Montreal, 2 December 1988
It has been a fairly odd couple of weeks -- a crazy time when everyone has too much to think about and plan and just plain get done. The end of the semester, exams, Christmas and all the assorted rigmarole that accompanies each of them. And while Meg is good at being on top of all that stuff, she does not live in a vacuum. All around her, people are stressed out, tempers and moods are fraying and snapping, and even someone who has finished her holiday shopping and been studying for her exams since basically the first day of classes is starting to feel the strain.
And that's before she adds in dealing with things like the faint anxiety that spending a week with Kim and their parents in England is going to wind up being too much, too soon, or quiet worrying over recent odd encounters at the End of the Universe.
She gets home from class wanting nothing more than twenty minutes of peace and quiet. Instead she gets Carrie and Olivia in the middle of an epic fight about who did or didn't erase a message that may or may not have been left on the answering machine. Meg doesn't even take her coat off, just dumps her bag in her room, grabs a book of her desk, and heads back out.
The cafe is off the usual paths beaten by either tourists or university students, Meg found it during the fall of her first year, on one of her Parker-suggested explorations of the city. It's run by Marie-Laure and her daughter Sylvie. Marie-Laure is a short, rather round woman who Meg has never seen without an apron. Sylvie could have stepped off the pages of Vogue. They both know all the regulars by name, and Sylvie makes the best hot chocolate Meg has ever had.
Their cafe is small, and people often stay for hours, so it's not at all uncommon to wait for a table. Meg waits fifteen minutes, today, standing at the counter and chatting with Marie-Laure in between other customers' orders before the table in the corner opens up. She just wants an hour to sit and read her book and not have to be anyone for anyone -- not a student or a roommate or a girlfriend or a daughter or a sister or --
"Hey. This place is pretty packed. You mind if I join you?"
Meg looks up from the ball at Netherfield to find Roe-bear holding a cup of coffee and indicating the empty chair across from her.
"Um," she says.
"Thanks," Roe-bear says, and sits down. "So, how've you been?"
The thing is, she does mind. She would mind right now even if it were Alain, because she doesn't want company.
And she cannot imagine what he's is doing here. This isn't a place students congregate, and certainly not English-speaking ones. There are closer, and cheaper, places to get coffee. That's why Meg goes out of her way to come here, where she never runs into anyone she knows.
So what the heck is Roe-bear McCrory doing at Marie-Laure and Sylvie's?
It's just one of those things, surely. Random happenstance or something. It has to be.
(What's the alternative? That he followed her here or something? That seems a little bit paranoid, not to mention ridiculously self-absorbed, doesn't it?)
"Meg?" he says, "How've you been?"
"Fine," she says.
"Me, too," he says. "Professors have been keeping me pretty busy, though. Getting ready for exams and all that. You know, trying to make up all that work I didn't do all fall. You, too?"
Meg takes a moment to be grateful she brought Austen and not Montgomery, as it's a lot harder to pass The Blue Castle off as an assignment. "I've got a lot of reading to do," she says, with a gesture to her book.
"Oh," he says. "Well, if I'm interrupting . . ."
She knows he's waiting for her to say, Oh, no, it's okay, I have a few minutes or words to that effect. And instead she says, "You kind of are, yes."
"Oh," Roe-bear says again.
"There's a table free over by the door now," she adds.
"Oh," he says. "Well, um, maybe another time?"
"Maybe," Meg says, vaguely. "Bye, Robert."
Roe-bear relocates to the table by the door, and Meg goes back to her book. But she can't quite shake the feeling that she's being watched, even though every time she looks up, he's looking somewhere else -- the window, the counter, into his coffee cup.
She tells herself she's being ridiculous.
She hopes she's right about that.
But she sits and reads for almost two hours, anyway, waiting for Roe-bear to leave first.
And that's before she adds in dealing with things like the faint anxiety that spending a week with Kim and their parents in England is going to wind up being too much, too soon, or quiet worrying over recent odd encounters at the End of the Universe.
She gets home from class wanting nothing more than twenty minutes of peace and quiet. Instead she gets Carrie and Olivia in the middle of an epic fight about who did or didn't erase a message that may or may not have been left on the answering machine. Meg doesn't even take her coat off, just dumps her bag in her room, grabs a book of her desk, and heads back out.
The cafe is off the usual paths beaten by either tourists or university students, Meg found it during the fall of her first year, on one of her Parker-suggested explorations of the city. It's run by Marie-Laure and her daughter Sylvie. Marie-Laure is a short, rather round woman who Meg has never seen without an apron. Sylvie could have stepped off the pages of Vogue. They both know all the regulars by name, and Sylvie makes the best hot chocolate Meg has ever had.
Their cafe is small, and people often stay for hours, so it's not at all uncommon to wait for a table. Meg waits fifteen minutes, today, standing at the counter and chatting with Marie-Laure in between other customers' orders before the table in the corner opens up. She just wants an hour to sit and read her book and not have to be anyone for anyone -- not a student or a roommate or a girlfriend or a daughter or a sister or --
"Hey. This place is pretty packed. You mind if I join you?"
Meg looks up from the ball at Netherfield to find Roe-bear holding a cup of coffee and indicating the empty chair across from her.
"Um," she says.
"Thanks," Roe-bear says, and sits down. "So, how've you been?"
The thing is, she does mind. She would mind right now even if it were Alain, because she doesn't want company.
And she cannot imagine what he's is doing here. This isn't a place students congregate, and certainly not English-speaking ones. There are closer, and cheaper, places to get coffee. That's why Meg goes out of her way to come here, where she never runs into anyone she knows.
So what the heck is Roe-bear McCrory doing at Marie-Laure and Sylvie's?
It's just one of those things, surely. Random happenstance or something. It has to be.
(What's the alternative? That he followed her here or something? That seems a little bit paranoid, not to mention ridiculously self-absorbed, doesn't it?)
"Meg?" he says, "How've you been?"
"Fine," she says.
"Me, too," he says. "Professors have been keeping me pretty busy, though. Getting ready for exams and all that. You know, trying to make up all that work I didn't do all fall. You, too?"
Meg takes a moment to be grateful she brought Austen and not Montgomery, as it's a lot harder to pass The Blue Castle off as an assignment. "I've got a lot of reading to do," she says, with a gesture to her book.
"Oh," he says. "Well, if I'm interrupting . . ."
She knows he's waiting for her to say, Oh, no, it's okay, I have a few minutes or words to that effect. And instead she says, "You kind of are, yes."
"Oh," Roe-bear says again.
"There's a table free over by the door now," she adds.
"Oh," he says. "Well, um, maybe another time?"
"Maybe," Meg says, vaguely. "Bye, Robert."
Roe-bear relocates to the table by the door, and Meg goes back to her book. But she can't quite shake the feeling that she's being watched, even though every time she looks up, he's looking somewhere else -- the window, the counter, into his coffee cup.
She tells herself she's being ridiculous.
She hopes she's right about that.
But she sits and reads for almost two hours, anyway, waiting for Roe-bear to leave first.