#edith garneau

 The list was put off for a while longer, when his phone rang, and he saw that it was his sister calling. He settled on his couch and accepted the call, glad for the distraction.

 “So, have you gone completely bat shit insane yet?” Edith asked as a form of greeting.

 Edward rolled his eyes, not even surprised, “Not exactly – keeping – busy,” He said, even if it was a different kind of it.

 “Decided to remodel the kitchen after all?”

 “No – I might just if this goes on, but – well, I may have found myself with a roommate.” He said, cautious, not wanting to make a big deal out of it.

 Edith was silent for a moment, “How the hell did you manage a roommate during a Global Pandemic?”

 “Well – he’s a friend – he needed a place to stay – and I wasn’t going to let him live on the streets!” He could just imagine the headlines now; famous Canadian musician – darling prince of music of Québec, found homeless on the streets of Edmonton. No. He couldn’t let that happen.

 “That’s – awfully generous of you. Anyone I know?” She sounded skeptical and he couldn’t say he blamed her.

 Edward was very glad his sister hadn’t yet hopped on the whole Zoom bandwagon and hadn’t asked for a video chat. She would have never let him live the sudden tomato-soup look of his face.

 “Sort of?”

 “Tell. Edward tell!” She demanded, suddenly excited at the prospect of hot gossip.

 Edward looked at his ceiling and wondered why he’d even told his sister any of this. She didn’t need to know, but – then again, part of him had been itching to share the fact that Étienne M Maisonneuve was rooming with him. This wasn’t an everyday thing, after all.

 “Remember Les Maisonneuves?”

 Edith was silent for a moment, “Who?”

 “The band I really like,” He said, exasperated.

 “Oh – yeah, your merry group of nobodies. Yeah, what about them?”

 For her information, they were not a merry group of nobodies. They were gaining traction and had even been nominated for a few awards after their last album had come out – thank you very much.

 “Well – one of the members – he was in town and got stuck – so – yeah, he’s here.”

 “Oh, I see.” Edith told him flatly and for one brief, glorious moment, Edward dared to hope that it was the end of this conversation. “Wait – is it the one you fucked?”

 “Edith!” He near shouted, sputtering, appalled, and embarrassed all at once.

 “Oh my God, it IS!” She sounded way too gleeful about this.

 Edward tried to form an answer, but the only things that came out of his mouth were series of incomprehensible sounds that did nothing to convince his sister otherwise.

 “So that’s why you haven’t gone off the deep end with cabin fever – you’re having the gay sex.”

 “Good Christ, Edith! Don’t be crass.” He could feel his face heat up even more. It was one thing discussing sex with a partner, another when his sister made a joke of it. Or reminded him that he was not, in fact, “having the gay sex” and that he would have very much liked to have “the gay sex.”

 “Well – you’re both guys. You’ve fucked each other. Call a boot a boot.”

 “I’m going to hang up.”

 “Oh – hang on – wow, so do you realise that if I hadn’t insisted and threatened you to go to the stupid concert and live a little you would not even be in this situation at the moment. Like you wouldn’t even be getting pandemic laid. You better fucking thank me.”

 “For the love of – we’re not fucking! There is no pandemic gay sex!” He yelled, unable to handle anymore of this. It was a really good thing Étienne was out at the current moment. It would have been even more mortifying otherwise.

 “Wait – you’re telling me you’re actually living some shitty porno plotline and somehow or other you’re not taking advantage of it? How much do you actually hate your life, Edward?”

 “It’s not that!” He defended. “I’m very much well aware of the situation and the – opportunity – but, I’m not just gonna pounce on the guy either. I have class. I’m not that desperate. Plus – I don’t want him to think I’m some weird fetish groupie or something. It’s strange enough we even slept together once – let alone on multiple occasions. Like – the fact that we met because I had a VIP ticket sounds fucking strange on itself. I don’t want to make it weirder.”

 “But you want to.” She stated simply and obviously. “Have the gay sex with him,” She clarified, as if it was really necessary.

 “I’m not stupid, Edith. Sure, it would be great. Yes, I would like to. But – he hasn’t – exactly – made a move either!”

 “What is this? The eighteenth century? You don’t have to court or wait for him to drop his hanky for you. Just talk to him, good God – it’s a miracle you even got each other naked once.”

 “Please stop talking.” He bemoaned.

 “Edward – do me a favour; stop living like an ostrich and live a little.”

 “It’s a Global Pandemic, or did you forget?”

 “I have not, thanks – but please stop being a sad mop.”

 “Fine, but keep out of my business and my sex life!”

 “Fine – but you’re missing an opportunity.” She practically sing-songed and Edward had heard enough. Had been put through the ringer enough. He didn’t need his younger sister to give him “relationship advice.” He was a grown assed man. He would – figure it out on his own.

 “If I tell you I’ll talk it over with Étienne, will you leave me alone?”

 “Only until I remember to bug you about it next time.”

 “How bored are you if you’re that invested in my life, all of a sudden?”

 “For your information, I am living my best quarantine life, thank you very much. You’re the one who brought your boy toy up.”

 “I did not!” He yelled, “And he is not my boy toy!”

 “Maybe we should have a little family Zoom next time – you could introduce me to him.”

 “I swear, I will hang up for real this time!” He said, even though they both knew he most likely wouldn’t.

 “Well, lucky for you, you won’t have to – I gotta run anyways – bye!” She cheerfully hung up and Edward flopped back on his couch, winded and exhausted. He really did need to talk with Étienne. If anything he could – let him know that – if ever he had an itch he needed to scratch – no, that sounded lame. How the hell was he even supposed to tell his celebrity-crush-turned-pseudo-friend-and-roommate that he very much wanted to sleep with him again? And then – how awkward would it be if Étienne had moved on? Obviously, Edward would respect that, but – he didn’t want things to be weird, considering they were living together and had nowhere else to really go to.

 This would be a problem for a different day – his head hurt and he’d given it enough thought for the day.

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I already expect this piece to get less engagement because it's (mostly) not in English, and I'm afraid I'm still going to be more annoying and not provide a translation. As previously I will lean into making a statement Windex-style by purposefully not translating what I've written above into English just because the point of celebrating Franco-Albertan heritage month is, well, acknowledging the unique status of French in this country and how there is an expectation to conform to English in this province that needs a little challenging. I hope if nothing else, it strikes your curiosity enough to painstakingly type it into google translate so you can get half of the banter.

Another question that languished at the bottom of the box for over a year! This was because I felt I should make a real effort to write in French, of course, but also because I struggled with the wording of the question and ultimately didn't answer it. The "most" or the "best" are very loaded terms, so I avoided answering them entirely particularly because we have several languages that risk losing native speakers and because there's a lot of bs wrapped up in what "good" french is that I'm not skilled enough to unpack (though you can read what Windex wrote on this matter earlier on this blog... And here as well).

I have to strike a balance between representing the gang here as individuals (and immortals to boot) who have a lot of time on their hands and some interest and investment in learning languages on one hand... but also as representations of "average" people on the other. Francophone travellers aren't going to find many French speakers outside of airports, national parks, or government services in this province, but it still might surprise you considering all the "everyone outside of Quebec hates French" rhetoric that politicians like to fling around. It's more complicated than that, obviously, but I can mostly talk about my own personal experience with French here. I tried to represent both the reality that Franco-Alberta exists (represented by Ed) and the stereotypical resistance to French here (represented by Calvin, though clearly he understands enough to respond here. I also just think he tries to play dumb on purpose so that others underestimate him, it's all part of the image!)

Finally, I don't speak any of the languages (Michif, Tagalog, Punjabi, Cree) represented here so I hope they pass muster for the purpose of this little comic! ;~;b I have also represented Calvin speaking Mandarin previously on this blog!