46. B-Side

Miley Cyrus - When I Look At You


ELLA'S POV


“Are you going to answer that sweetie?” Noah asked as my blackberry vibrated on the table in front of us. I glanced at the screen before shaking my head and forwarding whoever to voicemail. It wasn't a Montréal number and it wasn't a number I recognised.

“I don’t answer numbers I don’t recognise,” I replied. Noah shook his head. I had always done it ever since I could remember. If someone was calling me and they weren’t in my contacts then I wouldn’t pick up.

“Crazy wench. It could be something super important,” Noah said. I raised my an eyebrow at him before taking another sip of my Tia Maria and coke.

“Well, whoever it is can ring back, I’m enjoying my Saturday afternoon,” I said looking around the roof terrace. Although it was only four o’clock, the terrace was packed with people enjoying the afternoon sunshine. I don’t often come as far over as boulevard St. Laurent but Noah had persuaded me seeing as it was “a special occasion” and “you don’t see me often enough”. We had been at B-Side for about half an hour, Noah was enjoying his cheeky ‘Saturday afternoon cigarette’ and a daiquiri. I swear my drink was manlier than his and that was not something to be proud of.

Noah had spent the last month travelling around Europe with a friend from Duquesne whilst I had been in Montréal and had enjoyed telling me about the tales (and the men) he had encountered.

“So we were in this bar, and I ordered a gin and tonic, apparently it’s not the done thing in Munich to drink gin and tonics, they like their beer there, and the barman looked an awful lot like your man friend, whats his face, the hockey player…”

“Jordan-”

“-Jordan, yes Jordan, how is he?” Noah stopped midrant to ask me about my relationship.

“I don’t know. We split up.”

“Oh honey, don’t be stupid, why? He thought the sun shone out of your vayjayjay, what happened?” Noah said crudely as the nearest girl behind Noah turned around to stare at him, her mouth ever so slightly open. He just shrugged in return and mouth ‘vayjayjay’ back at her.

“Noah!” He couldn’t do that to the poor girl – she was turning red now. I carried on, wanting to get this particular part of the conversation over and done with.

“Because he never replied to any of my calls or messages for weeks. I had to end it – I didn’t know what was going on, it was like he effectively dumped me by severing all points of communication when I left Pittsburgh.”

“Holy mother fucker! Well it’s a good job you ended it then sweetie. Anyone else since then?” Noah said taking a noisy slurp of his daiquiri.

“Nope, and I’m quite happy for it to stay that way. KPMG is a lot of work right now and I want to do my best there and see what they say in six weeks time. They’re going to hire one out of the five summer interns and I want it to be me.”

“Bonne chance,” Noah said raising his glass. “To you. May you nail the last six weeks and get that job.” I clinked my glass with his before taking another sip and gazing around the roof terrace.

“So no chance of being reunited with Monsieur Staal?”

“Not a chance. He’s in Thunder Bay, I’m here and I’ll be in Montréal until the end of August and then Dad wants us to go to the Hamptons for a week for Labour Day weekend so that will probably happen. Going there is weird – it’s so false and full of garden parties and brunches and being seen in certain places. Actually, if you’re free, you should come with us, it’ll be hilarious, always is. Félix is taking Rosalie…”

“Oh yah, what’s she like?” Noah said checking out our hot waiter and sending him a not so discreet wink.

“Nice enough, stripper, think you know that part already. She seems a little shallow, out for what she can get with Félix who is head over heels for her and she knows it. It does feel like she’s using him for something. We went out for lunch yesterday on the plateau and she expects him to pay for her – he’s a med student and she’s a stripper. She makes more money than he does.” I felt a little exasperated after my rant on Rosalie but I had needed to say it. Rosalie treated Félix like he was her meal ticket up out of god knows where for a better life. And she’s still working away in that hole.”

“Well she knows that neither you nor Félix is exactly poor. C’mon Ella, it’s written in everything you do. You wear fabulous clothes, Rosalie can see that, she saw your designer purses, your house in Westmount, your car and she knew all of this before you started at KPMG. Félix is the same, nice clothes, car, good manners, disposable income from your allowance from Papa…” Noah trailed off. “So you’re going to try and get rid of her?”

I shook my head. As much as I could see through Rosalie, she made Félix happy and he loved her. Maybe he would see through her when we went to the Hamptons or he might finally realise what she was after. Either way, it’s not my place to intervene and Félix would kill me if I did.

“Out of interest what would you do if Jordan walked in here right about now?” Noah asked.

“What?!” I said looking around expecting to see a tall blonde head amongst the crowd.

“Gotcha. What would you do? Clearly you want to see him.”

“Noah…” I warned. He shrugged and threw his arms up in the air in the way that only the French can do. I shook my head in amusement.

“It’s not as simple as that. I did what I had to do because it felt right, I needed to know what was going on but I didn’t get anything. It was like someone had flicked the ‘off’ button in our relationship and I didn’t know what was going on. If he walked in right now, I would probably say hi, I’m not going to be rude about it. I met this guy who believed that I still loved Jordan, and told me to call him, so I was still on his mind.”

“Aha! Knew there was someone else. He sounds like a smart man. Name?”

“Vinnie, he plays hockey too but he doesn’t know the guy is Jordan.”

“Lecavalier? Oh emm gee sweetie, he’s seriously wow. Why did you kick him out of bed? Introduce me next time yah?” I shook my head not believing Noah’s reaction. Vinnie is hot but nothing happened, was happening or indeed even going to happen and he hadn’t tried anything or done anything to lead me to believe he was interested in the slightest. “OK, let’s play a game,” Noah said. I rolled my eyes but I was still going to play along.

“Cappuccino or latte?” Noah shot.

“Cappuccino,” I replied quickly. That was easy.

“Montréal or New York?”

“Montréal.” Pfft, Montréal is home, always has been, always will be.

“Blonde or brunette.”

“Blonde.” I’m blonde and I like blonde haired guys – end of.

“Black or white, like colour wise, not race,” Noah added hastily, speeding up the rate of his questions.

“White,” I said. The colour black is too dark and depressing.

“Summer or winter?”

“Summer.”

“Raspberry or Strawberry?”

“Strawberry.”

“Sushi or pasta?”

“Sushi.”

“Jordan – love or hate?”

“Love.”

Noah’s mouth opened and closed rapidly like some sort of puffer fish which was quickly stopped by him exclaiming: “I knew it! I knew it! You still love him!” I blushed as the people at the next table turned around to look at him. I apologised for Noah hissing for him to sit down and stop pointing at me. Noah might as well stand up and do a little victory dance on the table. And the choice was love or hate? I didn’t hate him; I don’t think I ever would, I had just needed to end it. I had a lot of great memories with Jordan from first meeting him at lunch in Acapulco to me leaving Pittsburgh – some things I would never forget and never wanted to forget.

“Love or hate?” I asked. “Well I don’t hate him. That’s stupid, Noah.”

“Oh sweetie what are we going to do with you? I should have said like or love, that would have been better,” Noah said lighting up a new cigarette. Even if he had said like or love, I still knew the answer I would have given.

Love.


“C’mon let’s get out of here and then you can tell me all about Monsieur Vinnie,” Noah said grabbing my hand and pulling me out of my seat towards the black metal stairs towards street level. Sometimes he could be so insistent about things and I’m not sure how much there is to tell Noah about ‘monsieur Vinnie’.