The Dep at Three

The light in here finds every pore. There is no flattering hour at a dépanneur; there is only the hour.

The man behind the counter has worked this shift six years and has watched the whole rotation come through — the post-party crowd at two, loud and generous and buying more than they want; the pre-dawn crowd at four, who are quieter and buy less; and in between them the ones who come in for a single tall can and count it out in change on the rubber mat, unhurried, because there is nowhere after this.

This is where the transactions actually happen. A shared box of Tylenol. Two coffees, one with two sugars. A scratch ticket and a loonie, two heads bent together over it at the counter under the cigarette rack, and the only question of the night that means anything: who paid?

I'm in yesterday's suit. You're in last night's dress with a coat over it that isn't yours, and you're holding the collar shut with one hand the way people do when the coat is not theirs.

We meet at the fridge, between the orange juice and the four-dollar white, in the cold that comes off the glass.

Neither of us says anything. There is nothing to say that the fridge isn't already saying.

You take the wine. I take the juice. He rings us up separately without being asked.