“It’s very … sweet,” says Paul, “But zis, zis is not Montreal.”

I shrivel in my seat. One thing you have to know about creative writing workshops, especially in a big university, is that they require the skin of a rhinoceros to get through. Don’t get me wrong, we writers are always polite. There is no name-calling or any other kind of personal insult. Our professor, sleek as a witch’s cat at the front of the room, would never allow it. But when I hear my story, my story, being shredded to pieces by twelve people vastly more mature and talented than I am, it doesn’t matter how politely they do it. Especially when the one doing the shredding is Paul Monsignac.

“Your ‘orse-drawn carriages, your cafés, your ‘snow falling like diamonds’ … ” The fluorescent light falls over his spiked black hair, a forest of thorns. One hand sweeps dismissively across his copy of my story. His other hand adjusts his glasses, the kind of glasses with thick, black, rectangular frames you see in opticians’ commercials. Behind them, he fixes me with eyes as bright as the diamonds he doesn’t want me to mention. Sitting right across from me in the circle we built with our desks, he’s in a perfect position to do it. “It’s cliché.”

“We don’t use that word, remember,” Professor Kaligaris interrupts.

“Sorry. I mean, it’s familiar.”

Familiar. I never thought I’d grow to dislike that word so much. I glance at Cameron Mullins next to me and, sure enough, his mouth is twitching at the corners. I know he must be thinking the same thing, and it makes me feel at least marginally braver. It occurs to me that, in fact, there are still horse-drawn carriages available to the tourists in Old Montreal. If I wanted to avoid clichés, maybe I should have mentioned how old and cranky most of the horses are, or that I stepped in a pile of droppings once. Hardly romantic. But no one can accuse me of making them up.

But that, on the other hand, is a silly defense. This is a fiction workshop after all. I should be making things up. What’s a cliché if not a truth that’s so obvious no one wants to hear it anymore? The truth is no excuse for bad writing, Professor K. likes to say. Beginning writers always protest that they can’t rewrite a story with truth in it, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is whether or not it feels true. Which, to Paul, it evidently doesn’t.

 “You make everyt’ing too easy for your characters, Eva,” says Paul. “You never challenge them. A true story is about ze challenge to be faced. Your characters fall in love, they live ‘appily ever after, et voilà!” He snaps his fingers. I jump. “Your city, it’s a fairy tale. Montreal is dirty, don’t you see it? Zere are ‘omeless people sleeping in ze métro. We ‘ave ze lowest income of any province in Canada and ze ‘ighest taxes, and for some people it becomes a struggle just to live! We ‘ave les deux solitudes, ze English and ze French fighting every day, and zen we ‘ave ze nightclubs and ze bars where every barricade comes down. Montreal is intense, it is passion, it is not zis … bland as a brick of tofu!”

He pronounces it “to-few”, which is unfairly cute. I’ve always known he was the second-smartest person in the room, right after the Professor, and he’s just proven it beyond a doubt. He doesn’t even respect me, let alone anything more … which, just for the record, I wouldn’t have asked from him anyway.

Dear God, please don’t let me cry right now.

I look to Cam for sympathy again, but what I see instead shocks me so much that the lump in my throat unwinds itself like a ball of string. My friend is – there’s no other word for it – glaring at Jean-Luc, his round face flushed with fury, and if you’d ever met Cam, you’d know just how out-of-character that is. Jean-Luc doesn’t even notice.

“All right, Mr. Monsignac, that will do.” Professor K. lifts a regal, black-nail-polished hand to stop him. “Time’s running short, everyone. I can hear the bell.”

Some laugh, because of course our university doesn’t have anything as old-fashioned as a bell. She keeps on talking: her usual wrap-up speech, trying to condense everything all twelve of us have said about the story on the chopping block into a few sentences. Her end-of-class reminders about whose turn it will be to submit stories next week and who will lead the critique. Something about our portfolios, which are due at the end of the month. I can’t focus, even on the nice things she says about my writing, and neither can Cam. He’s fidgeting in his seat, rustling papers, humming tunelessly to himself, then swearing quietly as he dives under his desk for a dropped highlighter.

We need to get out of here.

/

“What a dick,” is Cam’s summary of the afternoon.

“He is not!” Cam scoffs at me. “He was just critiquing. You know, what we’re supposed to do in the workshop.”

“No, no, no. That’s … not what he was … No.”

I wait. We pass by pale yellow walls, rows of gray-green lockers like vertical morgue doors, posters advertising concerts and African war documentaries and LGBTQ Alliance meetings and singing lessons, and the in-house Starbucks outlet as Cam wrestles with what he’s trying to say. He’s about ten times more articulate on a computer than in person. His voice is deep, a little slurred, and very loud. Also … how do I put this politely? He’s not morbidly obese or anything, but he does rather remind me of a young Gerard Depardieu. Or my Dad’s old teddy bear, whose fur is so threadbare that Mom knit a sweater for it. Today, he – Cam, not the bear – is wearing a Batman T-shirt whose bat symbol is almost gone in the wash, baggy jeans, and boots so dirty from the winter slush that they’re brown instead of black. Not that I’m one to talk, since I live in my collection of navy-blue sweaters like a turtle in its shell. We dress like hobos. No wonder the Pauls of this world, male and female, never look twice at us.

“It’s like … it’s like … critique is one thing. When I said you need to make it sorta clearer, like, show us what the girl sees in the guy besides that he’s hot, or … or the typos you made and whatnot … that’s critique. His thing about Montreal … go ahead,” waving me in front of him as we step onto the escalator, “Is … not critique. More of an opinion. And that’s … that’s not what Elena said the workshop’s about.”

Elena is Professor Kaligaris, but for the life of me, I cannot call her that. It’s a side effect of having gone to one of the smallest and most expensive private schools in the West Island suburbs. Cam, who grew up north of Pie IX, doesn’t seem to have this problem.

“But he’s right, though.” I stare at the honey-golden hair and fur-lined hood of the girl in front of me. “Montreal is a tough city. Our assignment was to write something that captures the essence of the place, and I was totally off. It’s all because I’m still living with my parents. All I ever see of downtown Montreal is Saint Catherine’s Street and a couple of museums.”

“There! What you see!” I crane my neck to look at Cam standing one step above me. His brown eyes flash with conviction. “It’s what you see. You’re not the same  … the same sort of person as Paul. His Montreal is a tough city. It’s, like, people jumpin’ in front of the metro and gettin’ mugged and whatnot. But it doesn’t make it any more real, you know? Any more real than yours.” He smiles down at me, proud of himself at getting all this said out loud, then amused when I almost miss the end of the escalator. I grab the black rubber band to steady myself as we step off.

“You mean the essence of a place is subjective?”

“Yeah, subjective. Or whatever. Hey, I wanna show you something.”

“Show me what?”

“You’ll see. C’mon.” He gestures outside, still smiling, and so eager it’s impossible to refuse.

With one rueful glance at the escalator, which could take me down to the metro station in civilized warmth, I take off my backpack, put on the navy blue down jacket I’ve been carrying over one arm, zip it up to the neck, flip up the hood and put my backpack on again. Then, for good measure, I stick my hands in my pockets. Cam just strides out into the snow with his open jacket flapping around him. And a T-shirt underneath. In minus ten degrees Celsius.

“God, can’t you close that jacket?” I yelped the first time I saw him do this, honestly terrified of him coming down with pneumonia or worse. “I’m used to it,” was all he said. After which he spent the entire way making noises in the back of his throat that might have been either humming or moaning.

I didn’t say anything after that, because it’s really none of my business, but now every time he does that, I’m tempted to zip his jacket for him and pull a hat over his red ears. And yet, he hasn’t had so much as a cold in all the four months I’ve known him.

We go up Crescent and along Sherbrooke, moving from Tim Horton’s and Thai Express to the domain of slightly classier coffee shops, art galleries, antique stores, and cozy-looking English architecture left over from Victorian times. There are a surprising number of statues around, all made of iron, all looking as if designed by the same hand: a mother with a baby; a moose; a painfully skinny pony caught in mid-step. Cam tries to tell me about the novel he’s working on, a post-apocalyptic fantasy about magical creatures inspired by Pokémon, which is about all I can gather. Any mention of his work makes him even more incoherent than usual. I understand that. Few things are harder for an artist than to pin down the infinite possibilities of a new project into hard, plain words.

He bends to pick up a crushed soda can in one gloveless hand, and keeps on carrying it even after we pass a garbage bin at an intersection. I reach to tap him on the shoulder, but miss, and my arm hangs in midair as he keeps on talking. But suddenly he spots me, raises his eyebrows, and when I point to the bin – you don’t have to carry that – he ducks his head and mumbles something I can’t hear. Then he shuffles off into the nearest alley between two buildings, to drop his soda can into a green recycling container instead.

Good grief. I knew about his street-cleaning habit, but I didn’t realize it went this far.

I was assigned to read an article once in class about the ruelles or alleys of Montreal, how distinctive they are and how much of life is lived in them, but I haven’t seen many. The only life I can imagine in this place is rats, and possibly some taggers with very little imagination. All they came up with is a few black scribbles along the wall. A truck rumbles past, and the alley is so narrow I have to scramble up a snowbank to avoid it.

 

“Is this what they call a ruelle?” I ask. But what I’m thinking is, you can’t be serious, and some of that must show in my voice, even though Cam has his back to me. His “I … I dunno” sounds deeply embarrassed.

After disposing of the soda can, he makes a slow attempt to climb down from the snow. It’s not high, but it’s slippery, and his arms fly out like the wings of a fledgling. I hold out my hand and he takes it, holding on for balance as he steps down. His hand is cool and dry, slightly chapped in this weather, but I feel a little jolt of heat anyway. This is the first time we have touched.

“Th-thanks, Eva,” he says, neither of us looking at each other.

I’m not used to physical contact. My parents love me, but their way of showing it is mostly to share funny quotes about the movies we watch and ask me how my classes are going. When we hug, it’s almost a formality, reserved for birthdays and Christmases like our candles or an expensive bottle of wine. As for any other kind of touch, unless you count a few slimy kisses from a blind date I had once, I’m completely clueless. What was that just now? I’m not attracted to him, am I? How do I tell the difference between attraction and just plain awkwardness?

“I’m kind of OCD,” he says gruffly as we walk on. “I was in high school when Al Gore’s … Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth came out. You know that movie? So yeah … I was goin’ through this phase … this environmental phase .. and … ” He shrugs, as if to say that even though the phase ended, the habit proved impossible to quit. I imagine a younger Cam, physically aching at the sight of litter, the way I do when I see bad grammar or ridiculous Internet slang (“pwn”, “feels”, “teh”, “for realsies”, “because reasons” – it’s enough to make you want to smash your laptop). Feeling the weight of the whole polluted planet on his shoulders. Young enough to want to save it single-handed. Old enough to passionately care.

I could put my arm around him. Or grab his hand. I could do it right now, if only I were that sort of person, and if I were sure of not offending him. But I’m not, and so I stuff my hands back in my pockets.

“There are much worse habits, you know,” I tell him. “Like drinking or smoking. Or my cheeseburger addiction.”

He grins, and I notice for the first time that they’re not brown at all. They are hazel, with flecks of green in them, like a summer forest.

“Anyway, when do I get to find out where we’re going?”

“My Montreal,” says Cam.

/

“His” Montreal, as it turns out, is a demolition site.

Rubble piles up as high as our heads behind a crooked metal fence. A yellow bulldozer stands idle, its shovel drooping almost to the ground. The houses around us are beautiful, all red brick and bay windows, which makes me imagine that this house must have been beautiful once too. Right now, though, it’s a wreck. I turn to Cam, wondering what he could possibly see in this place, thinking his vision of Montreal must be a pretty bleak one after all. But he cannot tear his eyes away from the mess.

He lifts his head and lets out a sound I’ve never heard anyone make outside of movies, something between a scream and a groan. It startles a black bird perched on a wire into flying away.

“Oh my God,” he croaks. “Oh my God.”

This wasn’t supposed to happen, I realize. He wanted to show me something special, a piece of history, and now it’s been destroyed.

This time, I do put my arm around him, but he doesn’t seem to feel it. I rub his shoulder a bit, like people do in movies, but let go quickly. I’m afraid to intrude on whatever private mourning process he’s going through.

“Excusez-moi.”

We turn around to face the speaker, a man with an oddly boyish face on top of a very tall body. His dark red tuque is stretched so tightly over his hair, it looks as if the hair might pop through like a hedgehog’s spikes. He looks made for smiling, but he’s not smiling now; in fact, he watches the pile of broken bricks with much the same expression Cam does.

“C’est ça, la maison Redpath?” He points.

“Oui,” we chorus.

He sighs, shakes his head, and mutters something in a tone of grim resignation. Cam nods, opens his mouth – and then something happens that, in my eyes, is nothing short of a miracle.

I am anglophone. Incorrigibly so. All the French lessons in the world haven’t stopped me from breaking out in cold sweat every time someone addresses me in it. I’m terrified of sounding stupid, being laughed at, getting my wires crossed with the other person even more than I usually do. But, and I mean that in the kindest possible way, Cam’s French makes me sound like an expert – and neither he nor the stranger seems to care.

“Je peux vous – show you – like – montrer – “ Cam drops his backpack on the ground, fishes out his cell phone, and holds it at an angle so the francophone can peer over his shoulder. “Des photos.”

“Ah, c’est beau!” The stranger smiles. I look over Cam’s other shoulder, standing on tiptoes, and yes, even on a tiny screen with not-so-great resolution, the Redpath House was a place that deserved better.

It had a tower, like a fairy-tale castle, and the bricks were the color of sunset. Some of the windows had been smashed in long before the demolition. It was a place for birds’ nests, for cold ashes in the fireplace, for ghosts in long gowns and top hats whispering along the empty corridors.

The francophone, who introduces himself as Jean, tells the story of the place, with Cam nodding along because, of course, he already knows. Between Jean’s good-natured effort to speak slowly and clearly, the atmosphere of friendship that Cam radiates around us, and my own honest curiosity, I understand better than I would have thought possible. The Redpath House was named after John Redpath, the Scottish founder of the sugar company that still bears his name, one of the richest and most influential men in Montreal. He had it built for his daughter and her new husband in 1898. The thought of newlyweds in that place is a melancholy one; they couldn’t have imagined that a hundred-odd years later, their home would become so neglected that the city council would have no choice but to tear it down.

Still, I cannot bring myself to mourn for the place in quite the way that Cam and Jean do. I cannot feel depressed when I see these two strangers with their heads together, sharing photos, telling stories, even cursing the condo development they’re afraid will be built at this site. I am in awe of Cam’s ability to make friends wherever he goes, without self-consciousness, without fear.

Before I know it, a full French sentence forms inside my head in a way that hasn’t happened since high school: “Vous pouvez lui donner votre courriel, et puis il pourra vous ramener les photos.”

Wait, does ramener mean “send” or “return”? But Jean is already nodding, and I don’t even care.

It turns out he is from the Montreal Historical Society, and he might actually post Cam’s photos on their website. I’m so proud of him I could sing

/

He walks me back to the metro station, still simmering with fury over the takeover of Montreal by soulless and overpriced condo buildings. The sun is low in the sky, striking golden lights off windows, brightening even the statue of Norman Bethune on his plinth, who looks today as if he actually enjoys being perched on by pigeons. My hood blew off somewhere along the way, but for once, I don’t feel the cold.

We come to a stop in front of the swinging doors.

“I, uh … I guess this is it,” says Cam.

“Yeah.”

“Guess I’ll … see you tomorrow, eh?”

“See you.”

I nod politely, but I don’t move. His face is pink from the walk, his brown curls sparkling with snow. If I take one more step, this afternoon will be over, these enchanted hours in which two awkward, nondescript people were transformed into so much more. I don’t want it to end.

I lean in and kiss him. Not on the lips – God forbid this turning into another slimefest like that one blind date – but on his warm, bearded cheek.

He makes a small sound of surprise, but before he can say anything, I dive through the doors.

Down the escalator, past the smells of the Chinese bakery and halal pizzeria. Through the turnstile with my Opus card, down another escalator, sandwiched in among the afternoon crowd of fellow students, all perfume and cigarettes. I must have come this way a hundred times before, but somehow everything is different: the honey shade of the walls, the coffee cup steaming deliciously from an ad poster, the sound of Brahm’s Hungarian Dances fairly bouncing off the busker’s accordeon. I wish I could dance. If that skinny young man in the plaid shirt plays anything I can recognize from my year of ballroom lessons, I just might.

I kissed someone. I can’t believe I did that.

My God, what was I thinking?

The blue-and-white metro whooshes into the station and I chase down the stairs after it, hurling myself through the doors just before they close. I catch the very last seat, next to a woman with such a gorgeous lavender hijab that I’m tempted to stroke it. Everyone looks gray in this light, from the old man slumped over a newspaper in the priority seat to the five-year-old fidgeting with her Hello Kitty doll to the annoyance of her mother. Isn’t anyone else excited about something today? Doesn’t anyone else feel like laughing, or cha-cha-ing down the aisle, or possibly having a panic attack?

Maybe they do, though, and they’re just not showing it. Maybe that old man was a Pulitzer-winning journalist when he was young, and completely underwhelmed with the stuff his young successors are writing. Maybe the mother is single and fed up with raising her child alone, and she’s about to meet a bunch of funny, creative, warm-hearted women who will adopt her as a sister and show the little girl much more interesting ways to play.

Phrases, then sentences, begin to unroll inside me like ribbon from a spool. Finally, finally, without my having to pull them out by force on the Professor’s orders. I still have ideas. I’m still a writer. The next time I have to be workshopped, I will take their advice, but I won’t let them steamroller me. I will improve, but still remain myself.

Thank you, Jesus, Allah, Buddha, whoever’s listening.

Thank you, Cam.

I know exactly how my next story will begin …

/

How to describe Montreal? You might as well ask what history is, or friendship, or even love. No two answers are the same. Montreal is what people make of it.

For me, today, it is a man walking in the snow with his coat open, a man who cleans the streets and rides over language barriers as if they don’t exist. It is a man who doesn’t care how he dresses, who loves history, who is an artist to his fingertips, who carries kindness with him like a candle. The man who cannot speak clearly, but helps everyone around him find their voices – including me. And if this sounds unrealistic, I don’t care. Whether or not it’s true, it should be.

I have found my home, and his name is Cameron.