But she could never have told him about Benjamin. She had been hoping—in a wistful, unconscious way—that the two of them would never have to meet.

The party at Table Four was signaling for her. This was, Amelie recognized, a truly shitty day.

She forced herself to say that she was living with a guy and that it might not be all right for Roch to come over, she just couldn’t say, maybe he ought to phone up first. There was a very long silence and then Roch’s voice became very sweet, very ingratiating: “All right, look—I just want you to be happy, okay?”

“I’m serious,” Amelie insisted.

“So am I. I’d like to meet this guy.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Hey! I’ll be nice. What is it, you don’t trust me?”

“I just—well, call me, all right? Call me before you do anything.”

“Whatever you want.”

She waited until the line went dead, then stood with her forehead pressed against the cool glass of the enclosure. Took a breath, smoothed a wrinkle out of her uniform, forced herself to turn back toward the tables.

George was standing there—hands on his hips, a monumental frown. “You know you’re not supposed to use this phone.”

She managed, “I’m sorry.”

“By the way, the corner table? The party that was waiting for the bill? They had to leave.” Now George smiled. ” Tracy took your tip.”

* * *

She was out of the place by nine.

Nine o’clock on a Friday in October and Yonge Street was crowded with the usual … well, Amelie thought of them astypes. Street kids with leather jackets and weird haircuts. Blue-haired old ladies in miniskirts. Lots of the kind of lonely people you see scurrying past on nights like this, with no discernible destination but in a wild hurry to get there: heads down, shoulders up, mean and shy at the same time. It made her glad to have a home to head for, even if it was only a shitty apartment in St. Jamestown. Shitty but not, of course, cheap—nothing in this town was cheap.