Low
Page 23
Mr. Song was chattering away in Chinese to the waitress, a petite, middle-aged Asian woman with a pony tail, whose smile brought out the lines around her mouth and eyes. When she walked away with his order, his eyes followed the slapping of her sandals against her heels.
Beth and Jazz were playing “Rock paper scissors” below the table top. Beth giggled in a slightly off-kilter fashion, her eyes wide in her long face. Adriana gazed at the walls, with their giant paper fan decorations against a velvety dark pink wallpaper. The local CBC station was playing on the radio, and as the noon gun on Citadel Hill sounded, the hourly news came on. Out of a habitual obedience, she listened, catching the newsman’s tone lighten as he announced, “Transgendered woman Samantha Johns placed third in the over sixty women’s speed walking competition in Victoria, British Columbia.” He went on to say that she had been a speed walking champion earlier in her life as a man, and that her participation in the recent competition had been marked with controversy. Then a sound bite from Samantha herself, in her cheery, Julia Childs voice: “Oh I have been through many worse storms than this. Love and hurricanes and all that, you know? After many years I’m taking up walking again and I adore it.” Then with a characteristic Samantha dramatic flourish: “No one can stop me. They don’t have to give me any prizes, but I will walk until the day I die.”
Adriana felt the corners of her mouth rise and lift, and her face begin to glow, from a warmth that came from deep in her stomach. She laughed out loud and clapped her hand over her mouth when the Chinese family the next table over turned and peered curiously at her. Jazz raised her eyebrows and Beth gazed at Adriana as though at some mysterious mountain peak, and Mr. Song, sitting back in his chair, beamed at them all. “Dim sum is a Cantonese tradition. From my part of China,” he said proudly, tapping at his chest. “And Chinese food,” he said to no one, and to everyone, “is the best in the world.”
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the Canada Council for the Arts for the travel grant that got me to the Czech Republic for a one month residency at Milkwood International in 2011, where I worked on the first draft of this novel; the Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia, which gave me a grant to cover the cost of the residency; Arts Nova Scotia, for a Creation grant in 2013 that funded me to finish Low in my new home of Antigonish; and the Writer’s Federation of Nova Scotia, for reviewing my contract with Invisible Publishing.
Speaking of Invisible, I cannot thank them enough for agreeing to publish my second novel. To all the folks there, especially Robbie MacGregor, I say a thousand thank yous for all your hard work and support. And to my editor Michelle MacAleese, a special thanks for your pruning and shaping of my manuscript and many suggestions that have undeniably improved it.
I owe many thanks to a number of mental health organizations that have supported me and my work over the years. They include the Canadian Mental Health Association Halifax-Dartmouth Branch, the Empowerment Connection, and the Healthy Minds Cooperative. They are good folk and dear friends at all of those places, and I hope they will like this book.
A special thanks to Dr. Nancy Robertson at the Nova Scotia Early Psychosis Program, who, for a good chunk of my recent past, was my encourager in health, writing and life.
And to all my friends and family, who have shown me love and support throughout my life, in sickness and in health, I especially thank you. If not for you, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t have a reason to.
INVISIBLE PUBLISHING is a not-for-profit publishing company that produces contemporary works of fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry. We publish material that’s engaging, literary, current, and uniquely Canadian. We’re small in scale, but we take our work, and our mission, seriously. We produce culturally relevant titles that are well written, beautifully designed, and affordable.
Invisible Publishing has been in operation for just over half a decade. Since releasing our first fiction titles in the spring of 2007, our catalogue has come to include works of graphic fiction and non-fiction, pop culture biographies, experimental poetry and prose.
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Text copyright © Anna Quon, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any method, without the prior written consent of the publisher.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Quon, Anna L., 1968-, author
Low / Anna Quon.
Print ISBN 978-1-926743-32-5
EPUB ISBN 978-1-926743-44-8
I. Title.
PS8633.U65L69 2013 C813’.6 C2013-902943-5
Print Cover & Interior designed by Megan Fildes
Typeset in Laurentian and Slate by Megan Fildes
With thanks to type designer Rod McDonald
Ebook designed by Robbie MacGregor
Printed and bound in Canada
Invisible Publishing
Halifax & Toronto
www.invisiblepublishing.com
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $157 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.
Invisible Publishing recognizes the support of the Province of Nova Scotia through the Department of Communities, Culture & Heritage. We are pleased to work in partnership with the Culture Division to develop and promote our cultural resources for all Nova Scotians.