Three Days in Montreal

[noteful]

Meg gets back to McGill Thursday night and all she wants is a decent night's sleep, in her own bed.

The fire alarm goes off at 1:00.

And again at 2:15.

And at 3:20.

And 4:45.

Prank or malfunction, Meg has no idea, nor does it really matter, as she struggles into her robe and loafers and trudges out of the building again.

On Friday morning, she has coffee for the first time since she broke her ankle.

She thinks about calling Alain and telling him that she can't, she just can't, make dinner tonight, but tired as she is, she really wants to see him.

He's on his feet and headed over to meet her almost the second she opens the door to the cafe. "Meg?" he asks, "Are you all right?"

(He's worried, she knows, because he asks in English. They probably speak French 75% of the time, but she's noticed that he switches to English when he's concerned, and she suspects it's to make it easier for her.)

"It's been a very long week," she says. "That's all."

Alain pulls out her chair, waits till she's settled, and then sits opposite her, studying her for a moment. "You need a vacation," he declares. "Soon. Now, even."

Meg laughs. "Alain, it's practically the end of the semester. I'll worry about that in the summer."

"How about this weekend? Take forty-eight hours and pretend you are not a university student."

"I can't," she says, without thinking about it.

"No? Meg, how many of your assignments do you have left to complete this semester?

"They could assign more," she says.

"Before Monday? How?" he says, but doesn't wait for her to answer. "Come on, take two days off. We can go visit my favorite aunt and uncle. You've met Oncle Sylvain, he owns the restaurant. And Tante Ginette adores having company. And I think you'd like her. And she will make sure we are properly . . . what is the word . . . chaperoned at all times."

"I just can't," she says.

He has her talked into it before they order dessert.

Ginette Gagné has striking green eyes and wears her blonde hair swept up in the sort of bun Meg is more used to seeing in illustrations from the previous century. Meg suspects she'd be taller than the other woman even if Ginette weren't confined to wheelchair.

His aunt glances over at Alain for a moment, waves him off with suitcases and instructions and turns her attention to Meg.

"He said you were beautiful, chère, but I assumed he was exaggerating at least a little."

Meg is still looking for a way to respond to that when Ginette reaches out and touches the edge of Meg's sweater. "You did not find this in a shop, did you?"

"No, I made it," Meg says.

When Alain comes back downstairs five minutes later, he finds his girlfriend and his aunt already deep in discussion about sweater patterns and where to find the best yarn in Montreal. And grins, and goes to make tea.

In the afternoon, Meg and Alain take a long walk around his aunt's neighborhood, and Meg realizes that for the first time in a week, she can't feel any tension in between her shoulders. Alain picks up pizza on their way back; his uncle won't be home till very late, dinner is very casual, eaten watching movies dubbed into French.

Meg falls asleep somewhere in the middle of the second one, curled up against Alain. She wakes up when the clock the mantle quietly chimes 3:00 AM.

"You should have woken me up," she tells Alain. "You didn't have to let me --"

"I did not want to wake you up," he says. "And I didn't mind."

"Still," Meg says. "Your arm has to be asleep."

"My arm is fine," he tells her, and to prove his point, uses it to pull her up close enough to kiss her.

The mantle clock is chiming half past by the time Meg actually makes it upstairs and into her own room.

If Sylvain and Ginette are surprised when she comes downstairs the next morning and asks if she can go with them to church, neither shows it. They go to the early mass, Ginette tells her, so that Sylvain can will be ready for the brunch crowd that comes into the restaurant after the later services. Meg finds the mass to be both like and unlike what she's used to, thought-provoking and beautiful.

She and Alain go for brunch later, and take a circuitous route back to his aunt and uncle's house, his arm comfortably across her shoulders. "Thank you," she tells him. "You were right; I needed the break. And your aunt and uncle are wonderful."

"You're welcome. Tante Ginette likes you. You should visit her again."

"I'd like that." She pauses, and then says, "I think you might be more than I deserve, Alain."

"Do you know," he says, "five minutes ago I would have said that you were not capable of saying something both inaccurate and foolish?"

"Alain--" she starts.

"Hush," he tells her.

"All right," she says, laughing and holding up her hands. "All right. I'll just say, I'm very glad you bought a ticket for the wrong performance of that play."

"So am I," he says. "So am I."