Seen Reading (3 page)

He slips out, leaving his lover asleep, and makes his way down the hill to the bay. He sits on the steps, pulls his hoodie over his head to shade his eyes from the glare off the water. A radio plays somewhere down the channel, a sample of early '80s soft rock. He slips off his shorts and hoodie, shielding his penis from the breeze. He inches a step lower and dangles the fingers of his free hand into the water. A spider waxes the surface. He holds himself safe, eyeing a stripped birch branch bobbing against the shoreline, and indulges in a lazy tug set back from view before gliding into the water for the first of twenty laps.

READER

Black male, late 40s, wearing dark suit, striped tie, and leather shoes, carrying Roots backpack with compass key chain.

A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You

Amy Bloom

(Random House, 2000)

p 50

She settles into his chest, the bathwater rising around her collarbone. He strokes her arms, her thighs, reaches below the water and rests his fingers on her hips, tapping. It's her decision. She rolls over, rests her breasts against him, kissing his neck below the scar. He wraps his arms around her, satisfied with her gesture. They'll make it another day.

READER

Caucasian female, early 40s, with short strawberry blond hair, wearing simple silver stud in left nostril, long green coat, and crushed velvet scarf, carrying teal umbrella.

Not That Kind of Girl

Catherine Alliott

(Headline Book Publishing, 2005)

p 166

In grad school, he saw a film he didn't understand. The girl who made it was shy and pretty and always sat in the front row. The film was quiet and blue. Everything so blue. From the bathwater, to the kitchen kettle, to the drapes softly suckled by the slightly open mouth of a screenless window.

When the horse appeared out of the fog, it too was blue. As it lumbered closer to the camera, he'd begun to cry, the horse's last laboured breaths indistinguishable from the cloud cover.

She'd turned in her chair to look back at the boy awash in blue, the boy in the orange shirt.

READER

Caucasian male, mid-50s, with scruffy white hair, wearing glasses, tan pants, burgundy sweater, and brown leather boots.

Blood Meridian

Cormac McCarthy

(Vintage, 1992)

p 117

She buys the jacket across the border at an army surplus store. She talks the owner down to twenty bucks. It's heavy brown suede, each of its cuffs worn into a smooth crease from years of rolling. It zips flat up the front, to the middle of her ribs, but not over her chest. It's a man's jacket, after all. She adjusts the collar, snapping it high, even though it falls limp almost immediately.

It comes with a receipt in the breast pocket: five bucks of gasoline from a station one town over, and a tissue crumpled over a chewed-up piece of gum in a Big Red wrapper and the filter of a Marlboro. A day's worth of sour breath, left to curdle second-hand.

READER

Caucasian female, early 30s, wearing black jeans, black-and-white sneakers, worn brown suede jacket, and headphones, carrying orange courier bag.

Prozac Nation

Elizabeth Wurtzel

(Houghton Mifflin, 1994)

p 101

She stands outside the apartment, half-drained bottle concealed inside a knotted plastic bag, the result of a sidebar session in the subway washroom after she received the text saying that he'd be at the party. Talking. Talking about politics. Talking about war. Talking about things that matter to her. Things she promised herself she wouldn't talk about anymore at parties because she becomes That Girl. The one who talks about politics at parties. The one who reacts to what you say.

READER

Asian female, early 20s, wearing blue-and-red knitted cap, jean jacket under black vest, and jeans rolled high over black biker boots.

Ticknor

Sheila Heti

(House of Anansi Press, 2005)

p 65

There are only twenty-six underground parking spaces in her three-storey building. She's occupied
#
18 since 1997. He's had
#
20 since 2003.
#
19 became vacant in 2005, left free for visitors if they reserved ahead of time. Seeing one another through the empty space, they rarely say a thing. Occasionally they lift their travel mugs to one another to greet the day, or pause long enough to wonder aloud in unison if the superintendent will ever get around to fixing the faulty door on the shared washing machine. This weekend,
#
19 wasn't empty. Out of province plates. Soft leather briefcase in back. Diet cola can in the cup holder. Monday morning, the car was gone, an oil stain marking the centre of
#
19, the diet cola can sitting under the No Smoking sign, ashes flecked around the tab. They peered at one another through the gap between their spaces, got into their cars, and checked their mirrors for oncoming traffic.

READER

South Asian female, mid-50s, with curly

shoulder-length hair pulled back in loose ponytail, wearing fine gold-rimmed glasses and black jacket.

Feels Like Family

Sherryl Woods

(Mira, 2010)

p 113

Her grandmother's Chrysler Imperial rumbled down the road away from the farm and into the city for supplies, leaving her, 12 years old, with a squawking parrot and a nearly blind woman scanning the excessively large print of Thomas Hardy's
Far from the Madding Crowd.
No pages to turn, she curled her shoulders forward, biting her nails, and clearing her throat to punctuate the silence, reminding the woman she was still in the room. She focused on the woman's fingernails, soft pink and peeling like discarded clam shells. The parrot called for dinner. “Oh, balls,” the woman proclaimed, pushing herself back from the table, startled by the sudden surprise of a young stranger beside her.

READER

Asian female, 30s, with long brown hair under white knit cap, wearing blue peacoat and jeans tucked into white leather boots.

The Book of Negroes

Lawrence Hill

(HarperCollins, 2007)

p 87

When had she abandoned her dream to become a rural mail carrier, to drive on the shoulder, to back up against the flow of traffic like a clown car in a Shriners' Parade, to shower each package's recipient with a handful of wrapped candy?

READER

Caucasian female, mid-20s, with blond hair

clipped up, wearing red peacoat,

white leather purse, and grey
ugg
s.

Total Control

David Baldacci

(Grand Central Publishing, 1997)

p 130

For the third night in a row, he'd dreamt of his colleague. In the dreams, they never touch. They don't kiss. You couldn't even really say they hugged. They lean against one another in the break room while they eat their simple cheese and lettuce sandwiches, breast to breast, chin to shoulder, delighting in the explicit domesticity of their inferred affair.

READER

Caucasian male, 50s, with silver hair and jet-black eyebrows, wearing long wool coat and wraparound earmuffs.

Mordecai, The Life & Times

Charles Foran

(Knopf, 2010)

p 41

From his hospice bed, he stares at the framed 1819 aqua tint of the boxer Tho. Shelton, brought by his son from home. Shelton stands at the ready, fists raised and loosely clenched, razored bangs combed forward into a handsome peak, pencil-thin sideburns tracing the line of his square jaw. But it's the bloated belly below the tie of the boxer's pants he's taken with, and the way the boxer's frame leans like an expectant mother, hips jutting forward. A grandchild, he thinks, how wonderful, and rests the phone back in its cradle.

READER

Caucasian male, with short brown hair, wearing blue tuque, green scarf, and red-and-white striped second-hand sweater

Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife

Mary Roach

(Norton, 2005)

p 79

This morning, he woke up on the edge of pleasure, the taste of foil hitting the back of his tongue, double chocolate licked from the wrapper of a pudding cup. His lunch bag holds the remnants of last night's dinner, a rushed mash of canned peas, boiled potatoes, and breaded chicken thigh. But for today's lunch he'll have to go without dessert.

READER

Caucasian boy, 11–12 years old, with soft brown curly hair, wearing faded blue cable-knit sweater stretched about the shoulders and waist.

One Beastly Beast

Garth Nix, illustrated by Brian Biggs

(HarperCollins, 2007)

p 35

Watching her reflection in the television screen, she practices smoking, leaning heavy into the couch cushion. Her friends look silly when they try to light a cigarette, wincing as if on
Fear Factor
and asked to chew through a hundred-year-old egg. She doesn't see the point if you're not going to enjoy it. Which is not to say that she does. She's looking for things to be remembered for after they've graduated, gotten soft, and had three children with men they met at their first jobs. As if, twenty years from now, they'll gather for a girls' weekend and the prettiest of them will note the curl of smoke escaping her lips, washing over her tongue like mist, and sigh, “You always were the cool one. And you haven't changed a bit.”

READER

South Asian female, early 20s, with short brown bob, wearing white wool sweater underneath open blue peacoat, three charms hanging from a long golden chain around her neck.

Herzog

Saul Bellow

(Penguin, 2003)

p 105

He's a young boy, about ten, moving his tray along the rails, considering the desserts.
jell-o
, red and green cubes, in a glass sundae dish, topped with a hardening dollop of piped whipped cream. Milk chocolate pudding in a glass dish, topped, again, with a hardening dollop of piped whipped cream. A glass bowl of creamy rice pudding with raisins. Something layered and spongy with a dusting of chocolate slivers. He lifts it and smells. Alcohol.

A cuckoo clock strikes the hour and he turns to scan the dark wood-panelled wall. A bird slides in and out of the clock with each chime, while a lederhosened couple chase each other around its base.

He looks toward the long hall leading to the women's washroom, back to his table and his grandmother's beige purse, tan overcoat. She has trouble swallowing, and she's been gone a long time.

READER

Caucasian male, early 40s, settled deep into easy chair, legs crossed at the ankle.

The Communist's Daughter

Dennis Bock

(HarperCollins, 2007)

p 177

He's a boy again, riding his bike, its wheels threaded with raw meat. The dog soon catches up and nips at his heels, drool wagging from its jaw. He pedals faster and loses his footing, the flesh of his ankle peels back to resemble the soft interior of the dog's mouth. He pushes his heel to the dog's forehead until it whimpers into submission. He rides off. When he looks down again, the dog's teeth chatter loose the spokes, some studding in his calf, trailing red ribbons.

READER

Caucasian male, wearing black knitted cap with Canadian crest, Sony headphones, brown cords, green plaid dress shirt, and black West Beach jacket.

Slaughterhouse-Five

Kurt Vonnegut

(Dial Press Trade Paperback, 1999)

p 48

Her husband surprised her last night. It was bright and soft, friendly and forgiving, and placed beside the toilet in time for her next treatment.

She rested her cheek against his forehead and held him as he wept.

READER

Black female, early 30s, with shaved head and pencilled-in eyebrows, wearing all black, carrying black-and-hot-pink backpack, black-and-hot-pink padlock attached to zipper.

Town House

Tish Cohen

(HarperCollins, 2007)

near the beginning