank tentatively. It was a far cry from the plain and simple hot cocoa I had been expecting; unlike the powdered chocolate variety I had stashed in my pantry at home, this cocoa was rich and velvety in texture, and filled with so many different flavours I didn’t know where to begin.

“Chocolate,” I said slowly. “Then coconut, and…chili? Almonds, too. Dear me.”

“That’s the whipped cream. It’s a work in progress,” Toriv said modestly. His cup of hot cocoa was all dressed up but he hadn’t yet touched it. “I’m still trying to come up with a signature Café Vanellas drink. What do you think?”

“It’s very good.”

He watched me as I took another sip, and then another. Then he laughed as I tipped the mug a little so I could slurp up the mound of whipped cream floating atop the drink like a fluffy, delicious crown.

“It’ll all melt away if I don’t hurry,” I protested.

“I see you are well-versed in the ways of the hot chocolate.”

“It’s the best drink on Earth. Besides tea, of course.”

“Of course.”

He gave his cocoa and cream a quick little mix with the spoon and then held it back to me. I knew he hadn’t put his mug or the spoon to his mouth, but I still felt self-conscious as I used our shared spoon to scoop up the last of the almond whipped cream and marshmallows from the top of my drink. The taste of the cocoa and its sweet additions soon overrode my inhibitions, however, and for a minute I was all bliss. We sat in comfortable silence, two grown men with their cups of cocoa, as the gentle noise of the shop went on around us and cars shushed past in the street. The baristas hummed in harmony behind us as they went about their washing-up and last-minute orders. Every time I happened to catch Toriv’s gaze, he smiled a little with his eyes, an almost imperceptible gesture so unlike and yet so similar to his open, cat-like smiles that it made me want to laugh or reach across the table and touch my fingertips to the soft crease at the corner of his eye.

That gentle, drifting moment might have gone on forever if Kiv hadn’t suddenly appeared next to our table. I startled, sloshing the last drops of my cocoa onto the tabletop.

“All ready to close, boss,” Kiv said.

“Thanks, kiddo,” Toriv said distractedly. He reached out with one of the napkins he had brought and blotted out the cocoa I had spilled on the table. Then he met my eyes and smiled.

“No sorries,” he said. “Tables are made to be spilled on.”

We stood to allow Kiv to grab our used dishes and carry them to the back. Daeci interceded in a seamless manner that had to have been practiced, I decided, and made a shooing gesture towards us both as she wiped down the table.

“Go on, boss. We can handle the rest of it. Go home.” She gave me a significant look, which I hope I didn’t gratify by blushing too hard.

“Fine!” Toriv sighed dramatically. “Kicked out of my own establishment. I see how it is.”

We said our goodnights to the twins and stepped back out into the cold. Toriv fluffed his scarf up around his neck then looked up at me through his lashes. “I’m guessing you have an early start tomorrow. Can I walk you home?”

The knot of anticipation returned the pit of my stomach, even filled as it was with hot cocoa. Somehow I had the sense not to hesitate and led him in the direction of my flat. The air was brisk but not intolerably so; on a slightly warmer night I might have lingered, slowed my pace to a meander just to extend the walk by a few moments. Toriv chatted easily the whole way about this and that, requiring no more input from me than a few sounds of encouragement, which was fortunate considering I was already beginning to be overwhelmed with the events of the evening.

All too soon, we arrived by the doors of my apartment building. Toriv spent a moment gazing up the façade like he was counting the windows.

“These are some swanky-ass condos,” he said finally. “And this close to the Elven Quarter. It’s like a whole different world.”

“It isn’t really,” I said, embarrassed. “The inside is rather modest.”

“Is that so?” he mused. “Show me in sometime, then.”

“I–I will.”

“Yeah?”

“No reason not to.”

“Good to know.” He turned towards me and pushed his hands into his pockets. “I had a good time tonight.”

“Me too,” I replied with complete and utter sincerity. “Erm, can I see you again?”

“Sure you can,” he grinned. “Anytime you walk into the Café Vanellas.”

“I mean–you know what I mean.”

“Of course I do.”

“Then you mustn’t tease so,” I reprimanded.

He laughed, exuding a puff of smoky warm air into the night. “Why, Professor? Are you going to punish me?”

I felt the heat rush to my face for what was probably the hundredth time that night. “And stop that, too. I’m not…easy, you know. Not–whatever you want to call it.”

“I don’t think you’re easy, Prof,” Toriv said. “I just think you need to relax a bit. And besides, I made you hot chocolate. That’s a grade A woo-ing tactic right there, used only on the definitely not-easy.”

“You mean you got your employees to make me hot chocolate. Woo-ing deferred.”

“Same difference!” he exclaimed. “Are you wanting to be wooed or not?”

“Yes,” I said. “Please.”

That stopped him for a good few seconds. When he lifted his face to look at me, his expression was strange but his eyes were very bright.

“Okay,” he said. “Sure. I mean, I’ll take a crack at it.”

I felt a grin slowly creeping onto my face and fought to keep it at respectable levels. “I don’t crack easy, either.”

“Good. I like a challenge.” Toriv took one step forward and held his arms out. “So, hug? No funny business, I promise.”

So I pressed forward into his arms and felt them tighten around my waist. He stood at just the right height for me to drape my arms over his shoulders. I gave him a little squeeze, hardly believing my good fortune. His windswept hair tickled my cheek and his body was very solid, lean, and warm.

“God, you’re tall,” he declared, his voice muffled against my shoulder.

I laughed and he gave me a final quick squeeze before letting go and stepping back, grinning all over his face.

“Nice hug,” he said. “Well, goodnight, Mahendra. I’ll see you soon.”

“Definitely. Goodnight.”

And he walked away, hands back in pockets, steps sure and quick over the crusted-over snow. He didn’t look back. He walked like he never did.

So I decided to follow suit, and stepped into my apartment building without glancing back once, though the urge was almost unbearably strong.

// Toriv

The first day of actual spring at the shop opened with a crisis. One of my employees, Daeci, fumbled a milk bag and by some mean trick of physics, it happened to burst open when it hit the floor. That in itself wouldn’t have been so unusual, since not a day goes by that we don’t spill something all over the place, but the moment I turned to say “no worries, it’s just spilled milk”, Daeci covered her face with her hands and went into a full-blown screaming bawl.

Now I like to think that I’m able to keep pretty cool under pressure, but girls crying their faces off at six thirty in the morning in my shop is where I tend to draw the line. Luckily, the much less startled Kiv, Daeci’s twin brother, was also there to help open the shop, so he whisked her away into the backroom to let the storm pass.

Which is how I ended up opening café Vanellas all on my lonesome on one of the busiest days of the week, otherwise known as Monday. Folks need their comfort coffee on Monday mornings, yo. I would know, having had the ingenious idea of making a business of supplying all of the Elven Quarter with their daily breakfast.

“All not emotionally-compromised hands on deck!” I yelled in the general direction of the backroom, as the line in front of the register grew longer and the queue of drinks and sandwiches looked more and more dire.

Kiv came racing out, fighting to yank his hair through an elastic and to tie on his apron at the same time. “Sorry, boss. Dae’s got a thing happening.”

“Drinks queue, please. What’s the thing?”

Kiv waved like a circus performer at all the waiting customers and got started on all the little lined-up cardboard cups. “Just a boy thing. You know how it is.”

“Do I ever,” I said super dramatically, to smirks and laughter from the eavesdropping clientele.

We got everything done as best we could, finishing up beautifully once Daeci joined us on the floor, her face still blotchy from crying but set with determination. So the morning had gotten off to a rocky start, but between the three of us it turned out fine, which is really all I can ask for at the end of the day. Or the end of the Great Monday Breakfast Frenzy, as it were.

“Sorry, boss,” Daeci told me once the rush had died down. It always kind of weirded me out how she and Kiv have the exact same way of saying things. “I kinda lost it for a minute.”

“It’s all good, kiddo. I get it. Boys suck.”

“Yeah, they do.” She looked around at her brother, who was wiping off the espresso machine with a very intense, very suspicious kind of concentration. “They can’t keep a girl’s privacy worth a darn, either.”

“Was that a secret?” Kiv said without turning around.

Daeci looked like she wanted to give his ponytail a tug, but in the end she just sighed and turned back to me. “Julien broke up with me, that’s all. Whatever, he was a dick anyway.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying.”

“I never asked you, Kivariev!”

We shoulder bumped instead of hugging, since she had a package of cold cuts still in her hands and I had four steaming pitchers in need of washing in mine. I thought it the perfect time to dole out some friendly advice. “Don’t worry, Daeci. A better one will come along. Or one who’s just the same. Or even worse, but hopefully not. What I mean is, there are plenty of fish in the sea and you’ve got a truckload of bait at your disposal.”

“Thanks, boss. I guess.”

“You’re very welcome. Now double time it, kids, we need to get ready for lunch and I still have to write up the order.”

After all the cleaning and wiping and lunch planning had been done, I settled at one of the unoccupied tables in the shop to catch some early spring sun. Maybe I wasted a minute or two practicing my pencil twirling, but all practice is good practice, right?

Anyway, admin stuff. I won’t bog down this super stimulating autobio with boring details of backstage shopkeeping, but I will say that orders and accounts take up a lot of my time. Especially the money stuff. It’s like tax season level shit but every week. The horror, etcetera, etcetera. Plus Loriev had daytime hospital duty that week, and no bestie meant no tossing the financial crap to him like a hot potato worth my entire life’s savings. So there I was, sitting on my exquisite ass, counting up a week’s worth of breakfast supplies as fast as my high school education could go. I had even fallen into the trap of counting on my fingers a few times before realizing I could just as easily whip out my phone and calculate everything that way, therefore making me look much less like the mathless wonder I actually am. That should be my sub-title, honestly. TORIV VANELLAS, CEO. MATHLESS WONDER.

All that to say, besides Daeci’s early morning crying fit, it was turning out to be a pretty ordinary day. You’d think I’d be bored by ordinary days. I hate basically anything else that’s ordinary. Ordinary Monday mornings are okay in my book, though. There’s something nice about the constancy of the noises of the coffee grinder and espresso machine, of the early morning chatter in the shop and the noise of the  traffic passing outside. It feels familiar, though it isn’t always the same, what with all the different people going in and out. Just enough change and excitement to make it interesting, but still mine enough to feel like home. That’s the feeling of it, I guess. Home.

And who should walk into it at that precise moment but the handsome professor. I don’t know exactly when I started thinking of him as “handsome” instead of “pretty okay”. Maybe it was around the time the seasons finally turned. I remember he was in a kind of double-breasted trench coat that day, with the collar turned up against the wind. With his usual dress shoes and glasses and leather book bag, I can’t say he looked anything but studious. Studious and kind of fine, to be completely honest, as autobiographies should aim to be.

“Bonjour et bienvenue,” I told him, lounging back in my chair to display my skinny-jeaned self to full advantage. Force of habit, really.

Professor Singh smiled, in that very quiet, shy way he has, like he’s trying to hide behind his fogging-up glasses. “Bonjour. Comment allez-vous ce matin?”

I put a hand to my heart, gasping, “He speaks French!”

He smiled wider. “Of course I do. Nous vivons à Montréal, n’est-ce pas?”

“Yeah, but not all of us speak it à la française,” I said, carefully enunciating in the way of his own fancy Parisian French. “I bet that earns you some serious sex appeal points around here.”

Daeci and Kiv laughed from the other side of the counter. The professor covered his face with his hand for a second, but when he took his glasses off the polish them on the end of his scarf he looked a lot less embarrassed than I would have thought. “One would think. I’m afraid in my experience, that hasn’t really been the case.”

“Oh,” Daeci said extra sympathetically. “Are you having love troubles too, professor?”

“What? No, not really.” For some reason, that seemed to get him more than my sex appeal comment. “I just mean in general.”

Kiv grinned at him from over the espresso bar. “Do you generally have love troubles?”

“I’m pretty sure we all do,” I said, before my employees could discombobulate my customer any more than necessary. “And I’m having trouble with you guys. Go on break, now that we have a minute.”

“Thanks, boss,” the twins said in freaky twin unison as they hustled off to yank off their aprons and fix their hair.

As I slipped away from my paperwork and behind the counter again, Professor Singh readjusted his glasses and looked at me with widened eyes. “So you’re the boss?”

“I am indeed the boss, my good sir.” I tied my apron on tighter and gave my very best Like A Boss smile. “I own this place. Have for the past two years or so. Does that surprise you?”

He laughed a bit and fiddled with the strap of his book bag. “It does, a little. Though I suppose it’s my fault I never thought to ask.”

“To be fair, I don’t actually look very boss-like.”

“No, you do,” he said carefully. He tipped his head as he said it, which changed his expression just a tiny little bit, like when light refracts through water. “Now that I’m looking properly.”

There was a bit of a moment after that. The kind of moment where you’re two people just staring at each other, trying to say something but trying not to give too much away at the same time. I am pretty familiar with this kind of moment. I get sort of the same feeling when I’m sizing someone up over the beer he just bought me: to bring home or not to bring home, that is the question.

Except this wasn’t quite the same as all those other times. For one thing, we were in the shop, and I keep a reasonably strict no macking, flirting, or wooing rule during work hours, just to make sure everyone (including the Mathless Wonder) stays focused and on task. And for another thing, it was the professor standing across the register from me, and I didn’t sense he was the type to buy someone a beer in the hopes of getting invited home later on.

So basically we just stood there looking at each other, long enough for me to notice his glasses were designer and his scarf was probably cashmere, before he shuffled his feet in his fancy probably-designer shoes and looked away. He even did the awkward throat clearing thing, which is, if I’m being honest, super cliché. Kind of adorkable, but also kind of mainstream, if you know what I mean.

“Erm, Toriv,” he said.

“Erm, Prof?” I said.

“I was wondering–”

Unfortunately, what he was wondering would have to go on being wondered for a while, because at that exact second, at that most crucial turning point in the conversation, Kiv and Daeci came barrelling into the shop through the back door, twin hair askew, twin menthol cigarettes still clutched in twin fingers.

“Yo,” I said in my most boss-like tone, “what about that ‘no smoking’ sign is not making itself clear?”

A big, deep, twin intake of breath, then: “INSPECTIOOOON!”

It was like a bomb going off. The twins dashed off to stamp out their cigarettes and came crashing back in, frantically hair-and-apron tying, while I launched myself away from the register and started banging plates and pitchers and utensils onto a tray, yelling “WASH UP, STAT” at poor Daeci, whose makeup was still a little smudged around the eyes. While she ran off with the clattering overfull washing tray, Kiv began cleaning like the goddess of war herself was at his heels, cursing himself out loud for all the times he hadn’t scrubbed the espresso machine exactly the way I’d told him he was supposed to.

Daeci came running back in, flushed and rubber gloved, to grab some more things for washing. “We saw her! Coming up the street!”

“The devil’s own,” Kiv said, his voice muffled from having his head and arms shoved into a fridge.

Daeci careened off again, almost falling on her ass as she slid over a patch of wet floor. Through it all, Professor Singh stood by the register, as mousy quiet as ever, like he wasn’t witnessing one of the most awful things to ever befall a food and drink establishment.

“Surprise inspection,” I said as I turned back to the register. “No big deal, though. We’re so within regulation these days.”

“So crazy regular,” Daeci gasped as she ran past again.

“I’m getting a cramp,” Kiv said from inside the second fridge.

“So regular it hurts,” I said, somehow managing to agree with both of them. “But anyway, what can I get you?”

“I can wait until you’re finished preparing to be inspected,” Professor Singh said sheepishly, like he was the one who had been caught not being quite-as-regular as desired.

“Nah, it’s cool. Lay it on me.”

“Well…I was thinking of opening my mind a little and trying a…dirty chai.”

I looked at him. It might be fair to say I ogled. He certainly looked like he was feeling ogled. I told myself I should probably stop ogling and say something intelligent, such as, “Whoa, really?”

“Yes?” He cleared his throat again and repeated, “Yes. I would like to try it.”

“Well, colour me shocked and surprised.” I felt myself grinning despite the chaos of cleaning going on around me, and his answering grin was so new and endearing I could have died. You know, if I were into that. “One dirty chai, comin’ right up.”

I rang him up and nudged past Kiv to get the drink started. Chai and espresso. After his firm refusal from our lucky meeting in the Indian grocery store, I hadn’t expected him to turn around and decide to give it a go. Shows what I know, I guess.

The inspector walked in just as I was handing off the professor’s very first dirty chai, so I didn’t have time for much more than a “let me know what you think” and his murmured “thank you” before I had to go Boss mode again. The health inspector for our store is the tiniest of satyr women, but that only means she can better see the spots under counters and inside fridges that we tend to miss during end of shift clean-ups. And she sees them all, believe you me. Having my shop under her biyearly scrutiny always makes me feel like I’m standing naked under spotlights in front of a deeply unimpressed audience.

It was time to pump up the charm, if only for the few precious seconds it would buy my staff to finish whizzing every washed and polished implement back into place. “Mamzelle Frill! How lovely and unexpected to see you!”

“Mister Vanellas,” Frill said drily. She says everything drily. Dry as a desert, that one. “You can stop preening on your countertop up there, you know what I’m here for.”

“All work and no pleasure? I’m wounded, mamzelle.”

“I’m sure you are.”

As she went around doing her preliminary checkups and asking me the usual maintenance questions, her hooves clicking on the tile like the heels of the world’s smallest dominatrix, I took a glance around the client area of the shop. No professor to be seen, so I guessed he had slipped out while I was occupied with Mlle Frill’s arrival. A bit of a stick in the mud, that man. Likes to fly under the radar, except he then suddenly does strange things like order a dirty chai out of the blue, and then not even stick around to tell me if he likes it or not.

Well, I’ll flag him down some other day and nudge him until he opens up. He seems the kind of guy who needs a little nudging. Luckily for him, I am very good at nudging people. Just call me Toriv Vanellas, CEO, Mathless Wonder, Master Nudger, owner of the Cleanest Damn Establishment this side of the Elven Quarter.

“Mister Vanellas.”

“Coming, mamzelle.”

// Mahendra

The dirty chai is, frankly, a little awful. Bad enough to have the taste of coffee polluting what would have been a perfectly acceptable chai latte, but only the worst qualities of the espresso seem to come out from their combination: something acrid and bitter that lingers on the tongue as the too-milky chai washes quickly away. I can’t say I’d ever order another cup, but no one can say I didn’t try. I considered it a bit of an accomplishment, since it isn’t often that I try new things, these days.

What bothered me more than the drink was the fact that I had asked for it at all. Apparently something of my previous conversation with Toriv had stuck in my mind, perhaps manifesting as a dream that had left me with an inexplicable desire for such a horrid concoction. It was safe to say, after that one little cup, that the craving was satisfied and would most likely remain that way for the rest of my living days.

The taste of the mild, milky chai was enough to give me a craving for a good old-fashioned masala chai, like the kind my parents used to make when my sister and I were children. How long had it been since I’d had homemade tea? Months, at least, even with the ingredients all sitting in neat rows in my spice rack.

When Anushka and I had cohabited, during our student years, she had liked to have a cup already steaming by the time she returned home to our shared London flat, so like a good flatmate and friend, I would oblige. In the whirlwind of post-graduate studies and social agendas, those few minutes spent sitting on the couch together with our tea, sipping and talking about our day, were such a welcome respite that I still look back on them fondly.

The recipe I used these days was the same one she and I had tweaked to our liking all those years ago: just the right amount of cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, pepper, anise, tea. Just a bit of ginger, a just-so measure of milk. It was the taste of home, simply put. Nothing in the world compares.

I supposed, on my way to work that day, that that was what Toriv had meant by making a drink with “a ton more love”. What’s more loving then hand-selecting ingredients, powdering and mixing them with care, and serving up a warm drink with a smile? A more personal sort of “bonjour et bienvenue”, one that even I could manage.

Do you ever ache for the desire to do something for someone? The feeling surprised me halfway through my daily metro ride. It seems melodramatic to write about it now, after the fact, but the truth is that in the moment, it felt extraordinary. Like your world has suddenly bubbled up, become wider, so incredibly full of potential and yearning that it almost takes your breath away.

I still tasted chai and espresso in my mouth, and suddenly it didn’t seem so bad at all.

Work after that felt strange and insubstantial, like the realest moment of my day had been that burst of feeling in the underground and everything afterwards was somehow less lifelike in comparison. Perhaps it was exhaustion or a variety of winter blues. There was certainly nothing vigorous about the school environment that day. My lectures had far less alacrity than I would have liked, but everyone seemed too listless to notice. For once, I was glad. I needed time to myself, to reflect and recharge and try to understand what kind of realization my subconscious had evidently made during my daily commute but had not seen fit to share with my waking mind.

For lunch I hid away in my office with my salad and tea like some kind of academic hermit and sank into that vague, half-dreaming state of deep reflection/regeneration I’ve perfected over the years. It is my duty as amateur autobiographer to report that these efforts yielded nothing at all. I was tired suddenly, bone tired and just slightly cold, even with my longest, warmest scarf wrapped twice around my neck. Montréal winters have a way of getting under your skin in a way that I’ve never quite experienced in London. Maybe I was finally coming down with a cold, after spending most of the season dodging the inevitable.

A notification rang out from my idling tablet: Anushka C. is video calling you. I poked the accept button, snuggling deeper into my scarf as I waited for the connection to solidify.

“You look awful,” was the first thing Anushka said when her tiny video self popped onto the screen.

I rolled my eyes. “And you look amazing, as usual.” She really did, as did her sunny, meticulously clean Manhattan office.

“I agree.” She flipped her hair in that way that always makes me laugh and grinned. “But really, are you all right? It’s flu season, you know.”

“I’m well aware.” I sniffed and hoped very hard that that wasn’t also a bad sign. “I work in a school. That sort of thing tends to run rampant around here, what with people not staying home and resting when they should.”

“Awful workaholics, the lot of you,” Anushka said, as though she wasn’t one herself. “I’ve missed you. What else is going on besides you catching everyone’s germs?”

We chatted for a while, as I wrapped my scarf tighter around my shoulders and Anushka nursed a monstrously large  mug of coffee adorned with an adorable cat face, a gift from me from ages long past. Our chances to talk like this were always brief, given our busy schedules. And despite her impeccable makeup, outfit, and office, she looked about as tired as I felt. Awful workaholics, the lot of us.

“I don’t know how you do it,” I said eventually. “Sometimes I barely have the energy to walk home from the underground.”

Anushka gestured pointedly with her coffee mug, then turned her computer around so I could still see her as she rose to walk over to the futuristic-looking silver coffee machine she keeps across the office. “I’ll send you some, if you like. I just discovered the most fantastic blend.”

“No thank you. Just the one shot this morning was enough for me.”

She looked up mid-pour and stared at me like I was quite mad. “Shot? You drink espresso now?”

“Not regularly. I drink mochas sometimes. And this morning I ordered a…lord…” I paused as regret washed over me in the form of a mild stomachache. My delicate constitution clearly did not approve of my recent foray into espresso beverages. “…I ordered a dirty chai.”

“A dirty chai,” Anushka repeated slowly. She placed her coffee pot back in the machine with exaggerated care, then came to stand before the desk and leaned into the camera. “Tell me that is not what I think it is.”

I swallowed. “Chai and espresso?”

She looked at me like the shame of what I’d done would persist for three generations, at least. “Oh my god, Mahendra…why?”

I covered my face with my hands. “I don’t know!”

“What do you mean you don’t know.”

“I don’t! But he mentioned it and I couldn’t stop thinking–”

“Wait.” She held up a hand imperiously, went back to the coffee machine to fetch her mug, and returned to her chair to face me properly. Her expression above her very large, very cheerful cat-faced mug was stern. “Now. Who is ‘he’?”

I told her, in perhaps more detail than was warranted, about my interactions with Toriv Vanellas, café Vanellas barista, also café Vanellas owner. She listened with intense concentration, sipping her coffee without letting her eyes leave my face. By the end of it I felt strangely embarrassed, like I’d said too much, and waited nervously as she spun a few circles in her office chair, stroking her mug like a movie villain strokes a lap pet.

“He sounds nice,” Anushka said finally.

“He is, I think.” When she raised her eyebrows at me for more, I continued, “We haven’t talked all that much. He seems awfully busy most of the time.”

“So are you,” she pointed out. “So busy I didn’t think you’d ever find the time to linger over a coffee shop counter.”

“I don’t linger…”

“And order things you don’t even like just to get him to make them for you.”

“I didn’t–”

“Are you going to ask him out?” She took a drink, gauging my reaction over the rim of her cup.

I leaned my cheek in my hand. “Why did I know you were going to ask me that?”

“Because you can tell that I can tell you want to. It shows all over your face.”

“I don’t even know if he likes men.”

“So? You’ll find out when you ask him.”

“Right when you’re asking someone on a date is kind of last minute.”

She groaned dramatically. “I’m fairly sure we’ve had this conversation before. And I’m also fairly sure you’re just looking for excuses.”

“Pardon me,” I said into my scarf, “but this is a legitimate concern of the likes you’ve never had to worry about.”

“I’ll give you that, but still, what’s the worst that can happen? He says no, thank you, and you slink away embarrassed and never dare to show your face in there again?”

“That about sums it up, Miss Chaudhry, thank you ever so much.”

“Oh, stop that.” She sighed and finally set down her mug. “You don’t even like coffee, anyway.”

“I like it just fine,” I muttered, and revelled a little in her consternated expression when she realized I was sulking at her.

“Professor Singh,” she said severely. It was her courtroom voice, the one that made most people tremble in fear on the stand. “How long has it been since you’ve been on a date? Be honest with me, now.”

“I don’t want to think about it,” I said petulantly.

“That’s what I thought.” She took another spin in her chair, then stopped abruptly and leaned so close to the webcam that I could tell how sharp her winged eyeliner was. “At least consider it. It’s obvious you like him. What’s the harm?”

What’s the harm, indeed. Anushka never did care for things like one’s sense of pride and fear of ridicule. She’s made of stronger stuff than me.

We had to part soon after, our respective lunch hours having run out. She wished me luck by the end of it and asked me to forgive her for being such a busybody, but of course I already had. It’s the job of a best friend to give wild and unsolicited life advice, after all.

Although we had come close to arguing, the conversation with Anushka revitalized me for the rest of the day, and I was able to go through with the rest of my professorial duties with aplomb. I left promptly and rode the metro without being blindsided by any mysterious emotional surges. When I emerged from the underground to February sidewalks melting like candle wax, I discovered that the snow banks and other detritus that had previously blocked my usual path back to my flat had been cleared away. I was free to return to my routine: morning tea, metro, work. Afternoon tea, metro, home. It was what I had wanted from the beginning.

I looked down the street as the home-going crowd flowed around me. The sidewalks were wet but clear, easier to walk than they had been in months; nothing was stopping me in either direction.

I was sleepy again, and hungry, and a lot of other things besides, but instead of heading directly home like I normally would, I found myself moving in the direction of the café Vanellas.

It wasn’t until I was standing directly under the cheery green sign of the establishment that I felt the familiar grip of fear around my heart. So much could go wrong. I could give the wrong impression, I could make a complete fool of myself. I could make him look at me like I was dirt on the coffee shop floor. I could make him look at me like I was repellent.

I could make him smile again, if I’d only just try.

The bell above the door chimed. For the first time, I noticed it was strung with little wooden birds painted in bright, springtime colours. It looked handmade, elven make, a beautiful little thing tucked away in the corner of a beautiful little shop.

Someone different was standing behind the counter and for a moment my heart sank. I’d missed him, of course I had, he had been here early in the morning, after all. Anyone would be tired after a whole day on their feet, preparing food and drink and being surprise inspected. Surely he had already gone home–

“Oh, hey, Prof. How was your day?”

And yet there he was, sitting at one of his own tables, smiling fetchingly as he tucked a pen behind his ear. The table before him was strewn with papers, most of them covered in a handwriting scrawl as indecipherable as any I’d seen, and I had seen a lot of it in all my years as a teacher.

“It was fine,” I replied. My chest felt warm with relief. “How was your inspection?”

Toriv stuck his tongue out in a grimace. “Is it ever fun to be inspected? We did okay, though. This place isn’t going to go down because of cleanliness issues, at the very least.”

“That’s good. I would hate to have to find another place to take my mocha.”

“Best in town,” he agreed. “And speaking of coffee, how was yours? The dirty chai.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me like he’d just said something salacious. “And don’t just stand there like a stranger in my home. Come and have a seat.”

He pushed out the chair across from him with a booted foot, inviting me to sit at his table. I sat, arranging the strap of my bag carefully over the chair back to give myself time to formulate a response.

“It was…something,” I said finally. “I must confess, I didn’t really like it.”

Toriv laughed and leaned forward in his chair, propping his chin in his hands. “You don’t have to be so damn diplomatic about it. Les goûts, ça se discute pas,” he added, doing another impression of my own French accent. Then he grinned. “Here at the school of Vanellas, you still get points for trying.”

There was just something so warm and easy about him, so effortlessly friendly and fun that I couldn’t help grinning back at him.  I noticed one of his eyeteeth was crooked and stuck out when he smiled. I also noticed how his hair was escaping from its tie, frazzled from a day of work, and how he had a smudge of something, chocolate perhaps, on the outside of his wrist. A slew of little imperfections, all on display, and he didn’t seem to know or care they were there.

“So,” he said, still leaning forward towards me, almost right into my space, “what are we going to try next?” He started enumerating on his fingers. “I’ve got a matcha latte. It’s actually decent with chocolate, if you’re into that. There’s also the raspberry mocha, the cinnamon hot chocolate…it’s to die for, I swear.”

At the school of Vanellas, you still get points for trying.

“A date,” I said.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve got some date squares too. Good eye.”

“No, I mean–Toriv.”

He stopped ticking things off his fingers and looked right at me. I could see him mentally backing up. I searched his face for signs of discomfort, but all I could see was the cat-like smile he still hadn’t dropped. His eyes, I also noticed for the first time, were green.

“Professor,” he said amicably. His expression was expectant.

“I was…I have been wondering,” I said, trying to hold his gaze but failing desperately. I concentrated instead on pushing the words out. “I was wondering if you’d like to go. On a date. Sometime.”

The smile curled up, Cheshire-like. “With who? The Queen of England?”

“With me, of course,” I said, trying my best to not sound so sheepish. Perhaps his teasing was a good sign? “I mean…if you’d like.”

“Hm.”

The little ‘hm’ was all he said for a time. It was probably only a second or two at the most, but to me it felt like five minutes, just spent staring at his wrist to avoid looking at his eyes. Then, as I continued to look away like a shy schoolboy, he reached out and touched an outstretched index finger to the bridge of my glasses. He pushed them up, very gently, so that I was forced to raise my eyes to his.

“Sure,” Toriv said, still smiling, still with that eyetooth poking out under his lip. “Why not? It’s been a while since I was on a real date.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, legit like six months at least.”

“I mean, it’s really okay?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s okay.” He huffed a laugh and drew his hand away. “Have I ever given the impression that it’s not okay? I haven’t,” he added, before I could answer, “just so we’re clear.”

There was a bit of a silence after that that was absolutely my fault. I had run out of things to say, so overwhelmed was I that he had actually said yes that I could no longer remember how to make conversation like a normal person. Toriv waited for about ten seconds, then he dug into his pocket and pulled out his mobile phone. “So can I get your number?”

I came to my senses and recited it for him. He typed busily, then looked up at me. “First name?”

“Oh. It’s…kind of difficult to pronounce.”

“Bro. You can’t ask me out and then not tell me what your name is. I am so not down with calling you Professor Singh all the time.”

“Erm.” I took his mobile from him and typed my own name into the appropriate field, then slid it back across the table to him.

He leaned over it to read. “How do I say it?”

“Mahendra.”

It’s funny how saying it out loud always feels like it did the very first time, despite it having been my name for years.

“Mahendra,” he repeated slowly, like he was savouring each syllable. “That’s really pretty. You shouldn’t hide it from people.”

“I don’t. Usually.”

“Good. ‘Cause I’ll be writing it on all your cups from now on.”

Toriv tapped out a message with the tip of his tongue sticking out under his eyetooth. A moment later, my own phone buzzed. I pulled it out to read his text message: Toriv Vanellas, CEO of café Vanellas, Mathless Wonder.

“‘Mathless Wonder’?”

“As long as I don’t have to do any arithmetic on our date,” he said cheerfully, “I should be good.”

I saved his number and resisted the urge to scroll down my contacts list to read it again. “I’ll try to keep us from accidentally doing any maths.”

“I’m having fun already.”

I stayed for a little while longer, listening to him talk about his day and general goings-on at the shop, but when hunger began to gnaw too insistently, I rose to excuse myself. He waved me off, admonishing me for letting him keep me and imploring me to have a fantastic night, in what I was sure was his very best customer service voice.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow night, then?” he asked as I had my hand on the door. “TGIF, right?”

“At six. Right.” I turned to give him a parting smile. My heart may have accelerated a little when I saw it returned. “Goodnight, Toriv.”

He waved with the tips of his fingers, smiling his crooked smile. “Goodnight, Mahendra.”

I set off into the cold streets, picking my way across the driest patches of pavement. As I finally entered the lobby of my apartment building, I had to stop and stand for a while, just staring at the growing pool of melted snow I was leaving on the glossy tile floor, and failing to prevent what I’m sure was a singularly ridiculous grin from showing on my face.

// Toriv

I’ve been talking a lot about myself over the course of this writing project, which I guess makes sense since the idea was to write about my life. I’ve already admitted to being vain, so you must already have some idea of what you’re in for.

I think everyone at the café is surprised that I’ve kept this up for as long as I have. I’ve got, like, actual chapters worth of words in this thing. And I used to have trouble meeting the word count in high school essays. Which just goes to show, when you’re enjoying what you’re doing, then it just gets that much easier.

Not that it’s been easy the whole way. I’m not really someone who reads or writes, to be completely honest with you. And even just sitting and writing like this, it takes practice. The other day I was trying to write over lunch and just couldn’t. It’s like I had completely forgotten how to make sentences. I guess that’s what they call writer’s block.

I can’t really think of myself as a writer, though. I’m really just a guy with a tablet and a Bluetooth keyboard who likes to hear himself talk. Or read himself talk, as the case may be.

Anyway, I was trying to write today when Loriev came up while he was sweeping the floors.

“So,” he said.

“So,” I said.

“You gave that professor a free drink?”

So it begins. “Uh, yeah? I know I’m not supposed to, but whatever. My shop, my rules, etcetera, etcetera.”

Loriev frowned in one corner of his mouth as he swept. He hates it when I say “etcetera” out loud, which is half the reason why I do it. Nerd.

I thought Loriev was going to lay into me about the freebie — he helps out with the finances because I both hate and am terrible at math, so he knows how the accounts are going — but instead he just went on quietly sweeping. Which is how I knew he actually wanted to say something really badly, but wasn’t saying it because his morals work in strange and mysterious ways.

Fortunately, “inhibition” isn’t a word I consider a part of my vocabulary. “What’s up, Lor? Are you mad at me?”

He shook his head as he crouched to sweep under the table I was sitting at. I lifted my feet to help him out, then nudged him in the shoulder as he stood. “Then what?”

“Nothing,” Loriev said, as if I’d believe that.

“As if I’d believe that. Tell me your thoughts.”

“Never mind.”

“Lor. Come on.”

He just kept on sweeping for a little while, pausing to push the fruits of his labours out the door into the street, then he turned and sighed. Victory.

“I was just wondering,” he said in finally. “Why you did it.”

“It? Oh, you mean the drink. Because I like to make the customers happy. He seemed happy, right?”

“He did,” Loriev agreed, but in a way that made the two words sound capitalized.

We stared at each other for a second or two, then I said, “You think I was hitting on him?”

All he did was raise his eyebrows at me, but I felt it like he’d said the words aloud. I have to say, I was a little bit shocked. Just a bit, though. What can I say, I know myself pretty well, and so does Lor.

Still, I said, “Bro. He’s so not my type. And he’s, like, forty.”

Loriev said, “You’re not that far off from forty either.”

“Ouch. I’m thirty-one,” I whispered in my most scandalized voice. “Plus I don’t date teachers. They always love rules more than they love you.”

Loriev rolled his eyes, and even I knew I wasn’t being super convincing just then, but he turned away and continued his diligent sweeping of the floors, so I guess he was appeased.

I’ll admit I wasn’t being totally honest back there anyway. I’ll sleep with a teacher just fine. I have no issues with that. But the thing about dating them, that is one hundred percent, absolutely, no-jokes true. And don’t even try to tell me I’m prejudiced or anything because let me tell you: I’ve tried it. I’m not speaking out of my ass here. This is based on bona fide dating experience.

(“What dating experience?” I hear in Loriev’s voice. Get your overly-developed morality out of my head, please and thank you.)

So I hadn’t actually dated anyone in some time. Big whoop. The dating scene is totally overrated anyway. I was tired of it by the time I’d finished high school. That’s not to say that I stopped having crushes. I have fancies to be tickled, just like anyone else. Very specific fancies in very specific places. It’s just that I usually choose to fulfill those fancies in the most efficient way possible. Loriev disapproves, I guess, but he’s the marrying type. I discovered that when I took a crack at him myself, all those years ago. Ah, youth, and the mistakes of them. Not that it was bad, really. It was about as good as could be expected from going for a straight boy. But that was yonks ago, we’re over it.

I should probably erase all that stuff about Loriev. I think he’d be embarrassed if he knew I was writing about him. But then again, this is a story about my life, and Loriev is definitely a part of my life, as much as my mom and dad and the café are. We’ve known each other literally forever. I don’t even want to think about how different my entire existence would be without him.

I guess that’s the thing about knowing someone for so long: if you’re anything like me, there’s a good chance you’ll start to develop feelings with a capital F. Or, y’know, a capital D. Hahah.

Anyway, all that to say, I’m not beyond crushing. I actually crush a lot. I am a pro crusher. So don’t let anyone tell you I’m not.

For your information, I wasn’t actually crushing on the professor at the time. Giving away free drinks was a thing I did sometimes, when I thought we could afford it. People like free stuff, and if you make them happy with a lil’ freebie while they’re here, I figure it makes it more likely for them to want to come back. It’s good business, okay? I’m pretty sure I read it on the internet somewhere.

And if you’re wondering what my type actually is, I’m kind of obligated to say something like “why don’t you come over here and find out?” Cheesy, I know. For the record I don’t actually say that kind of thing out loud because I’m not in high school. I have lived and learned.

// Mahendra

I am forty years old, single, and celibate. Apparently, this surprises people, though Lord knows why. I’m not particularly attractive or wealthy or anything that would have impelled anyone to snap me up anytime prior to my fourth decade of life.

Perhaps it is simply my age. Admittedly, most of the people I know were married or at the very least attached by their fortieth year. I suppose that makes me a little vieux garçon. I don’t mind. Rushing into marriage just to meet an arbitrary age limit seems silly to me, though I’m careful to not mention that in front of anyone who has.

The only person who hasn’t yet realized the futility of discussing marriage with me is Charlotte, which seems convenient given the only person I wouldn’t lose patience with in such a discussion is my sister. She thinks I must be lonely, I suppose. Not entirely true, but not entirely untrue either. I’m perfectly content to return alone to my quiet apartment on most days. It’s a thing that grows on you, the peaceful solitude, though I suppose I was already disposed towards it from the start.

What does it mean to be lonely, anyhow? I’ll be the first to admit I probably fulfill most of the stereotypes ascribed to teachers and academics such as myself, but I don’t want for friends. Admittedly, none of them are old friends; those are the ones I left behind in England, the people I met in secondary school and college undergrad. But they’re a pleasant bunch, other professors, mostly. We talk shop and argue about politics and bemoan the cost of living just like any conventional group of working adults. Some of them have been over to my place for a glass of wine and conversations of a slightly more personal nature. Others have seen me down a pint of stout during a game night, and have found it both astounding and hilarious. (I should take a moment to add “down with Boston!” here. Only proper that I should demonstrate how assimilated I’ve become.)

So I’m not lonely. The amount of socialization I get in my day is perfectly standard, thank you, though writing it now makes me wonder whom I’m trying to convince. Not Charlotte, for I’m sure I’d be mortified if she ever got her hands on this piece of writing.

Myself, then. Though surely there must be something off if I’m reduced to convincing myself of things in writing.

It isn’t that I don’t wish to be married. In fact, there was once a time when I was rather taken with the idea. How long ago was this? I almost don’t want to know. In the summer, it’ll be eleven years. Nearly a quarter of my lifetime, as it stands.

Her name is Anushka. We met properly at Oxford, though I’d known of her for a long time, from a distance. Such is the way when your socialite parents have friends of friends of friends. “Why can’t you be more like so-and-so’s daughter?” That kind of knowing.

Simply put, she was the best friend I had at college. The best friend I have now as well, though she’s lived in Manhattan nearly as long as I’ve been in Montréal. Perhaps that makes us the kind of friends whose affection persists better at a distance. Lord knows being close did us no good. It certainly ruined our engagement.

There aren’t many people who know I’ve been engaged. This is mostly because whenever I tell, I get a very specific look for it. “Oh, what a shame. I’m so sorry.” After getting a look like that, it’s difficult to rejoin with “oh no, it’s all right. We drove each other mad anyway, and all we did was live together for a year and make a few botched attempts at being intimate. Better off this way, really.” They just think you’re saying that to put on a brave face, so I’ve stopped mentioning it, unless it’s to try making someone feel better about their own love life. I’ve found that there isn’t anything quite so distressing to the romantic heart as a failed marriage, and by association a failed engagement, so most people find it reassuring to realize they haven’t yet hit that legendary low.

I can promise that it’s really all right. Like I said, Anushka and I are still close, just not physically, in all the senses of the word. Just think of how much worse it would be if we had actually gotten married, only to discover how horrendously incompatible we are. No, I prefer to think of it practically.

Whoever you are, you must find me horrible. It isn’t that I don’t have romantic aspirations. It’s simply that they’ve never been very high on my list of priorities. They’re more the kind of thing for the It Would Be Nice list, the window dressing to a life.

So I don’t exactly go out looking for the romance of a lifetime, but that does not mean that I am completely immune to the charms of the occasional passerby. I’ve even been on a few dates since Anushka, if you can believe that. What would an introverted professor like me have to bring to a date? Honestly, I’ve been wondering that myself.

If you’re curious about the dates, none of them ever went past the second. A mutual decision on every occasion, before you give me the look reserved for the formerly engaged. I think I tend to talk too much about work with people I don’t know well. Well, what else does one talk about when one is getting to know another? Hobbies and family? That would be novels and oh, I suppose I’ve forgotten to call Mum again. Not exactly the most riveting stuff.

This must all make me sound frightfully dull. That’s what Charlotte used to call me when we were children. Imagine your eight-year-old sister declaring, “You are so frightfully dull, Maddy!” just because you’d really rather read or practice the piano than play out in the yard. I suppose some people are simply born dull. If that is to be my station in life, then so be it. I’ll be satisfied if fading into the background helps others reach the spotlight they crave.

Some people are like bright lights. They stand out to you in a crowd, often for no reason you can immediately discern. Like that elven barista at café Vanellas, Toriv.

I won’t lie, to you or to myself: I’ve been thinking about him. Not with any particular design in mind, just a kind of idle wondering, like you do when someone catches your eye and you begin to ask yourself if you care enough to try to speak to them again. In this case, it was almost certain that I would be speaking to him again, given that I had chosen to make café Vanellas my coffee haunt. It seemed I had already made my decision before I had finished really thinking about it.

So, an afternoon late in February, with the slush alternately melting and solidifying on the streets. I’d discovered it could get pleasantly warm at the little table by the bay window of the café, so I was finishing up my class notes for an upcoming lecture by the light of the winter sun and sipping on a lukewarm London Fog. Toriv was working — he seemed to always be working — and he had smiled brilliantly as he had passed the foamy ceramic mug over to me.

When he came over to collect my empty cup during a lull in orders, he asked, “So, Prof, is that where you’re from?”

I looked up, my vision refocusing from the words on the page to his face. “I’m sorry?”

“London. Are you from there?” He grinned suddenly. “You don’t have to look so startled. I’m just making friendly conversation.”

“I’m not–” I readjusted my expression. Nothing like that dazed academic look to make people wonder if you’re all right in the head. “Yes, I am. Is it that obvious?”

“Really just a lucky guess this time. We don’t see many of your kind here.”

I smiled at that. “Really? I get the impression us British expats are a dime a dozen in Montréal.”

He laughed and looked sheepish. On a face like his, it was almost a kind of a movie star gesture. “Are they? My bad, then. I just haven’t met very many.”

“Well, not many of us drink coffee.”

“Does that make you special?” Toriv said conspiratorially, and walked away to take care of my used mug.

Have you ever paused just to watch someone walking? I’m a little embarrassed to say I did at that very moment, but well, even stuffy old teachers have urges sometimes.