He takes his turn and sinks a few, including a bank shot. Nice one, he tells himself. He sneaks a sideways glance at her, to see if she looks impressed. He can’t tell with her.
When it’s her turn, she takes off her plaid shirt and ties it around her narrow waist. She’s wearing a black tank top underneath. When she bends over the table, he notices a fresh tattoo on her back, right between her shoulder blades. The ink is still black, the skin around it swollen and puckered, red. It’s a fleur-de-lis.
“You just got a tattoo,” he says, a bit choked up. He’s usually not the least bit open-minded about fate or destiny, but this—it’s hard to dismiss as mere coincidence and not at least consider that her tattoo might be a sign. Sign of what? he thinks. Before he finishes the thought, he stops himself. It’s embarrassing, even if it’s only in his head.
“I got it last week,” she says.
“A fleur-de-lis.”
“Naturally.”
“My father had the same one,” he says, lowering his eyes, staring at the eight ball until it blurs. Why can’t he look at her?
“He did? Really?”
“Yeah. On his arm.” He touches his biceps, remembering.
“You said ‘had’?”
When he finally lifts his eyes, her expression has softened. She looks absolutely angelic without her edge. “He died a few years ago,” James says.
He doesn’t elaborate, just goes back to playing pool. He takes a shot, sinks it. Goes on an impressive run. She doesn’t press him about his father. She seems to understand a person’s pain points. She obviously has her own.
He beats her twice in a row, much to his relief. They return to their table, and he orders another round. Talking to her is easy, fun.
“Did you see your father when you were growing up?” he ventures. He’s opened up about his father; now it’s her turn.
“Of course.”
“So you went out to the penitentiary?”
“How else would I have seen him?”
“And now? He’s in your life?”
“He’s my dad.”
“Is he sorry for what he did?”
“Are you interviewing me?” she asks him, her tone changing.
“No, I’m just curious. I know you believe in his cause.”
“It’s not just his cause,” she interrupts. “It’s Quebec’s cause. It’s the French working-class cause. It was and still is so much bigger than the FLQ.”
“He brainwashed you from jail.”
“I think for myself.”
“So you’re okay with what he did?”
She sighs. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand that an innocent man died,” he says. “And you haven’t had a father for most of your life. How can you possibly agree with what they did?”
“I never said I agreed with it. You can’t stop being a journalist, can you?”
“I’m inquisitive, yes,” he admits. “But I’m not asking for my job. I genuinely want to know.”
“I’m sure you do,” she says, her eyes darkening. “But it’s none of your business.”
“Do you ever lighten up?”
“You tricked me.”
“Tricked you? How?”
“I would never have come here if I thought you were going to interrogate me about my father.”
“I’m just trying to get to know you,” he scrambles. “I thought we were . . . connecting.”
“Why? Because your father had a fleur-de-lis tattoo?”
“You said the exact same thing to me in August,” he reminds her. “You said, ‘You think just because your dad worked at Vickers . . .’ You’ve got some serious trust issues, Miss Fortin.”
Before he finishes his sentence, she gets up out of her seat, calm and cool, pulls a handful of cash out of her back pocket, and tosses a twenty onto the table. Without uttering a word, she’s out the door, leaving him alone with her abandoned protest sign and her half-full beer.
Screw her. He doesn’t need this adolescent drama in his life.
He drives back to Montreal in a bad mood. He pops a Pearl Jam CD in the player and cranks it up, but it only makes him grumpier. Now she’s ruined the band for him. He’ll never listen to them again and not think of her, not see those big brown eyes staring at him or that lovely white back with the fleur-de-lis carved into the hollow between her shoulder blades.
Was he out of line? Did he ambush her? He couldn’t stop himself from asking her about the infamous Léo Fortin. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t want her as much as he wants the story. Now he’s messed up both opportunities.
3
It’s late October, a cold night with a sharp wind pushing the tree branches against her building. Elodie keeps the window open because she likes to feel and smell the outdoors at all times, no matter how cold it gets. It reminds her that she is free. She likes the distinct smell of every season, each one with its own sensory memories. She will never forget her first autumn after seventeen years of being locked up; the way the leaves felt beneath her shoes when she walked, the ashy breath of chimneys coming to life, the bite of air in her nostrils and the smell of damp earth decaying. This is October for her.
Elodie is having her dinner in front of the TV, which she does every night. She doesn’t like to eat alone, and TV is a good companion. She’s watching the news. The results of the referendum on this recent constitutional accord have come in, and it was rejected. Voted down, just like the last one. It doesn’t surprise Elodie. Quebec is not the compromising type, and the rest of the country is sick of it. A young woman on TV is raging at the camera. “This accord was a waste of time and energy,” she says, the microphone right up to her mouth. “Hopefully this is the end of all constitutional talks for a long time. It’s a joke.’”
This girl should be happy, Elodie thinks. Someone as smart and well-spoken as her, someone so young and beautiful. The world is hers for the taking, and yet she seems so full of rage. When Elodie was her age, she was afraid to breathe, let alone scream into a TV camera about the government.
When Elodie first got out of the asylum and discovered this tension between the French and English, she was absolutely baffled. How could speaking a different language be enough to make someone an enemy? The real enemies were the doctors and the nuns, the monsters who put you in the mental hospital, the ones who labeled you crazy when you weren’t and abused the hell out of you, the government that profited from it all. Those were formidable enemies. But an English person? A Francophone? For no other reason than the language they spoke? This ongoing animosity between both sides has always annoyed Elodie. There are far more serious matters to get angry about in this province.
“This country has never shown Quebec the respect it deserves,” the girl on TV is saying. “This referendum result proves that Quebec independence is the only way forward!”
Quebec throws a referendum like it’s a birthday party. Elodie doesn’t understand it. She remembers the first referendum in 1980—the big one, the one that would decide whether or not Quebec would separate from Canada and become its own country. Her daughter, Nancy, was nine at the time. She came home from school one day, in the midst of all the political propaganda, and she was crying.