Canada Reads 2008, Entry Four

Timothy's, Church Street, laptop buzzing.

East Indian woman, early 30s, with long, black hair, wearing long, black skirt and thick-soled boots, velvet coat bunched on the seat beside her, gaze darting back and forth from the page to the slight man at the counter.

Brown Girl in the Ring, Nalo Hopkinson (Aspect)

Page 174:

Baby's little fist opened and closed against her skin. He looked deeply into her eyes as thought he were trying to communicate something. He seemed reluctant to take her breast. He'd suck a little, then spit out the nipple and whimper, staring up at her. She was probably taking him to his death. "Child, I sorry," she whispered to him. He fussed and kicked. "She gone, doux-doux, "she said to him. She'd never used that endearment with him before. But now he was the only one of her family left, unless she counted the disembodied woman who was bound by Rudy's obeah to kill her. "Mami gone."

He comes in the same time of day as she does, reading in the back corner for hours. Making his way through a personal library of Russian fiction, he occasionally stands, walking through the coffee shop on the balls of his feet, hands shoved into the high pockets of his flooded khakis. Bottom lip stuck out, he doesn't sit until he's reached a conclusion, a finished thought punctuated by a salute to no one in particular as he lands heavy in his chair, deeply satisfied. His short curls are matted from his winter hat, and his teeth protrude a little, but she's certain that in her comic book world he will be the hero, and get all the girls.

Canada Reads 2008