Southbound, Spadina and Dundas — Toronto, ON

Caucasian male, early 30s, with shaggy blonde hair, wearing black-framed glasses, white, collared dress shirt, and light grey dress pants.

Happiness, Will Ferguson (Penguin)

Page 205:

Even Edwin was sorry to see him go. “Nigel, listen. About the incident with the necktie and the pencil sharpener —”

Nigel held up his palm in a small fluid motion, like a Buddhist monk preparing to stop traffic, and said with a soothing voice: “Yesterday’s weather, Edwin. Do not worry about the necktie. There is no need to apologize.”

“Apologize?” said Edwin. “You still owe me 140 bucks. Isn’t that right, Mr. Mead?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Mead. “You’re right. Nigel still owes you for that. Not to worry, Edwin, I’ll make sure that amount is deducted from Nigel’s paycheque — from Nigel’s final paycheque.”

The warm olives arrive and he’s surprised by how many of them there are. He glances peripherally at the waitress, and picks through the olives, gingerly plucking one that looks particularly, safely, tender, and pops it into his mouth, the skin falling free of the pit in one bite. He instinctively grips the bass of his pint glass for comfort, as if reaching for his girlfriend’s hand each night as they fall asleep. The waitress places the rest of the starters between them, nothing that doesn’t require the question, do I use a fork, or not? He grabs another olive, his fingers clumsy in the oil, and manages to palm it into his mouth. This one is tougher. He grinds the flesh in his front teeth while the man sitting across from him pours the last of his wine into the fresh glass that’s just arrived, passing the empty glass to the waitress who waits. He takes a long sip off the top of the glass, and continues. “I’m really happy to hear this. I was going to tell you to leave a month ago. Truly.” He plucks a fritter from the basket, dipping it into the sauce, biting, then dipping again. “Honestly, it’s high time you put you first, son. You’ve worked hard.”

He drops the pit onto his side plate, his hand falling palm up on the table. Relief. He isn’t just putting himself first; he’s putting his best foot forward.

July 29

Westbound, Bloor and Broadview — Toronto, ON

Caucasian woman, late 20s, with long brown hair in hair-band, wearing tan skirt, white tank top, and pistaschio-green sweater.

Mistress of the Sun , Sandra Gulland (HarperCollins)

Page 217:

In the weeks that followed, Petite rode with the King and his men almost every afternoon. She astonished them, riding in close behind the hounds and proving to be steady, fearless and strong, as good with a spear as any man. In a race, it was sometimes Petite who pulled into the lead, and sometimes the King. The couriers could not keep up.

She can’t recall how they became best friends, but remembers the end. Just as school let out for summer, he moved to town, but not to her neighbourhood. They were in the same grade, but that’s not how you make best friends. Your best friend lives next door, across the street, or, occasionally, two yards behind you. Your best friend can be in your class, but it’s not mandatory. Street rules: a nine-year-old and a seven-year-old have more than enough in common if all they do is toss a ball in the street until dinner’s called. And if the parents are willing to check your mail while you’re out of town, both households are on good terms.

He lived a bike ride away — twenty-three minutes, to be exact — on the other side of a bridge. They strolled ravines, straddled fallen trees, and the only time she met his father was the day he hoisted her bike into the wide trunk of his Cadillac and drove her back over the tracks as her mother was about to lock the screen door. The mother pinched her night robe closed at the neck, face-to-face with the father, his suit jacket sitting in the back seat of the car, his tie’s knot wrestled loose to sit on his left collarbone, his hand ushering her over the threshold with a gentle, and final, pat.

Read Be Seein’ Ya. Thanks for three great years!

~~~

Caucasian woman with blonde hair, wearing white and black sleeveless top, and black pants. First reader of the last set, she crosses the stage to a mic under a still dark night and addresses the Scream survivors still planted on the grass, ready to listen.

The Night is a Mouth, Lisa Foad (Exile Editions)

Page 82:

“Right, right. But listen, Gold. If you ever find yourself sitting in a city made of hunger, cut its heart out or it’ll eat yours. No joke. And Gold, if you talk to your mother, tell her I love her. Tell her that I didn’t do anything wrong. And tell her that if I did, it’s partly her fault. Because we’re a team.”

“Dad—”

“Okay, okay. Bye, darling.”

Seconds later, the phone rings. Sure enough, it’s Gold’s mom.

“Gold, it’s your mother.”

“My mother’s dead.”

The woman sitting two rows down leans forward, her chin in her hands, her chin on her knees. She strokes her shoe laces, tracing them past each eyelet to the end of their road, her fingers perilously edging over the tip of her sneakers. The man beside her reaches over, places his forearm lazily across her shoulder, his finger just able to twirl the longest strand of her curly hair around his index finger. He tugs gently; she likes the tingle. He kisses her clothed shoulder, and she sits back into his shoulder. Breezy readings come but once a year.

~~~

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Westbound, Bloor and Pape — Toronto, ON

Black woman, early 40s, wearing white sleeveless shirt, grey dress capris, thick-soled black sneakers, and carrying a turquoise leather purse.

Sweeter Than Honey, Mary B. Morrison (Kensington)

Page 56:

There was so much I’d learned from observing a man’s body language, listening to his speech patterns, and reading between his words that I could teach a class on how to recognize an abusive man before he strikes from the inside out.

The instructor looked up when she walked in the room, nodding gently, encouraging her to take a seat, near the front if she was comfortable. She made her way through the maze of tables to the back, plucked a croissant from a tower of pastries, and shoveled a few pieces of melon and pineapple onto a side plate. Every level of management was present, Junior to Partner. Through the sliding dividers, she could hear the other session underway, “How to Write an Effective E-mail.” The instructor at the front of the room straightened her jacket and adjusted her lapel mic, the images of two brains projected on a blue screen above her head. We’ll get started shortly, she announced. And, for the first and last time, she continued, I’m going to ask you to stand and switch seats. Boy. Girl. Boy. Girl.

Southbound, Yonge and College

Caucasian male, late 20s, with long dark hair, wearing plain white T-shirt, brown cargo shorts, and black pool slide sandals.

Micro Fiction: An Anthology of Really Short Stories , Jerome H. Stern, Ed. (W. W. Norton & Company)

“The Poet’s Husband” by Molly Giles

He sits in the front row, large, a large man with large hands and large ears, dry lips, fresh-cut hair, pink skin, clear eyes that don’t blink, a nice man, calm, that’s the impression he gives, a quiet man who knows how to listen; he is listening now as she sways on the stage in a short black dress and reads one poem about the time she slit her wrists and another poem about a man she still sees and a third poem about a cruel thing he himself said to her six years ago that she never forgot and never understood, and he knows that when she is finished everyone will clap and a few, mostly women, will come up and kiss her, and she will drink far too much wine, far too quickly, and all the way home she will ask, “What did you think, what did you really think?” and he will say, “I think it went very well” — which is, in fact, what he does think — but later that night, when she is asleep, he will lie in their bed and stare at the moon through a spot on the glass that she missed.

They’ve been dating for over a year now, on and off, mostly off, especially if you count the six weeks she travelled abroad, which he does, and they agreed they shouldn’t be exclusive not knowing if, or when, they’d take the next step, the next step itself unclear, and even more so because he did stay exclusive, while she didn’t, which isn’t really even the reason he started to let himself think about this again, it’s his writing, and her back yard, which is large, and tree-covered, and has that little shed that she once suggested way-back-when he could turn into a studio, if they took the next step, but she was at a reading with her friends, and the beer was free, and he didn’t know her well enough yet to know if he should believe her, or if he even wanted to look far enough into a future in which he didn’t have another girlfriend, or was the guy who didn’t fool around in those six weeks, just the guy who wonders what kind of guy he is that he will miss that shed more than her now that he’s finally decided.

#64 Queen St. S

Caucasian female, mid-30s, with brown curly hair (blonde highlights), sunglasses, cute jean skirt and teal top, sporting a black book bag, and blissfully reading Atonement.

Chapter 1:

At the age of eleven she wrote her first story – a foolish affair, imitative of half a dozen folk tales and lacking, she realised later, that vital knowingness about the ways of the world which compels a reader’s respect. But this first clumsy attempt showed her that the imagination itself was a source of secrets: once she had begun a story, no one could be told. Pretending in words was too tentative, too vulnerable, too embarrassing to let anyone know. Even writing out the she saids, the and thens, made her wince, and she felt foolish, appearing to know about the emotions of an imaginary being. Self-exposure was inevitable the moment she described a character’s weakness; the reader was bound to speculate that she was describing herself. What other authority could she have? Only when a story was finished, all fates resolved and the whole matter sealed off at both ends so it resembled, at least in this one respect, every other finished story in the world, could she feel immune, and ready to punch holes in the margins, bind the chapters with pieces of string, paint or draw the cover, and take the finished work to show to her mother, or her father, when he was home.

—Monique

Eastbound, Bloor and Chester

Caucasian male, mid 30s, with short red hair and beard, wearing blue collared T-shirt, khaki pants, and brown leather shoes. He carries a black, nylon crush-proof laptop case.

The Retreat, David Bergen (McClelland & Stewart)

Page 7:

There were falcons nesting in the spruce trees just next to the clubhouse. They lifted and settled and one circled high in the air, a black dot barely visible against the darkening sky. A mother bear with her cubs had been spotted the day before, ranging the bush between the fifth and sixth fairway. A family of deer came and went on the ninth green; every morning he found their hoofprints on the soft green. This was the order of the world.

His grandfather’s study always smelled of tobacco and pine scent. It was the only room in the house in which he was allowed to smoke. His friends partook of the pipe, but never in this study. They had rooms of their own, and grandchildren who held the cup steady, swiveling it ever so to the left or right, the hollow tinkle of the golf ball echoing inside the tiny chamber.

Northbound, Spadina streetcar — Toronto, ON

Black male, mid 50s, with short, grey hair, wearing black glasses, forest-green sweater, brown cords, and carrying a black laptop bag.

A Journey to the Center of the Earth , Jules Verne (Simon & Schuster)

Page 88:

But if the heavens and the elements are capable of causing us much pain and sorrow, there are two sides to a medal. And there was reserved for Professor Hardwigg a brilliant and sudden surprise which was to compensate him for all his sufferings.

How do we define progress, he wonders. One man runs at top speed, head held high, looking to the distance; another purposefully places one foot in front of the other, head down, looking at each crack in the sidewalk as steps from stone to stone. The man who runs fastest and furthest is heading toward a wall where he’ll crash to the ground unconscious, never to wake. The other will walk into traffic, looking up only in time to meet the eyes of a shocked driver. Life is always changing, he thinks. Which life would he rather live?

Julie Wilson

Heaven is Small launch, Supermarket — Toronto, ON

Caucasian woman, 30s, with short, curly dark hair, wearing black dress with satin sash, tight soccer calves encased in black nylons. She steps away from the microphone to sit with fellow author, Brian Francis.

Heaven is Small, Emily Schultz (House of Anansi Press)

Page 34:

She was one of the youngest, her cheeks still puffed with dorm-room cider. There was a blemish along her jaw that had not vanished in the week Gordon had been at Heaven, but her eyes were absolute amber and her collarbone was incomparable. Blink.

Both authors are from the Chatham-Windsor corridor, a stretch you never leave, or never return to.

September 3, 1999. A reason to leave, if any. Driver after driver sailed blindly into the back of one another, a ten, now 87, car pile up, until the fog cleared, or someone knew better, or maybe anyone who needed to get to work had hit the road, their coffee in the cup holder, the cassette playing subliminal diet tapes, R&B, or the radio tuned into WRIFF, Detroit’s heavy rock. The on ramps would have crawled to a halt, the bare arm of someone who’d never made a difference angled out the window, circling backwards, Hold, while children still slept at home, or maybe only just woke to cartoons, and a bowl of dry Rice Krispies counted down to milk.

Julie Wilson

Westbound, Bloor and Pape — Toronto, ON

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

Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy (Vintage)

Page 117:

It grew cold in the night and it blew stormy with wind and rain and soon all the wild menagerie of that country grew mute. A horse put its long wet face in at the door and Glanton looked up and spoke to it and it lifted its head and curled its lip and withdrew into the rain and the night.

In school he saw a film he didn’t understand. It was quiet and blue, and the girl who made it was shy and pretty. Everything was blue. From the bath water, to the kitchen kettle, to the drapes softly suckled by the slightly open mouth of a screenless window. When the horse appeared from the fog, it too was blue for a time until it lumbered closer to the camera where it was so clearly chestnut that the man began to cry.

Julie Wilson