Caucasian woman, late 20s, wearing all black, head of brown, soft unruly curls the perfect accessory to her tidy, tight words.

Dani Couture, three time Taddle Creek contributor, reading “Atonement”:

Atonement

On the side of the highway,
in August, on full stomach,
I picked the already thin
blueberry bushes clean.

And for a year afterward
the bears roamed hungry–
picked off campers in crisp red tents
as they were offered up in return.

Clipping, late for work. A few quick sips of espresso warms her belly, toasted rye and jam chilling in her palm of paper towel. The path is straight and timely to the main road but she veers, the concrete giving way to solid soil, the odd crumpled leaf, through a circle of Asian women, quipping away, wide circles rushing morning air to their lungs.

(Read one of my stories for Taddle Creek, “Bunkie.”)

Caucasian woman, early 30s, with a short brown razored bob, wearing a long black coat and amber ring.

October Horse, Colleen McCullough (Simon & Schuster)

Page 276:

The next moment he was lifted off his feet, squashed in an embrace that drove the breath from his lungs, the smell of her in his nostrils–ink, paper, stale wool, leather of book buckets. Porcia, Porcia, Porcia!

The ring is her mother’s, plucked when she was ten from the box in the basement, The Laughing Buddha turned toward her, his perpetual grin mistaken for anguish, pain. She never stole again. But she did steal that once, turning the Buddha to face the drying ivy.

Caucasian woman, mid 30s, with auburn bob and black winterwear jacket, fingerless gloves giving easy access to iPod pressure points.

Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland (HarperCollins)

Page 99:

Skitter was every parent’s worst fears of a daughter’s dream date. He lived in a moss-roofed 1963 cereal box in darkest Lynn Valley atop an unmown lawn sparked with gasoline burns and neglected auto parts.

She’s a brilliant publicist, a crappy negotiator, selling her wares daily, making profit in places that won’ t translate into an increase in her direct deposit. For the love of…

Caucasian woman, early 20s, with long black hair and black framed glasses, wearing a B&W checkered wool coat, collar popped, resting high against the base of her skull.

The Shadow Boxer, Stephen Heighton (Knopf)

Page 151:

Still no sign of the strip of night clubs Eddy described. Against the lights he dekes across a six-lane avenue walled by office buildings whose blockish facades amplify the traffic till it seems a motorcade of tractor-trailers must be bearing down on him.

When they met he was soft. She felt it when he hugged her at the end of their date, gentle and forgiving around the middle. So when they slept together she wasn’t surprised by his top layer of padding, not unlike her mattress at home. She came to look forward to their evenings, her cheek resting solid against his chest. With such support she found she could sleep undisturbed for hours. But as he slipped out of bed that morning, into his trousers, she saw it and wondered, When had that happened? When had he developed the butt of her mother?

Caucasian woman, early 30s, with curly brown hair, ends slightly frazzled from where the rain made its way inside her hood. She wears a full length denim coat, collar up, her nose warmed by the scarf she wears wrapped round high.

Late Nights on Air, Elizabeth Hay (McClelland & Stewart)

Part way in:

An upper lip as downy as he imagined her legs might be. And yes, when she stood up later and came around the table, her legs were visible below a loose blue skirt, and the mystery of her voice was solved. She was European. European in her straightforwardness, her appearance, her way of speaking, which was almost too calm, except when the page was alight. Then her voice caught fire.

A chicken and avocado wrap with sprouts for crunch. A mandarin orange, banana and tightly wrapped bundle of celery sticks. Calcium pill with magnesium, multi-vitamin and vial of ginseng. Thermos of vanilla soy milk and a container of frozen fruit in the staff fridge. But it’s the dark chocolate pudding cup she’s thinking about, the one she had for breakfast, licking both sides of the spoon, three times over.