OCTOBER 2001
Véronique steps up to the microphone and taps it to make sure it’s on. There are about forty people waiting for the reading to get started. It’s standing room only, with a pleasant din of conversation over which Véronique has to raise her voice. “Welcome to De Gournays,” she begins. “I want to thank you all for coming out tonight to celebrate the one-year anniversary of this little bookstore.”
Applause, whistles.
“I recognize so many faces tonight, which is what I’d always envisioned,” she says. “A neighborhood bookshop where a community of like-minded people could come together and hang out. And I’m so honored to be hosting the book launch of one of my favorite local authors, Maryse Poile. She’s here tonight to read an excerpt from her new book, La Rue Castelnau. Afterwards, Maryse will be signing books at the back of the store.”
Véronique points to the table over by the Marie-Claire Blais section, where a few people are already waiting, copies of the book in hand. Maryse approaches the microphone, hugs Véronique, and sits down on a stool to read.
“Thank you, Véronique,” she says, “for creating this very warm space for us to gather and celebrate our love of books.”
Véronique is smiling so hard her upper cheek muscles are strained. Maryse starts to read as Véronique gazes out at the crowd, feeling quite pleased with herself. It’s a better turnout than she anticipated. The reading is well received, and when it’s over, the crowd moves to the table for the book signing.
There’s already a queue snaking its way to the front door. She’ll probably sell about fifty books tonight. She does a quick calculation. It’s a good night. She stands beside Maryse to facilitate the signings, opening the books to the first page, sticking Post-its with people’s names on them so the line moves more quickly. Lisette is standing by the cash register. Every time a sale gets rung through, she gives Véronique a thumbs-up. She’s beaming, talking to everyone who buys a book. Véronique can read her lips from here. My daughter owns this place.
And then she spots James leaning discreetly against the bestseller shelf at the front of the store. Their eyes lock. He smiles. She hasn’t seen him since that night outside the Canadian News Agency. Four years ago. It takes her a moment to catch her breath, steady her racing heart.
He must be at least forty, but he doesn’t look it. He’s still got that thick hair, with flecks of silver at his temples now. He seems confident and self-assured, a man who’s forged a life for himself. He looks practically the same as he did almost ten years ago, when he showed up outside her apartment trying to get an interview. It was the summer of ’92. He was doing a story on the October Crisis, absurdly introduced himself as J. G. Phénix. He was so self-important back then. She told him to get lost. She was probably already in love with him.
“This is for Pierrette.”
Véronique turns back to the elderly woman standing in front of her; she’s smiling eagerly, a little reverential. “It’s P-i-e-r-r-e-t-t-e,” she spells out.
Véronique has to pull her attention away from James. She writes Pierrette distractedly on the Post-it note for Maryse.
“I grew up on Rue Castelnau,” the woman tells her.
Véronique nods and listens. Stay in the moment, she reminds herself. She sticks more Post-it notes, shakes hands, answers questions. Everyone has a story. People keep telling her how much they love her store.
When she looks up again, James is gone.
The place finally empties out at around nine. Lisette stays to help clean up the mess—half-empty trays of party sandwiches, plastic cups of white wine, crumpled napkins and biscotti crumbs on every surface.
“What a success,” Lisette says, sweeping the floor. “Léo would have been so proud.”
“Maybe,” Véronique says, collecting the empty wine bottles.
“Just be proud.”
“It’s quite surreal,” Véronique admits, looking around her store. She wonders if James was impressed. She hasn’t stopped thinking about him all night. She was rattled when she first saw him across the room, and then disappointed after he left. Why would he show up only to leave before speaking to her? He looked damn good, too. She might feel a bit more ambivalent if he’d gained some weight and lost some hair. At least he knows about De Gournays. As a matter of pride, she wanted him to know.
Véronique sends her mother off with a few leftover bottles of beer and a box of party sandwiches. When she’s alone, she fills a plastic cup with warm wine and goes behind the counter to close out the night’s sales. As the cash drawer swings open, she notices a copy of James’s book, Born in Sin, next to the till. It wasn’t there before the event, which means he must have left it for her earlier. She was beginning to think she had hallucinated him.
She picks up the book and presses it to her chest, wishing he had stayed to talk. It’s a beautifully written story—she wept at every page—and she would have liked to have told him that. There are so many things she would like to tell him.
She opens the book to the dedication page, where James has handwritten a note for her.
V,
“People who love as you do, with that plenitude and fire, always forget what others experience.”
Thank you for loving me that way, and teaching me to love (you) that way. I’ll always burn brighter for it.
J. G. Phénix.
She always loved how he called her V. He’s the only one who ever did. To everyone else, she is Véro. She immediately recognizes the Marie-Claire Blais quote from one of her favorite books, Le Loup. She introduced James to Blais’s writing in their early days together, and he came to love her books as much as Véronique did.
They’re from different worlds, James and Véronique. When they were together, they had opposing ideologies and clashing political views. But she’s older now and mature enough to understand that real love does not compromise itself for politics. Love doesn’t judge or discriminate against conflicting opinions or ambitions; it does not divide or bully. Love is far more resilient than the average human being, forever indomitable in the face of frail egos and heavy chips on shoulders and stubborn, self-righteous pride. Love has nothing to prove; only humans do. This is what she would like to say to James: the love they had for each other did not fail. They are the ones who failed, at a time in their lives when they were still both inflexible and inept. Which makes her wonder if maybe it’s not too late for them.
She reaches for her phone and dials his number. He answers on the first ring, and the sound of his voice makes her a little light-headed.
“J. G. Phénix?” she says.
“This is he.” Knowing it’s her, playing along.
“Thank you for the book.”
“I know you own a bookstore,” he says. “But just in case you hadn’t read it . . .”
“I liked your inscription.”
“I’m glad. I probably overthought it—”
“Blais has a new book,” she says. “Have you read Dans la Foudre et la Lumière?”
“Obviously.”
“And?”
“I thought it was better than Soifs.”
“Oh,” she says. “I didn’t like it as much.”
“I figured.”
They never could agree on Soifs. “If ever you want to get together and discuss the new one—”
“I’m free now,” he says.
She laughs.
“Are you still at your store?” he asks her.
“I am,” she says, smiling. Going along with the moment.
She doesn’t want to forget what happened between them any more than she wants the things she did—both misguided and worthwhile—to be forgotten. But maybe love is expansive enough to remember everything and still transcend it all.