Claire and David aren’t there for today’s class, so Leah doesn’t get to try another shake just yet. Probably for the best. It doesn’t seem like the sort of thing you should be having every couple of days.

She has, however, discovered another fancy tea store, not far from her apartment – one where people don’t appear to know her.

The recipes on the boards seem basically the same, although there is a more limited selection of “toppings” at this location. Leah doesn’t mind; the tapioca are her favourite anyway. She considers the menu, looking for something new to try, still searching for her favourite. The oolong was nice, but I’m not sure it’s my favourite. I’ve got different standards than the other Leah.

It’s still a little uncanny to think of there having been another Leah, but she’s getting used to it. Now that she’s equipped with a family background, a friend group, and possibly a relationship, the world feels much more manageable – even if those three things don’t always align perfectly. What else did I expect; they never do align, not for anyone.

“Hello!” Leah says brightly, reaching the front of the line. “Could I have a small strawberry-mint black tea, cold, half-sweetness, with tapioca?”

The cashier types in the order and writes it on a cup. Leah taps her card, sees the payment marked as ‘ACCEPTED,’ and goes to wait for her order.

“Leah!”

Dread creeps up for a moment before she recognises the voice. Leah turns to see Mary sitting at one of the nearby tables, a notebook in front of her, and a half-finished drink beside her. Leah beams and goes to say hello.

“Don’t you work Wednesdays?” Leah asks, taking the empty seat at her side.

“I did, but the boss cut back my hours.”

“You said you were understaffed, though?”

Mary shrugs. “I personally think the cafe’s going to close down, soon. Finances aren’t good, not enough customers, and when there are customers he refuses to schedule extra help, so the lines are long and people leave frustrated.”

“Sounds ridiculously stressful,” Leah says, pouting a bit. “You put up with that?”

“I mean, I got bills too. Freelancing just doesn’t make ends meet as reliably.”

“Oh?” Leah hears her order called, and holds up a hand. “Just a sec, hold that thought.”

Mary grins at her as she rushes to the counter to claim her tea, coming back to the table while sipping. Hmm…mint’s a bit too strong, and with the strawberry the whole thing is too sweet, even at half sugar. I prefer the classic teas. Where were we? “Where were we?”

Mary has closed the cover of her notebook and put it aside, and is giving her full attention to Leah. “We were talking about jobs, and I mentioned my freelancing work.”

“Yes! What sort of freelance?” Presumably not the meaning I am used to; she doesn’t seem the jousting type. Then again, I suppose people would think the same of me in this world.

“Photography, for newspapers.” Mary says it quietly, and with a shrug, as though it’s nothing special.

“You mean like the warzone stuff? Front page, smoke on the streets?” Leah asks, then takes another sip.

Mary laughs and shakes her head. “Someday maybe, but right now I focus on local stuff. I document protests, vigils, demonstrations, that sort of thing. Moments where there’s lots of emotion, and people moving around, big gestures and big crowds. Very baroque.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it’s my style; I like taking pictures that feel very grandiose, very…portentous.”

Leah raises an impressed eyebrow at the words, though not entirely familiar with what they mean. “You take this job very seriously.”

“Well yeah, I mean, so often the pictures you see of these events focus on the chaos, and the anger. They take pictures of people’s faces that later can be used to incriminate them. I take pictures that offer an alternative mood, showing the unity of the movements, their motion towards a goal. It’s an ideological thing, I guess.”

Leah nods along politely through it all, despite the fact that most of it means nothing to her. “How’d you get into that?”

“Cegep. I was given an assignment to take a picture of a crowd of people, no other instructions. I chose to document a protest in my hometown, one that ended up getting into the news because of a hate crime that happened during it. I got a really good shot of the guy yelling at the protestors, you know, spit flying and stuff, snow falling in front of his face. Neat shit. Very ugly scene. The school newspaper printed it, and then other news outlets saw it and asked to print it, and I realised ‘whoa, there’s money in this, if you’re in the right place at the right time.’ Of course, ‘at the right time’ is the key phrase there…I haven’t gotten quite so lucky since then.”

“Lucky? To witness violence and hatred from up-close?”

Mary shrugs a shoulder and shakes her head. “You know, a lot of people don’t believe a thing exists if they don’t see it. Someone’s got to be there to take pictures, otherwise someone else will say ‘there’s no proof,’ and the whole thing gets swept under the rug. Like you said, the war pictures; everyone knows in general terms if a war is happening, but it’s different to actually see it.”

“I suppose,” Leah says, some pieces falling into place. “Does seeing war in pictures not make you numb to it, eventually?”

“No more so than living through constant war makes you numb to it. It might eventually seem like ‘the new normal,’ but even that is important to document.”

“I see,” Leah lies, taking another sip, chewing on a tapioca pearl. “What sorts of photos have you taken since then?”

“Since the protest pic?” Mary tilts her head and chews a lip. Leah blushes a bit and looks away. “I’ve taken shots at BLM protests, the language protests, the religious-ban protests, the MMIWG vigils, the anniversary of that school shooting that happened just up the street – ”

“The what?”

Mary gives her an odd look, and then her eyes fly open. “Oh god, right, you just got here, you wouldn’t know about it. There was a shooting at the college, a student killed four classmates and a teacher, twenty other people were wounded.”

“Was the killer caught?”

“He killed himself when the police showed up.”

Leah stares at Mary, trying to fit this piece of information into the framework she’s developed. “How…”

“It’s more the sort of thing we think of as happening in the States, but we get a bit of it here too.” Mary goes back to her drink, as though she had just mentioned an especially bad windstorm or a passing bout of illness.

Leah looks down the at the cup between her hands, suddenly feeling quite foolish. I thought this world was so perfect. I thought every problem we’d had back home had been fixed; easy access to medicine, fair wages, gender rights. Was I just not looking hard enough? Or have I found one flaw and now I’m overreacting?

“Pretend…” Leah rolls the cup between her palms, nervously. “Pretend I’m an alien, and I don’t know anything.”

“Easy enough,” Mary says with a friendly smirk.

“What other…awful things, have happened here? What other tragedies, and killings?”

Mary raises her eyebrows and leans back in the chair. “Wow, this conversation’s getting dark.”

“It wasn’t already?!”

Mary laughs dryly and nods. “Fair enough. And I guess you need to know this stuff, if no-one’s told you about it yet. How far back do you want to go?”

Leah chews her lip in thought. “I know there was a war, between England and France, and this area was part of that – ”

“Oh Jesus.”

“Huh?”

Mary laughs and waves Leah’s curious expression away. “It’s just a little, uh, more in-depth than I was expecting. But sure, I can try. Let’s see how well I remember high school history; they sure taught us this story enough times over.”

*

Leah stores the cleaning supplies away in their cubby at the end of another shift. Gloria had noticed her funny mood, and hadn’t spoken to her much, only asking if she was feeling well and if she wanted to take some time off.

“You’re allowed to ask for time off, you know. There’s another bar-back for the weekends, and he can cover one of your shifts if you need a break.” The boss had shot her a sharp look at this, but only for a second; Gloria had met it coolly and shrugged. “Anyways. If you need it.”

Leah dwells on this as she finishes her night, checking for tracked-in dirt one last time, disinfecting countertops, turning off the lights in the storage rooms. This was supposed to be my ‘time off.’ How fucked am I, that I need time off from my time off?

She punches out, tearing the little paper stub that the machine rolls out and tucking it under the cashbox with all the others. Michel gives her a warm pat on the back and wishes her a good night; Leah nods and smiles back at him, returning the goodbye, still distracted.

“S’been about a month, then?”

Leah looks up at that. The boss is finishing up tidying the display racks, wiping them clean of any alcohol drops, rings under the bottoms of bottles. He looks back at her over his shoulder.

“Since?”

“Since you started here,” he says, turning back to the shelves, spraying the mirrors with something blue and wiping them with a soft rag. “You feeling good about the job?”

“Yeah…yeah, I’m very glad I found this place.”

“And Kira says you’re learning French?”

“I am! Slowly.”

The boss laughs at that, finishing up with the shelves and descending the stepladder. “That’s good! It’s not an easy language to learn. Good for you.”

“You speak it, right?” Leah asks, checking through her memories; she thinks she can remember hearing him speaking French, or at least, something that wasn’t English.

“Yeah, it’s my mother tongue, but I spent a lot of time in the Prairies so my English is good too. What about you? I never thought to ask, but what’s your mother tongue? You’re from Morocco, right?”

Leah freezes up and shrugs. “Yeah, but I mean…I was adopted pretty old, so I’d already been speaking English a lot by the time I got there…”

“Right, right…” the boss nods, throwing the rag in the laundry bin and wiping his hands clean. “But you’re staying? You’re for sure staying in Canada?”

“Yeah, I mean, I’m a…” What was it called? I came across the phrase somewhere… “Permanent resident.”

“I’m not asking if you’re illegal, I’m asking if you’re likely to stay here for longer than another few months.”

“Why?”

“Because I still haven’t found a new bartender, and I’m starting to get frustrated.”

Leah shifts slightly. “Oh?”

“I’ve had someone come by and drop off a CV, asking to be a bar-back – and a good CV, I know the owner of the place he used to work – but I don’t want to take hours away from you. If you’re interested, though…you’re a damn fast learner, from what I’ve seen. Do you know any mixology?”

It takes Leah a moment to parse his meaning. Oh, is that how that word is pronounced? Makes sense. “Like the little book under the bar? With all the recipes?”

“Yeah, that. Fancy drinks.”

“I’ve seen Samuel and Michel make things often enough, I get the idea. And I’ve got steady hands.”

“Would you like to learn?”

“To bartend?”

“Mondays or Tuesdays, probably – quieter days, fewer people. Start you off easy. You’d need to know some basic French, just enough to be able to understand the names of the drinks, and numbers. I’d be there to catch you if you were about to fuck something up royally, but frankly most people here don’t go for the weird stuff; they just want a bottle of something, and you know those names well enough by now.”

“Um.” Leah nods, eyes wide and flickering along the bar. “Yeah. Sure.”

“Just a trial-run, right? See if it suits you. You’re not gonna get fired if you can’t keep up, it’s just to see.”

“I understand, that’s…fantastic.”

“Hm?”

“Yeah, I…” Leah shakes her head to clear it, then meets his eyes and smiles broadly. “I can give it a go, at least.”

“Perfect. Next week?”

“Yeah. Perfect.” Leah nods to him, still smiling widely. “Goodnight!”

He raises a hand in a wave and starts turning off the machines for the night, flicking off the lights to the bar one by one.

Leah walks home feeling light, wishing she could run the whole way. I wonder if I get tips now? The question is asked in a multitude of voices – her mother, her father, her uncle, Claire and David – but she doesn’t particularly care about the answer. I’m not doing this for the money. This is about being accepted – people standing up for me – people looking out for me – people asking what I want – people caring about me as a person.

In her apartment, she changes into nightwear and lies under the blankets, running things over.

Yet what a dark world this all is! She runs her hands over the soft sheets. Political turmoil, invasion, hatred, guns – whatever those are, but I hope I never find out. The world’s too big; there are too many people in each other’s faces, jostling for room. And yet…I feel that’s part of what makes people close. I mean, take me, for instance: I live in this huge building, and so far I’ve met three of my neighbours, and one of them is my landlady. The rest are total strangers. I haven’t tried to meet them, and that makes sense, because I’m new to this world, but they also haven’t tried to meet me.

There are too many people in the world, and eventually you just get saturated. Then, when you find someone who’s interesting – who’s cool – you want to keep them as close as you can. Like Jen, inviting me out for supper and wine at her place. Like Tonya, who dropped everything to show me their favourite epic.

There are probably a dozen bartenders in the area looking for work, but who just haven’t applied to the club yet. Instead of taking a chance on a total stranger with qualifications, they’d rather keep me and teach me. Why? Am I that impressive, here?

She huddles down further under the blankets, ignoring the creaking of the floorboards above her and the rattle of the air conditioner.

Well, I for once agree. I think I’ve done something pretty special here. If I do say so myself, I’ve done things to be proud of here. I’ve navigated this world blind, and made friends, learnt a sport, gotten a job – wait, I’m almost out of wrestling classes, aren’t I? No, I am out, today was the last. I should go buy another package. Ten or twenty classes? Twenty’s the better deal.

Tomorrow morning, I’ll do that. Then to the library, to look for books on mixology.