The Almost

We're standing by your car on P2 and you're doing Tremblay, the whole waitress bit, flat vowels and everything.

"Une p'tite frite, une p'tite frite… deux toasts beurrées, deux toasts beurrées."

I laugh too loud and it comes back off the ramp.

Then it goes quiet the way it does. Neither of us is talking and neither of us is leaving, and my keys have been in my hand for four minutes.

You lean in.

Your phone goes. Not a text — a call, the whole ringtone, three bars of something.

You step back. You say the word "meeting." You get in the car.

The tail lights go up the ramp and the exhaust hangs there under the low ceiling because it has nowhere to go.

I stand by my car on P3 for a while. There's a sign on the wall that says LEVEL 3 / NIVEAU 3, and a smaller one under it that says REMEMBER YOUR LEVEL.