Read Online Girl Unwrapped by Gabriella Goliger - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Gabriella Goliger
Ads: Link
porch. Parking available,’” she reads aloud. “A sun porch would be nice for my plants.”
“What’s going on?”
Toni looks from her mother to her father, sipping his coffee contentedly. Avoiding Toni’s eyes for a moment, her father clears his throat and tugs his goatee, while an embarrassed grin plays at the corners of his mouth.
“We have come to a compromise,” he says. “We’ll look for a duplex in Snowdon. The prices in Snowdon are still quite reasonable. Especially for a duplex.”
“What!”
“No harm in looking.” Her father lifts his palms in the air, the gesture half hopeful, half surrender.
Toni turns from her father to her mother.
“Snowdon is a good neighbourhood,” Lisa declares. “Not so good as Côte Saint-Luc or Saint Laurent, but still … Nice stores, synagogues, schools, a Jewish Y.”
“What about my friends?”
“High time you made new ones. Enough with those hooligans.”
“What about the Mountain?”
“The Mountain? The Mountain is not going anywhere. You’re never far from the Mountain in this city.”
“Papa,” she chokes. He waves his hands in front of his face. Don’t start, don’t spoil things. He seems not the least bit perturbed that they are about to fall off the edge of the world by leaving the only home she has ever known.
On a blustery Sunday morning in mid-March, the three of them go duplex hunting in Snowdon, strolling long blocks lined with squat one- and two-storey buildings and mature trees. Julius and Lisa stop to admire large balconies, picture windows overlooking neat front yards with waist-high clipped hedges and fir trees standing like sentinels on either side of walkways. Although the lawns still lie brown and battered after the long winter, her parents seem not to notice. They absorb all with keen, possessive eyes.
“A bit of the Bauhaus there,” says Julius, pointing to a curved overhang above an entrance.
“No clutter on the balconies. Not like in the old neighbourhood,” says Lisa.
The old neighbourhood. Already the ground has shifted under Toni’s feet. To her, this Snowdon is all cold, dreary sameness and strangeness; neat, boxy-looking houses, secretive blinds, sober, too-quiet streets without alleys, courtyards, vacant lots, or woods. Even the trees—big, bare-limbed maples plastered against an overcast sky—are tidy and tame. She lags behind while her parents surge ahead, eager to behold what wonders await them in the next house.
They come to a rectangular building divided into two mirror-image duplexes, with wide stone steps and blue-painted front doors, each door set with three rectangular panels of glass. Lisa checks her newspaper clipping. Yes, this is the one. They enter a tiny lobby, climb the stairs to the upper apartment. The owners haven’t moved yet. The housewife—a breathless, exuberant woman wearing black stretch pants, a white turtleneck, and hair that looks like it came out of a spray can—welcomes them with a toothy smile. She ignores Lisa’s attempt at a formal introduction and Julius’s graceful removal of his hat.
“Hey, come on in, make yourselves at home,” she sings, as if they are all old pals.
They stumble out of their boots and tramp in sock feet over a plastic runner and onto the powder blue wall-to-wall carpet of the living room. There’s a plush, white, plastic-covered couch and matching armchairs, a shiny-wood hi-fi set, and the biggest TV Toni has ever seen. The room is bright and airless and Lisa harrumphs as if to say, These Canadians, they never open their windows. Toni is suddenly aware of how stiff and foreign her parents seem, how grating their accents compared to the woman’s easy drawl. She is aware of her father’s long unshod feet stepping carefully over the carpets and polished floors. At home he always wears closed-back slippers.
Lisa pokes her head into closets, sniffs, checking for unacceptable smells. In the bathroom, she wrinkles her nose at a whiff of sweetish
“What’s going on?”
Toni looks from her mother to her father, sipping his coffee contentedly. Avoiding Toni’s eyes for a moment, her father clears his throat and tugs his goatee, while an embarrassed grin plays at the corners of his mouth.
“We have come to a compromise,” he says. “We’ll look for a duplex in Snowdon. The prices in Snowdon are still quite reasonable. Especially for a duplex.”
“What!”
“No harm in looking.” Her father lifts his palms in the air, the gesture half hopeful, half surrender.
Toni turns from her father to her mother.
“Snowdon is a good neighbourhood,” Lisa declares. “Not so good as Côte Saint-Luc or Saint Laurent, but still … Nice stores, synagogues, schools, a Jewish Y.”
“What about my friends?”
“High time you made new ones. Enough with those hooligans.”
“What about the Mountain?”
“The Mountain? The Mountain is not going anywhere. You’re never far from the Mountain in this city.”
“Papa,” she chokes. He waves his hands in front of his face. Don’t start, don’t spoil things. He seems not the least bit perturbed that they are about to fall off the edge of the world by leaving the only home she has ever known.
On a blustery Sunday morning in mid-March, the three of them go duplex hunting in Snowdon, strolling long blocks lined with squat one- and two-storey buildings and mature trees. Julius and Lisa stop to admire large balconies, picture windows overlooking neat front yards with waist-high clipped hedges and fir trees standing like sentinels on either side of walkways. Although the lawns still lie brown and battered after the long winter, her parents seem not to notice. They absorb all with keen, possessive eyes.
“A bit of the Bauhaus there,” says Julius, pointing to a curved overhang above an entrance.
“No clutter on the balconies. Not like in the old neighbourhood,” says Lisa.
The old neighbourhood. Already the ground has shifted under Toni’s feet. To her, this Snowdon is all cold, dreary sameness and strangeness; neat, boxy-looking houses, secretive blinds, sober, too-quiet streets without alleys, courtyards, vacant lots, or woods. Even the trees—big, bare-limbed maples plastered against an overcast sky—are tidy and tame. She lags behind while her parents surge ahead, eager to behold what wonders await them in the next house.
They come to a rectangular building divided into two mirror-image duplexes, with wide stone steps and blue-painted front doors, each door set with three rectangular panels of glass. Lisa checks her newspaper clipping. Yes, this is the one. They enter a tiny lobby, climb the stairs to the upper apartment. The owners haven’t moved yet. The housewife—a breathless, exuberant woman wearing black stretch pants, a white turtleneck, and hair that looks like it came out of a spray can—welcomes them with a toothy smile. She ignores Lisa’s attempt at a formal introduction and Julius’s graceful removal of his hat.
“Hey, come on in, make yourselves at home,” she sings, as if they are all old pals.
They stumble out of their boots and tramp in sock feet over a plastic runner and onto the powder blue wall-to-wall carpet of the living room. There’s a plush, white, plastic-covered couch and matching armchairs, a shiny-wood hi-fi set, and the biggest TV Toni has ever seen. The room is bright and airless and Lisa harrumphs as if to say, These Canadians, they never open their windows. Toni is suddenly aware of how stiff and foreign her parents seem, how grating their accents compared to the woman’s easy drawl. She is aware of her father’s long unshod feet stepping carefully over the carpets and polished floors. At home he always wears closed-back slippers.
Lisa pokes her head into closets, sniffs, checking for unacceptable smells. In the bathroom, she wrinkles her nose at a whiff of sweetish
Similar Books
