She forgot, and now her lips ablaze with long-lasting metallic pearl. She’s afraid she’ll see someone she knows and they’ll ask after her and she’ll have to say, No, no she passed on. So young, they’ll say, their eyes stuck on her lips. Yes, she’ll say, straightening the length of her jacket. Yes, she was far too young. God bless, they’ll say.
Her daughter was so pale and small, but the therapist said she was ready for visitors. She’d gone to the store not knowing what girls her age like these days. She herself had only ever worn one shade of red. Looking lost at the counter, she’d let a young woman around the same age as her daughter show her samples. I don’t know what she likes, she’d said. She looks different every week. She’d bought the lot, approaching the hospital room with her shopping bag full. It was cause for celebration, a whole spoonful of oatmeal.
She’d been raised not to waste money, so she saved the lipsticks in her daughter’s Hello Kitty make-up case, rising each morning to put on the kettle, the fm radio, and her indoor lipstick.
But today she forgot, and now she’s out in the world, and it’s written all over her face.
READER
Caucasian female, 50s, with curly black hair and orange lips, wearing black wool coat and patterned silk scarf.
Fables of Brunswick Avenue
Katherine Govier
(Harper Perennial, 2005)
p 155
Pricks
She sat on the edge of the schoolyard. While football players ran through tires and sprinted the length of the field, she drew a thick ankh in black Sharpie across her pale ankle. She pulled her black hood forward over her face so even the tiniest sliver of sunshine couldn’t graze her cheeks.
This is where they’d made out for the first time, skipping out on rehearsal for the school musical. Coming to grind against one another on the cold ground, unchaperoned.
Now, he wanted to meet, to talk, his text had said. She rolled the piercing in her tongue. This morning, she saw him laughing in the hall, opening his mouth so The Soprano could touch his matching piercing. She took a swig from her Listerine, and tossed the empty into the brush. Jesus H., she swore, and retrieved the bottle to recycle later. She jumped, refusing to look at him, when he announced his arrival by kicking the sole of her combat boot.
You will not cry. You will not cry.
READER
Caucasian female, early 20s, wearing sleek black coat, collar high.
Brick Lane
Monica Ali
(Scribner, 2004)
p 275
Counting Cars
His great-aunt takes a sip of white wine, her eyes rounding into saucers.
He’s not sure what she heard him say. He leans forward, sorts through the crystal bowl of nuts set out for visitors, picking out the cashews, dividing the neglected Brazil nuts and pecans into a fresh heap. He leans back into the floral couch with a groan, rolling the nuts in his palm like dice before dealing each one into his mouth.
Her lips tighten into a small opening, her breath a steady whistle. She shakes her head slightly, brow creased. She takes another sip of wine as she rearranges the shortbread on the chipped china plate. Looking out the kitchen window, she counts the cars of a cargo train that has started to steam by outside.
Up to one hundred, how wonderful. She turns to her handsome young groom. One hundred, darling, how wonderful. She considers the fine lines of his cheekbones. Wonderful.
READER
Caucasian female, late 60s, wearing pink tank top, and white shorts.
Missing Mom
Joyce Carol Oates
(Ecco, 2006)
p 35
Procession
The only time she was alone with her best friend’s father was the day he hoisted her bike into the wide trunk of his Cadillac and drove her back over the tracks, up the long, unfinished drive to her home. They arrived just as her mother was about to lock the screen door for the night. Her mother pinched her robe closed at the neck. His smile offered explanation; her mother’s offered apology. His hand ushered the girl over the threshold with a final pat.
Your best friend lives next door, across the street, occasionally two yards behind you. Your best friend can be in your class, but it’s not mandatory. Street rules: a ten-year-old and a seven-year-old have enough in common if all they do is toss a ball in the street until dinner’s called. And if parents are willing to take in the mail while the other’s out of town, best friends are pretty much forced upon one another.
This boy, though, had lived a bike ride away — a twenty-three minute ride, to be exact — on the other side of a bridge. Twelve and eleven, they had somehow found the other. Together, they scavenged ravines and stood watch across the street from the funeral parlour, grasping each other’s hand tightly, boasting they weren’t afraid of death.
READER
Caucasian woman, late 20s, with long brown hair in hairband, wearing tan skirt, white tank top, and pistachio-green sweater.
Mistress of the Sun
Sandra Gulland
(HarperCollins, 2008)
p 217
The Birth of a Handsome Nose
She was nine years old. The kitchen linoleum slid under her sockettes like ice, her ankles strong, balance pegged. Not the most graceful dancer, but with each glide her confidence grew. She shouldered her weight across the counter, bracing herself into a scissor-kick lift, chin grazing the breadbox.
When she landed, it was with a dull thud. She thought she heard something creaking, a trail of blood creeping along a fissured bridge. Left in place, the doctors took the chance it would straighten.
Three years later on a volleyball court, she stepped up to the net, the game-losing spike blocked: the final blow. Yet, the birth of a handsome nose.
READER
Asian female, early 30s, with broad shoulders, wavy hair bunched up high, wearing black v-neck cotton shirt.
Dusk Dances 2007
Withrow Park, Toronto
p 97
Pink
There are syrupy bumps on the back of her pink bathroom door buried under multiple coats of paint. They’ve been there since she moved in; who knows how long before that. The bumps remind her of her grandmother, the hinges on her pink bathroom door painted so many times it barely shut. She leans forward on the toilet and delicately traces the bumps with her finger. Just two pink bathroom doors in a long line of pink bathroom doors.
READER
Caucasian female, early 20s, wearing low-slung white jeans, white puffy jacket, French tips, and uggs.
The Tipping Point
Malcolm Gladwell
(Little, Brown and Company, 2000)
p 82
Hero
He comes in the same time each day, reads in the back corner for hours until he pulls out a journal into which he doodles madly. She refills his coffee, piling fresh creamers beside his pens and watercolours. Occasionally he stands, walking up and down the aisle between the mostly empty booths, on the balls of his feet, hands shoved into the high pockets of his khaki floods. Bottom lip stuck out, he doesn’t sit until he’s reached some conclusion, a thought he punctuates with a salute and a click of his heels to no one in particular. His short curls are matted down from sleep, he doesn’t always smell very nice, and his teeth protrude a little, but she’s certain that in his story, he’s the hero and gets all the girls.
READER
East Indian female, early 30s, with long black hair, wearing purple velvet coat, long black skirt, and thick-soled boots.
Brown Girl in the Ring
Nalo Hopkinson
(Grand Central Publishing, 2007)
p 174
Holding
He was sitting on the couch holding the phone to his ear when his wife strode in with the groceries. He nodded once and continued to flip through a magazine. Minutes later, he held the receiver away from his ear, the cursing on the other end of the line heard well into the kitchen where his wife stood over a steeping tea bag, hands
planted firmly on the counter. “How long have you been on this time?” she murmured so quietly it was as if to herself. “An hour. Mum’s just forgotten where she is again,” he replied, and then, assuringly, “but she’ll get back,” as if to himself. “What, darling?” his wife said from the kitchen.
READER
South Asian male, with short brown hair and labret piercing, wearing glasses, grey hoodie under black fleece, low black jeans, and black Converse sneakers.
Atmospheric Disturbances
Rivka Galchen
(HarperCollins, 2008)
p 63
Twisty Ties
The woman beside her wants to talk. She wonders aloud, are these cars air conditioned? Should she have brought a jacket?
This woman hugs a small suitcase to her knees, a white leather purse with ball point scribbles along one seam stuffed in her lap. Her son sits across from her, his suitcase closing him in. He rests his head on top of it, one earphone in, the other dangling, emitting the steady beats of hip hop.
“You forgot to put the twisty ties on the zippers,” the woman calls to her son.
He lifts his head, shrugs.
“I didn’t buy you no new shorts and t-shirts to have somebody steal ‘em.”
“Ma,” the boy mumbles. “Twisty ties ain’t gonna keep no-body out of this luggage if they want to get into this luggage.”
“Every bit helps,” she says, looking at her neighbour again.“You have kids,” the woman says, not so much a question as a statement. “They don’t know until they got to pay for it themselves.”
“Maybe,” she responds, turning the page of her book.
“Ma,” the boy grumbles.
“Maybe. Maybe not. But, one day, somebody’s gonna take something from you, and then you’ll know. Every chance, we got to try.”
READER
Black woman, early 40s, wearing white sleeveless shirt,grey dress capris, thick-soled black sneakers, carrying turquoise leather purse.
Sweeter Than Honey
Mary B. Morrison
(Kensington, 2009)
p 56
Author’s Note
Publication dates and publishers provided refer to the sighted edition of each book, not necessarily the text’s original publication date or original publisher.
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