For Sure
Page 58
“Now dat you mention it, de udder day I saw dem talkin’, he an’ Zed, an’ when Terry spied me close behind ’im, ee clammed right up. I’d say der was sometin’ fishy goin’ on der.”
Carmen took the bait:
“You want to kill me or wot?!”
But Mimi had no desire to let the lie last. Anyhow, she’d scored a direct hit:
“’Tisn’t troo! I’s only gettin’ a rise out o’ you.”
Carmen tried to clear her head, but it wasn’t easy. Mimi tried to reassure her:
“You knows it can’t be sometin’ real serious. Terry? Der isn’t a fellow more sensitive an’ carin’ dan dat boy!”
1390.110.5
A Day Off
Still, Mimi could understand Carmen’s frustration:
“If Tony tried dat on me, I’d skin ’im alive.”
There is no 13 point in typography.
1391.60.1
Superstitions
Her parents had sold the family’s land years ago, but Catherine had never renounced the narrow trail that led to her old refuge. She parked the car along the country road.
“See the trail beside that telephone pole over there?”
Chico finally spotted it.
“We have to walk down a bit.”
Chico opened the car door without a word. Catherine gathered their things together, handed the boy a canvas bag, and the two of them walked to the head of the trail. Before starting in, Catherine said:
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Catherine and Chico
“See the bigger trees over there? That’s where the house I grew up in was. Half of it burned down when I was thirteen. Instead of fixing it, my father and mother decided to sell the land and move into town.”
The opposite of a thing to want would be something fervently desired.
1393.121.4
Things to Want
“Can I help ya?”
“I’m lookin’ fer some tuck tape.”
“Tuck tape, duck tape, or duct tape?”
“Well . . . I’m pretty sure ee said tuck tape . . .”
“Wot’s it fer?”
“I don’t know. Ee didn’t say.”
“Well, was it fer fixin’ sometin’ electric, sticking on siding, tapin’ a hockey stick?”
Carmen found the clerk’s tone unpleasant; she took the offensive:
“I don’t know, I didn’t see wot ee’s fiddlin’ wid. Ee only asked me to pick up some tuck tape.”
The clerk came down a notch:
“I can be showin’ you wot we’s got. Come along down ’ere.”
Carmen followed the clerk to the end of a long aisle down to the back of the store to finally end up in front of a panel covered in a multitude of sticky ribbons destined for all kinds of uses.
“Dat’s wot we got.”
Carmen studied the wall, and almost immediately grabbed a packet:
“Must be this one ’ere. I just rembered ee said ’twas red.”
Carmen picked up the plastic-coated packet, and read the large lettering:
1394.22.9
Overheard Conversations
“An’ it’s written right here, tuck tape!
“Awh! Tek tape! Why didn’t ya say so, girl!
To be honest, the difference between 10 point and 12 point in a typeface font seems smaller than the difference between 12 point and 14 point.
1395.79.4
Oddities
“Me, it’s de folks who says ‘quèsiment’ instead o’ ‘quasiment’! It’s like dey says ‘practicawly” instead o’ ‘practically.”
“An’ who says dat?”
“Awh, de folks up North an’ from Québec, an’ dem places. Pretty much de same dat says ‘Mointun’ instead o’ ‘Moncton.’ Like dey got a broomstick up der ass.”
. . .
“You never ’eard somebody say ‘quèsiment’?”
“You get too worked up ’bout de language. Let folks talk as dey please, why don’t ya? Wot difference is it gonna make?”
“None, most likely. Only I’m pretty sure dat dem dat says ‘quèsiment’ tink dey’s talkin’ better dan dose of us dat says ‘quasiment’.”
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Moncton
The origin of the expression “a whale of a difference”?
1397.92.11
Questions without Answers
While she was doing her exercises at the YMCA, Carmen wondered if she ought to include Chico in the adventure. At the same time, she liked the idea of being just the four of them, the little family.
“Are you finished here?”
“Yes.”
Carmen answered in French. She glanced at the time as she made her way over to the stationary bikes. Another 10 minutes and she’d be done. She didn’t particularly enjoy pedalling on the spot. Maybe she ought to talk to Zed and Catherine? What would Terry think? Oof! She lowered the pace on the machine. Whoever had been using the bike before her must be training for the Tour de France. One way or another, Terry and the kids would be happy. So, when all was said and done, it was her decision to make. Without a doubt, this pedalling was her least favourite part.
1398.110.6
A Day Off
So that confusion about the nature of the avatar spread. And since most people only had the vaguest and more or less accurate notion, the avatar was left with an extremely large sphere of activity.
1399.76.10
Avatars
“Dad? Are ya sleepin?”
Terry opened his eyes, recognized Marianne.
“How’s it goin’?”
Terry blinked.
“I want to introduce you to Jacinthe.”
Jacinthe approached the bed.
“She says ’er parents know you.”
Jacinthe confirmed this:
“My mother grew up in Dieppe, on Gould Street. She was a Surette before she married. Mélissa Surette.”
Terry’s eyes seemed to smile.
“Ee understands. Go on.”
“My father painted the first sign on yer bookstore. Gérard Babin.”
Terry’s eyes continued to smile. Jacinthe added:
“That was a long while ago, eh?”
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The Future
How ¡ntr¡gu¡ng, th¡s ups¡de down exclamat¡on mark that ¡sn’t qu¡te an i, but more l¡ke an ag¡ng i, to be honest, w¡th bags under ¡ts eyes, but endear¡ng all the same, thanks to th¡s stretch¡ng, seen at the beg¡nn¡ng of a sentence or a word not so long ago — how could one not l¡ke th¡s character?
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Characters
The path was overgrown in certain places but not everywhere.
“Geez, der’s a whole lot o’ mushrooms ’round ’ere.”
“That’s because it rained a lot last week. Some are good to eat, but I don’t know which. Some are poisonous.”
Chico began to look at the mushrooms very differently, trying to guess which ones might be good and which were certainly bad, but eventually he became lost in conjecture, and turned his attention elsewhere.
“De wee red berries, are dey good fer eatin’ den?”
“Yes. They’re called bunchberries. They don’t taste like much, though.”
Chico bent down, picked a few, ate them. Catherine wasn’t lying.
“Blueberries!”
“That’s right! I forgot all about them!”
For a few moments, they abandoned themselves to picking and devouring the little round fruit.
. . .
. . .
And then Chico, who until that moment had heard only the noise of his own movements in the forest, suddenly discovered that a subtle range of sounds was r
iding on the breeze into his ears.
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Catherine and Chico
The wind she’s blowin’, the leaves are fallin’
But the larches der still a handsome green
Now a fierce wind carries off de last o’ de leaves
But de larches der still hangin’ yellow
(Der spirits keep on lurchin’ back n’ fort)
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Languages
“Say, do you think the child might be a bit precocious?”
Élizabeth had only just arrived, and was removing her coat.
“She’s cute, isn’t she?”
“Cute yes, but more than that. She has a . . . I don’t know how to describe it. But, well, maybe all children are like that.”
“She made you one of her paper things?”
“A kind of fissured assemblage?”
“It’s fun to watch her going at it, isn’t it?”
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Marianne
“Exactly, she was putting it together almost without paying attention but, at the same time, she knew exactly what she was doing.”
“And did you see her face?”
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Shifts
Considering the large number of dead or dying languages, why not recognize those who want to survive, give them a chance? Chiac for example. Heresy?
“Me, my greatest fear is to be paralyzed. I couldn’t bear it. Someone would have to kill me.”
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Fears
True or false: the bits of dry skin that accumulate around the fingernails are called hankerings.
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True or False
“I’m not tellin’ you de whole of it in de right order or nuttin’, only I’s givin’ you a general idea of how she works.”
As he spoke, Terry kept clicking away on the mouse, opening files one on top of the other.
“De most important ting is you’s gotta be comfortable wid yer decisions. Dat way, if yer losin’ a bit o’ money, ’tisn’t all dat terrible. An’ dat way yer learnin’ wot you figured wrong. Yer learnin’ from yer own mistakes.”
Zed still had his doubts:
“Wouldn’t it be better just puttin’ de maximum in yer REER every year?”
Terry’s answer came a few clicks later.
“Better’n buying stocks you mean?”
Yes, that was exactly what Zed meant.
“De best ting is to put de maximum in yer REER, den you buys stocks wid de money you gets back from yer taxes. Dat’s de system.”
Zed was impressed:
“An’ where did you learn all dis, den?”
“Awh, readin’ ’ere an’ der . . .”
. . .
“Dat’s funny all de same; dis mornin’ I was askin’ Carmen de exact same question ’bout ’er makeup. I tawt ’twas sometin’ women had in dem natural. I never knew dey was readin’ it in magazines.”
“Geez, I didn’t know dat neidder.”
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The Stock Market
Work. Work hard. Put your nose to the grindstone. Do the heavy lifting, use a little elbow grease. Earn your keep, earn every penny, earn your stripes. You don’t have money to burn. Spend wisely. You’re not made of money. Save. Don’t play the stock market. Don’t throw good money after bad. Don’t pour money down the drain nor spend it like it’s going out of style. The noun argent is masculine. It doesn’t grow on trees, nor will it fall from the sky.
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Work
They walked a while longer, Catherine leading the way, Chico following behind. The sun drew pretty patterns on the ground.
“Is she still a long way, yer cabin?”
Catherine was surprised.
“My cabin? It’s just a place I went to be alone; there’s no cabin.”
The absence of a cabin excited Chico just a little.
“Wot is it, den? A cave?”
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Catherine and Chico
Chico imagined discovering a cave. He’d seen them on television, but never in reality.
“No, it’s not a cave.”
The moment of writing is one. It is the moment. All writing comes back to this moment, compression of the same into one.
1411.128.6
Fervours
“When will you be going?”
“Are some weeks cheaper dan udders?”
The agent hit a few keys on her keyboard and chatted with Carmen while she waited for the page to upload.
“System looks overloaded . . .”
Carmen was in no hurry, with nothing better to do. The telephone began to ring on the desk next to them.
“Telephone’s been ringing off the hook since morning. You’d think everyone’d decided to go at the same time.”
The agent opened a drawer, searching in it for a several moments:
“I broke me nail before comin’ in to work this mornin’ an’ I haven’t had time to file it. Rubs me nerves raw.”
And then suddenly it was too much: the blank screen, the telephone ringing non-stop and the lost nail file all came together to erode what little patience the agent had left.
“Lard tunderin’! Where’s dat friggen file got to!”
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A Day Off
In the living room, immobile, her head resting on Élizabeth’s shoulder but her eyes wide open, Marianne allows herself to be rocked in the old armchair that sings cooey-pik one way and cooey-pak the other. In the kitchen, Jean-Jacques is listening to the radio while he washes the dishes.
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Yielding
Catherine saw the river, and wondered if Chico had spotted it, too.
“We’re almost there.”
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Catherine and Chico
But Chico was no longer thinking about how far they had to go. He was listening to their feet crackling twigs, snapping dead branches, muffling the ground where the thick roots of pine trees buckled up out of the earth like the veins on his grandfather’s hands, long ago now.
The property register was overflowing with title deeds, but not one was suitable.
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Titles
The weather was perfect, the surface of the river barely shimmering. Neither Chico nor Catherine felt the need to talk. From time to time, a bird’s call or a squirrel’s breakaway fissured the silence.
“Would you like to swim?”
Chico was more interested in exploring the edge of the shore. It was the first time he’d been on an untamed river. It was nothing like the beach. The muddy bottom was strewn with tree trunks and branches; walking through it was a real challenge.
“It isn’t deep. You can even walk across.”
Chico looked at the other shore. Indeed, it wasn’t very far. He might very well end up going over.
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Catherine and Chico
Leaf through a book looking for an expression, a phrase, a passage that struck you. This time, you underlined it, or earmarked the page. But once you find it, the passage is disappointing, seems weaker than you remembered it. Something’s missing. Maybe it was the cumulative effect of the preceeding pages, the momentary flash of light, the surprise, the enthusiasm of a first reading. Confusion, sense of loss. Perhaps every pilgrimage carries with it a sense of loss.
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Pilgrimages
“. . . companies dat folks wouldn’t tink of.”
“Dat’s just it! Der are a whole lot o’ dose! Only, how do you decide which?”
“Well, der’s a couple or tree principles: ’ow much risk
yer willin’ to take; companies dat’re young or de more mature companies, wid or widout dividends; an’ den der’s de different sectors, like banks, energy, healt’, consumer goods . . .”
Zed understood.
“Some folks say you’ve only gotta be buyin’ in six or eight companies in tree different sectors. You buys a wee bit at a time, when de price is down. Dat means when der in a bit of a dip, like you sees right ’ere.”
Terry pointed to a graph on the screen depicting a modest downturn.
“You can see ’ow, every once in a little while, she goes down a wee bit. Dat’s normal. Dey says a dip o’ ten percent is good. Ya see, de percentage’s written ’ere.”
Zed looked at the figures in the small box on the screen, found a percentage.
. . .
. . .
“Anyhow . . . dat’s one way. Only dat’s not really de way I goes about it.”
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The Stock Market
Marianne also likes to ride piggyback on Chico, especially when he rears up, whinnying, and she has to hang on, yelling and laughing at the same time. It’s a little like when you have to go peepee.
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Marianne
Étienne had been following every one of his grandfather Thibodeau’s gestures, as he worked that day to replace the veranda’s supporting posts.
“How come de wood’s green?”
“Dey puts sometin’ on it so it don’t rot.”
And:
“How come you takes dem old nails, Granddad?”
“Der still good, even doh dey’re a wee bit bent an’ rusty. We only need to straighten dem up a bit.”
And with that, the master shaper tossed another handful of old nails on the cement block and began gently hammering the shanks as he rolled the ends with his index finger.
“Luh?”
Yes, Étienne had seen.
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Techniques
pattern
slide the needle
take hold, oh gladsome girl