Seen Reading (2 page)

Breakfast was strawberry Pop Tarts. The boy and Uncle sat in the kitchen blowing on the filling, rolling the toasted pastry around in their mouths. Uncle threw his down on the paper towel, switching it out for coffee. The boy walked his fingers across the table and grabbed the leftover, holding it to his chest like he was planning to store it for the long season ahead. Uncle straightened to scold him, but the boy had started nipping away at the tart like a beast, revelling in his tiny victory.

He saw a glimpse of the boy's mother in those mischievous eyes.

He recalled living on the beach when they were young. His mother had called it a vacation, a summer down by the lake, but they'd lost their home and Mother was ill. He'd gone out into the surf, far too far, his sister's job to make sure he didn't go astray, but he giggled, wading further. A succession of waves had come in and he struggled to stay above water, sucked under and spit out, over and again, scanning the shore each time he broke the surface.

She would come get him. His sister would come get him.

When he finally came ashore safe, his sister was standing by the tent, their mother inside, fading, her eyes as murky as the lake water. His sister would raise him.

Uncle caught himself glaring at the boy. Lord in heaven, he thought. Please don't let the kid have it too.

READER

Caucasian male, mid-40s, with wide part in greying hair, wearing worn leather motorcycle jacket, black jeans, and brown hiking boots.

The Inheritance of Loss

Kiran Desai

(Penguin Canada, 2006)

p 56

It's late afternoon, almost time for dinner. She dangles a bottle of cream soda beside her, out of sight of her nearby daughter who plays beside the barn. She doesn't usually like carbonated beverages — cream soda is her daughter's treat — but she could use one now, something unexpected.

She acknowledges her neighbour, walking over from the next farm. She rents out all the land to him for cattle. She only wanted the barn. She raises her eyebrows in the direction of what's left of the cherry tree newly planted in memory of her late husband. Today, the bull arrived and she and her daughter stood near the electric fence to see which cow he would pick. He picked the cherry tree.

The neighbour inspects the tree's trunk, hopeful there's something he might do to make it better. Instead he nods and shrugs. She shrugs too. What can you do? He starts toward the porch, scratches the inside of his forearm. But then he thinks better of it, crossing back over the long field home, minding he doesn't lose his footing in a gopher hole.

Beside the barn, her daughter lies on the bench, legs up, arms outstretched, eyes shut, imagining what it would be like to fall through the clouds with no parachute, no place to land.

READER

Black female, early 30s, wearing sleek, long coat, high boots, and black-framed glasses.

The Perfect Circle

Pascale Quiviger

Translated by Sheila Fischman

(Cormorant Books, 2006)

p 70

She wakes up on her half of the twin bed. The dorm room sways with each tilt of her head. The roommate came in at some point, she remembers now, then left.

She pulls herself up against the wall and surveys the room in light, a
Rolling Stone
tear of Sinead O'Connor thumbtacked to the wall, curling at the edges. Balls of clothes, some of them hers.

The girl beside her is beautiful. Wavy dark hair, arms laced over her head, a Kafka
t
-shirt riding up to reveal her runner's core. An emptied twenty-sixer of lemon gin sits atop the bar fridge, their first mistake, a tray of Tops Friendly Market's powdered doughnuts beside it, their second. No other mistakes followed. Now, as the sober thoughts pour in, she remembers she'll need to change her tampon soon and begin to think about what to say to her boyfriend.

READER

Caucasian female, early 50s, with short-cropped salt-and-pepper hair, wearing a navy blue wharf coat, collar upturned, faded jeans, hiking boots, and a silver ring on her right pinky

The Selected Stories of Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith

(Norton, 2001)

about three quarters through

She undoes her passenger seat belt to fumble with the buttons of her sweater top. “Slow down a bit; I'm not ready.”

Every Christmas morning, she and the Wednesday night bingo caller at the community centre, her best friend since high school, pack a cooler of champagne and orange juice and hit the highways looking for lonely truckers. They take turns — driver and passenger. While one pulls up beside a rig, the other rolls down the window to flash her naked breasts. If the guy isn't a creep, and they are drunk enough, they let him finish off. Otherwise, it's a quick peek and a perky smile, before they roar ahead to the next rig.

She adjusts the satin scarf around her neck, an early gift from her boyfriend, tightening the knot, packaging herself to look like a stewardess.

“Okay, make this one fast,” she says. “I gotta put the turkey in the oven.”

The bingo caller bursts into schoolgirl giggles and leans on the horn.

READER

Caucasian female, early 50s, with short blond hair, wearing red fleece jacket, dark blue jeans, and bright white sneakers.

Bel Canto

Ann Patchett

(HarperCollins, 2005)

p 22

The tranquility of his morning coffee fractured by peeling squeals, neighbourhood kids roughhousing too far out on the ice without their parents' knowledge. He doesn't have kids, doesn't want them. Would serve them right, he thinks, scratching behind his ear while the bread browns in the toaster. Just enough to scare them, he thinks. The clock chimes, the Black-Capped Chickadee announcing 10:00 a.m. The toast is stuck. He tries to free it with the nail of his index finger. The squeals outside reach near mania and he jumps, burnt. Lunging out to the back porch, he scans the lake, pulling his robe tight to his body one moment, throwing it off the next. Sprinting in slippers over frozen goose shit. One boy in, two on the edges.

READER

Caucasian male, late 30s, with short black hair and goatee, wearing blue bomber jacket, unzipped, hat in lap, sitting by the window.

King Leary

Paul Quarrington

(Anchor Books, 2007)

p 133

It's not hard to imagine the drop from their second floor bedroom window. She's played it out nightly, confident she can kick out the screen in time to shimmy onto the ledge and down to safety, a sprained ankle the worst she'd suffer. And what's a sprained ankle? That's why she arranged for their baby girl to stay at her grandmother's for the night, why she bought an extra pack of Marlboros just in case he finished his own and there wasn't anything left to leave lit on the sofa cushion after he'd fallen asleep and she'd gone up to bed.

READER

Caucasian female, late 20s, with powder-pale complexion and long, brown hair, with pink-and-green stripes down each side, wearing worn leather coat and black boots.

The Glass Castle

Jeannette Walls

(Scribner, 2006)

p 32

As they prepared the next day's lunches, it was her son's job to cut the fruit and veggies. It was the only way he'd eat them. She would just as soon throw a whole apple and carrot into his bag. But he couldn't have anything left over, anything that would require scraping a plate, tossing a core, or shedding a peel. He would only digest that which completely disappeared. He didn't eat food so much as hoard it. As a young child, this required many lectures detailing the significant difference between a grape and a pebble. Or, shelled nuts and a ball of Silly Putty still pressed inside a toy capsule from the shopping mall vending machine.

READER

Black female, late 30s, with short spiky hair and thin arched eyebrows, wearing red trench coat, white dress pants, and open-toed sandals. An open lunch bag sits zipped open in her lap, full of containers of cubed fruit and carrot sticks.

Middlesex

Jeffrey Eugenides

(Knopf, 2003)

p 205

She couldn't yet bait her own hook, but she was able to set it, slowing reeling in the pickerel, her first-ever catch. She butted the rod's handle against her hip as the guide reached out a long arm, steadying himself against the side. No net, no net, he whispered, pinching the line and swinging the fish in to his chest. He scanned the water for other vessels, then relaxed, the promise of celebratory breakfast beer confirmed by his wide grin. He patted her shoulder. She'd done good. Real good.

She adjusted her cap and leaned back into the sun, her eyes watering against the glare of a bright morning sky. The sharp crack startled her. She turned to see the guide's hands tight around the fish's head, a flutter of bright pink fanned out over the bottom of the boat.

READER

Asian female, mid-20s, with short blond hair, wearing thick eyeliner, tight blue jeans, long green sweater, and white flip flops.

The Time in Between

David Bergen

(McClelland & Stewart, 2005)

p 139

The fight was long done, though the dinner plates were still sitting on the kitchen table. They lay beside one another in bed staring at the ceiling, neither wanting to be the first to roll over. She could hear his eyelids clicking. He was looking for clues, filing back through the moments he might have known the fight was about to begin. They'd argued about her hair. She'd cut it all off wanting to look like Mia Farrow in
Rosemary's Baby.
He'd said he liked it, very much, and he did. He'd meant it. But she'd said there was one patch of hair growing out differently. He hadn't noticed. He thought it looked fine, he'd said. He loved her eyes, they were surely the highlight of her head, he'd wanted to add, but he'd waited too long and she'd started yelling, “It's like you can't even see me!” Didn't he see, she'd continued, that suddenly she realized she couldn't trust him to save her in time. In time for what, he'd asked. “I mean, what if a car was coming?” she'd spat. He'd stammered. A car? She hated it when he stammered. He hated it when she'd had too much wine, but he listened, hopeful she would make sense soon. She'd pushed her chair from the kitchen table, abandoning him and their untouched meals. “My point,” she'd concluded, steadying herself against the bannister on her way up to their bedroom, “is that you think it's just hair. But one day it will be the speed of an approaching car that you don't notice. You'll be the last thing I see. And it will be all your fault.”

READER

Black female, late 30s, with long hair, wearing white hoodie under black jacket and tan leather boots

Isobel and Emile

Alan Reed

(Coach House Books, 2010)

p 78.

The lace on his left shoe has snapped. He resents the caution he needs to observe each morning, to tie a crude knot, the monkey in the middle between two rusted eyelets. What was once an act of physical memory — really, he thinks, when was the last time I remember putting on my shoes? — has become as bothersome as the realization that school won't end any time soon. He prolongs taking his shoes off at night, stubbornly carting a dried leaf from the curb through his living room and into the bedroom, its dusty skeleton, laid to rest, beside the shoe rack.

READER

East African male, mid-20s, wearing black leather jacket, black cap, red glasses, and slick lip gloss.

The Retreat

David Bergen

(McClelland & Stewart, 2008)

halfway through

He remembers running up to the Six Spin at the fairground. When he got to the entrance, he froze at the sight of the girl taking tickets. He recognized her from football games, where she sat on the other end of the bleachers, reading by the field lights.

Brigitte — the name he'd given her — was tall for a girl, at least six feet. She wore the requisite carnival uniform, blue polo shirt, and cream-coloured shorts. But, while other attendants wore white sneakers with tennis socks, she wore high-laced black boots with steel toes. Her commitment to the park-regulated blue baseball cap was half-assed, at best, the hat sitting on the edge of her razor-cut black bob.

He hiked up his big brother's hand-me-down jeans, staring up into Brigitte's face as he handed her his tickets, enamoured with the thick makeup outlining her eyes, curving up to her temples. In place of hoop earrings, she wore safety pins; one ear's ragged hole was infected.

She was, in a word, stunning. She was a girl he could want to be.

READER

Caucasian male, early 40s, short and stalky, with bright blue eyes, wearing grey jacket, black scarf, and green cargo pants.

By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept

Elizabeth Smart

(HarperCollins, 1991)

p 41