On Friday, Véronique meets Louis at the corner of Pine and St. Laurent and slides into his red Pontiac Acadian. It smells of weed, French fries, and a faint masking odor of pine-scented air freshener. There’s marijuana shake on the floor at her feet, several crumpled McDonald’s bags on the back seat, and Black Sabbath is blaring from the tinny car stereo.
“The signs are in my trunk,” he says. “You got the addresses?”
She can barely hear him above Ozzy Osbourne belting out “Sweet Leaf.” “Here,” she says, pulling out the list Céline emailed her. “The first house is a corner lot on Ninth and Bélanger in Rosemont.”
“La Petite Patrie,” he says, pulling out onto Pine Avenue. “On y’va!”
He roars north on St. Laurent, past shops and restaurants and a sprinkling of offices on the top floors of old buildings. Through one window, she observes a row of heads perched over their computers. The poor sheep, stuck in an office all day. She experiences a sudden surge of joy in the realization that she will never be one of them.
After three or four houses in the East End, they get a good rhythm going. Louis sticks the H-wire stand into the grass and Véronique slides the sign onto the frame. It’s still warm for autumn, and they work quickly and efficiently under the September sun. Louis sings while he works, everything from Gilles Vigneault’s nationalist anthem, “Gens du Pays,” to the old French Canadian folk songs their grandparents used to sing. He sings in a deep, old-timey voice, and Véronique finds herself laughing along for a good part of the day, occasionally joining in when she knows the words.
Every now and then, someone passing by gives them a thumbs-up or shouts out, “Quebec libre!” An elderly woman even comes out of her house to hand them homemade banana bread wrapped in tinfoil. “You two give me hope for Quebec’s youth,” she tells them, shaking their hands. “I admire your commitment.”
As the sky turns pink behind them and the air cools down to a more seasonal temperature, they decide to grab a beer at Bar Bernard, a dark tavern on the outskirts of the Plateau.
“I used to live above this place,” Louis tells her once they’re seated. “Every weekend I’d have to listen to their shitty cover band until three o’clock in the morning. It was like they were playing in my bedroom. Their last song of the night was always ‘The End,’ by the Doors.”
“Where do you live now?”
“A few blocks north. It’s a shithole, but at least it’s not above a bar. You?”
“The Plateau. On Ste. Famille.”
“Nice street,” he comments. “And you don’t work, you said?”
She realizes he must see her as some kind of spoiled princess, someone whose daddy probably pays her rent on one of the prettiest streets in the Plateau. “I work,” she says. “I just have extremely flexible hours.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a bookkeeper.”
He looks impressed.
“I’m going back to school in the fall to study poli-sci.” Even as she says it, she likes the sound of it more and more. “What about you? I assume you’re interested in politics?”
“No, I’m interested in Quebec becoming an independent country, that’s all.”
“That’s politics.”
Louis shrugs. “I just want a better life for myself. My interest in this referendum is purely selfish.”
“I don’t think it’s selfish to want a better life.”
“Do you remember the ’80 referendum?” he asks her.
“I do. I was only ten, but I remember how divisive it was.”
“I was thirteen,” he says. “My parents were fanatic separatists. They volunteered for the Yes campaign; we had a sign bigger than our house on the front lawn. They brought me to the Paul Sauvé Arena to watch the results come in with all the Yes supporters. I remember when it was official that we’d lost and Lévesque started singing ‘Gens du Pays,’ I looked up at my mom and dad and they were both bawling. I’d never seen my dad cry before. He was heartbroken.”
Louis crushes his cigarette in the ashtray and lights another. His poutine is untouched.
“You said they were fanatic separatists?”
“My dad died of lung cancer in ’89,” he says. “My mom is still alive. She’ll vote Yes, but she doesn’t care about it the way she did fifteen years ago. She lost her fight. The goddamn English crushed her spirit.”
Louis is angry—she can tell from spending just one day with him. James also lost his father, but his pain is more diffused, expresses itself primarily as sadness. Louis is more like her father; their past pain is stored as resentment and blame, festering below the surface until it’s eventually expelled in bitter rants or, in her father’s case, violence.
“My father is Léo Fortin,” she says, catching him by surprise.
“Your dad is the Léo Fortin?” he cries. “October Crisis Léo Fortin?”
She nods silently, savoring his pleasure.
“You’re Léo Fortin’s daughter?”
“I am.”
“Tabarnak!” he cries, incredulous. After a long string of profanity, he says, “I have to meet him.”
“Sure,” she says, smiling. “Anytime.”
“What are you doing tonight?” he asks her, and she realizes she hasn’t mentioned James yet.
“My boyfriend and I have plans,” she fibs. She’s actually driving up to Ste. Barbe tonight.
“Oh, right. No problem,” he says, looking embarrassed.
They split the bill and leave the bar. It’s dark when they get outside. “I had a great day,” he says.
“Me, too.”
The lake is perfectly still tonight, the air warm and windless as she steers the boat toward her uncle’s dock. Next time she makes a run to the reservation, it will be much colder, the water rougher, moodier. The weather changes dramatically from September to October, so she’s enjoying the last sweet breaths of summer.
She looks back at Marc, who’s calmly scanning the lake. The gun is clenched between his legs, his broad shoulders pressed against the boat. She feels safe with Marc on lookout. He’s remarkably confident for his age, always poised and steady. He’s well-spoken, bright. Billy and Tug took to him right away. They’re friendlier with him than they ever were with Pierre. Véronique suspects they never trusted Pierre.
She also enjoys his company when they’re making deliveries. Sometimes they have to drive a couple of hours there and back, and the time passes much more quickly with Marc. He has a great sense of humor, doesn’t take himself too seriously. It worries her that Camil is grooming him to take over the drug-smuggling operation, which will eventually include cocaine. Camil’s been talking about it for years. Weed and booze are small-time. The cigarettes were one thing—lucrative but with far less severe consequences—but the big money is in coke. She doesn’t want Marc to waste his life selling drugs. She feels motherly toward him. He could be anything—a lawyer, an entrepreneur, a great leader. He has that sort of mind, as well as tremendous likeability.
James always says to her, “You’re better than this life.” It always offends her, but that’s exactly how she feels about Marc. She would be devastated if he wound up in jail, or like Pierre.
When she pulls up to her uncle’s, Marc hops out and ties the boat to the dock. Camil appears, and they start unloading the crates of booze and packages of weed. Nothing has changed since the contraband-cigarette days. They work in silence, quick and steadfast, grave. It takes them about half an hour to get everything inside the boathouse. Camil won’t look at Véronique, hasn’t uttered a word to her all night. He’s still furious with her, punishing her because she won’t go to Ottawa.
When they’re finished, he locks up and starts heading back to the house without saying goodbye.
“He’s giving me the silent treatment now?” she says to Marc.
“He has no one to send to Ottawa. He’s upset.”
“Are you?”
“Upset with you?” He shrugs. “No. I don’t get why you won’t, but you must have your reasons.”
“I do.”
He throws his arm over her shoulder, and they walk down to the lake. He’s about a foot taller than she, and she practically has to lift her arm over her head to reach his shoulder.
“You want to swim?” he asks her. “Water’s pretty warm.”
“I’m not in the mood,” she says, sitting down cross-legged on the dock. She’d like to be on her way home, but she’s sleeping here tonight so they can head out first thing in the morning. They’ve got deliveries all day, from Repentigny to Trois-Rivières and then back via Sorel. It’s going to be a long day.
Marc undresses down to his boxers and dives in, his body lean and straight, piercing the water with barely a splash. When he pops up, he lets out a whoop. “That’s fucking cold!” he says, hoisting himself onto the dock.
He dresses quickly, putting his hoodie on and then his jeans. “It feels good, though,” he says, and his eyes are twinkling in the moonlight, his lashes wet and long. He’s too good for this life.
“Let’s go for a beer,” he says. “I’m not in the mood for Camil’s sulking.”
“Me neither,” she says, getting up.
They drive over to Brasserie Olympique in Coteau-du-Lac, which is full of kids about Marc’s age. He knows them all. He walks in like a pied piper, greeting everyone, kissing the cheeks of swoony girls. They sit down near the pool tables, and within minutes, the waitress—an older woman with dyed-purple hair—delivers a pitcher of draft and two glasses, and asks him if he wants any food.
“I’ll have spaghetti,” he says. “I’m starving.”
The waitress rumples his hair affectionately and disappears. Marc pours them each a beer. He chugs his down in one gulp. When he notices Véronique’s stunned expression, he says, “Smuggling makes me thirsty. All that stress and tension on the boat? This helps me relax.”
“You feel stressed on the boat?”
“Of course.”
“It doesn’t show.”
“Doesn’t mean I’m not shitting my pants.”
He pours himself another glass. “So why won’t you do the Ottawa runs anymore?” he asks her. “I know there’s a reason.”
“I don’t like the college students,” she tells him. “They’re entitled assholes. The last time I was there—”
“What?”
“I just got a bad feeling.”
“From who? Callahan?”
“How do you know about Callahan?”
“From my dad. I know he’s one of our best guys.”
Véronique finishes her beer, and Mark fills her up again.
“What we do is dangerous,” she says. “Really fucking dangerous.”
“Yeah, and?”
Véronique doesn’t elaborate.
“Pierre was high and he was speeding,” Marc says. “We would never do that.”
“I’m just saying. Some aspects are more dangerous than others, and they’re not in our control.”
“You’re telling me a bunch of college morons in Ontario are more dangerous than the bandits on the lake or the guys on the res selling us drugs?”
“I’m just saying, we deal with a lot of really shady people. We don’t know them. We don’t know what they’re capable of.”
He’s looking at her with a funny expression. She finishes her beer and this time replenishes her own glass. It does help take the edge off. “Do you ever think about doing something else?” she asks him.
“You mean like a real job?”
“Yeah. A real job.” She hates herself for sounding like James, but it’s different with Marc. He’s so damn young. She’s had this gnawing sense of responsibility for him lately, a protectiveness that seems to be getting louder the more time she spends with him. He’s never had a mother. Maybe Véronique is the one who needs to step up and be that person in his life.
“Why?”
“You’re a smart kid,” she says. “Really smart.”
“So are you.”
“I’m not a kid.”
“You were about my age when you started. And now you’re rich.”
“I have savings, yes, but this isn’t sustainable, Marc.” A direct quote from James.
“Why not?”
“It’s too dangerous. You’ll probably wind up in jail. Most dealers do. When I started, we were just smuggling cigarettes. It was always supposed to be a short-term thing. I haven’t told your dad yet, but my plan is to stop completely by next summer and go back to school in the fall.”
“Wow. Your boyfriend has really rubbed off on you.”
“I make my own decisions.”
The waitress comes back with Marc’s spaghetti and another pitcher. Véronique notices the first one is already empty, and she realizes she’s quite tipsy.
“I’m not going to school,” Marc says, as though it’s the most absurd thing he’s ever heard. “I hated school. Besides, we’re doing a service for people who can’t afford to pay for that shit.”
“So your plan is to become a full-time coke dealer? Because that’s your dad’s plan.”
“My plan is to make as much money as I can.”
“Until you’re arrested. Or shot.”
“Câlice, Véronique. That’s pretty dark.”
“That’s the kind of thing that happens.” This story has no happy ending.
“I’m not going to get shot. Nobody is.”
“I used to think that way, too,” she says. “That no one would ever get hurt—least of all me. It was just smokes. Just weed. Just CDs.”
“What happened to you in Ottawa?” he asks her, stabbing his fork into a pile of noodles and twirling.
“I just got caught off guard,” she admits. “I trusted someone I shouldn’t have.” The beer has gone straight to her head, loosened her tongue.
“Who?”
“It doesn’t matter who.”
“Callahan? What did he do?”
“I’m not saying who it was.”
“Whoever it was, did he rip you off? You should tell my dad, Véro.”
“He didn’t rip me off.” She’s staring down into her glass. The draft beer smells vinegary, like a dirty tap faucet. A wave of nausea rushes over her.
“You okay, Véro?”
“You can’t tell your father,” she says, looking up at him. “I mean it. He’ll do something stupid and I don’t want that on my conscience.”
“I won’t,” he promises. “Tell me what he did.”
“He tried to rape me,” she blurts. “My guard was down. I managed to get away, but . . . that’s why I’ll never go back.”
Marc is quiet. His cheeks are flushed, and his free hand is clenched in a fist. She reaches for it and squeezes. “I’m okay,” she says. “I’m just telling you this to make a point. We don’t know the people we’re dealing with, even when we think we do. Some of them are really bad people. One of them tried to rape me. Another one might just as easily shoot you for your weed.”
“You’re just going to let Callahan get away with it?” Marc says, his eyes darker than usual.
“I never said it was Callahan. I’ve got a couple of guys in Ottawa—one in the ByWard Market, one at Ottawa U.”
Marc pushes his plate away and drinks more beer.
“Will you think about what I’ve said?” she asks him. “About maybe finding something legitimate to do with your life? You could do anything, you know.”
Marc nods, humoring her. His mood has changed. She hopes she hasn’t made a terrible mistake.