Photos and Designs

By K.H. McMurray

The ABC gang deals with middle age, kids being very plugged in and growing up, and ageing older relatives, wondering if there isn't something more to life.

Danny has a heart of gold, or so his partner Chantal tells him. One generous act in his past sees him taking care of a little more than what Chantal knows, and this could come back to cause him complications.

Solange is an easy-going, musically-gifted youth who gets on so well with Danny & Chantal's three children as to be like a long-lost member of their family. So why does this cause her mother Isabelle so much consternation?

In the meantime, an accusation of infidelity, a suspected theft, and a suicide throw the group into disarray. Where will it all lead?

• Language: English
• Publisher: K.H. McMurray
• Release date: May 8, 2024
• ISBN: 9781777300579

K.H. McMurray

Born in a seaside town in BC and raised in the Greater Vancouver area, I started writing not long after moving to Montreal in 1987, where I've lived for the most part since. A few of my earlier poems were published in student newspapers and in an anthology called "Corridors" in the first half of the 1990s. In 1997, I published a chapbook titled "A Visit" which was once a chapter to my first novel "Boomerangs and Square Pegs" but now is a stand-alone work. "Boomerangs" is now available online and also in print form via the author, as is new release "Then Let's Keep Dancing". Reading is an escape for me, while writing is a kind of release. Writing enables me to get things out in the open in a way that I couldn't through other media or situations. My writings deal with plausibility -- if I'd wanted to write my life story, I'd have written an autobiography, and trust me, my life just isn't *that* interesting. No, I'm more interested in the in-betweeners, the damaged goods, the beautiful losers, the broken poets, the taken-for-granteds: I consider myself among these types. When I don't write, I teach English as a second language, edit texts, and translate from French to English (and sometimes the other way around). I also get involved in social and environmental causes from time to time.

Book preview

Part One

Portraits

(Vignettes)

Mid-January

Warmth inside.

Snow outside, glaciered into submission by freezing rain.

Nothing good ever comes from freezing rain, thinks Claudia.

Her present surroundings please her. She turns her head away from the crowds. The wall greets her eyes. A smile on her face slowly forms. She ponders her luck.

Managing to get a table for herself next to a small baseboard heater and taking comfort in the hot tea in front of her, Claudia feels the lingering chill knocked out of her in short order.

She occasionally glances at those within the bistro, a local co-op which sees all sorts of people occupy its insides. Nobody in particular catches her attention. They won't: He isn't here.

He is a friend. He tends to come in here, albeit infrequently. She's given up looking out for him after a scant few seconds. There's no him coming through the door just because of her vigilance, because she wishes for it hard enough.

Despite his infrequency to this place, others always seem to know who he is whenever Claudia cares to ask anyone about him, and she hardly ever cares to ask them. When she does, from what she gets, others feel there's just that certain something about him. Unforgettable.

She smiles thinking about him: Summer visits her mind; all things wintry evaporate. It is probably a good thing: The winter was snowing her thoughts.

The two of them have never had a chance encounter here.

Chance encounter, chuckling at the thought, that's so 2000s.

Outside this bistro, it's a little different, though not by much. Getting together with him outside this place is always difficult under the most manageable of circumstances, or at least more difficult than it should be according to Claudia. When they do manage to get together, they visit each other or go to a park. Sometimes, it's a long walk along a series of linear parks paralleling rue Notre-Dame East, dodging bikes in the process. She thinks of all this as quality time with him. She also finds it convenient to live within a 10-minute walk from his apartment.

But he's not always there.

And if he is, he doesn't always answer the door.

And he doesn't always answer his phone.

And he never returns calls.

Whenever he isn't in the bistro, she rarely has cause to say anything to anyone, save those exceptions who have notices on the community board addressed to her friend, and maybe to whoever serves her a hot drink. She doesn't really know any regulars there. She doesn't care to.

Drinking tea, she sketches small in charcoal, all of it perhaps appearing like scribbles to a passer-by or a curious onlooker from another table. Warming by the radiator, she is in her happy space, a rarity in her out-and-about life.

Another woman's voice softly asks how Claudia's doing.

Claudia doesn't look up to see who's there and is prepared to ignore her, initially sneering at the prospect of anyone encroaching upon her here and now.

Claudia? asks the woman, a little more volume this time.

Her charcoal pencil down, Claudia scrunches up the paper she's been drawing on with her other hand.

Please, don't be that way.

Claudia never likes to be interrupted. In anything. Once her head's in a project, she comes out only whenever it pleases her. Right now, she's not pleased – with her space being invaded or with losing her drawing train of thought, she can't be sure. Even if she didn't crumple up her drawing paper, what she intended to draw ultimately has now flown beyond her reach.

Another reason why she scarcely draws anything whenever she goes out.

She looks up. She smiles uneasily at the woman.

The woman winces and says, Sorry. But I do have some good news.

The good news is that the co-op's council has agreed to put Claudia's artworks up for exhibition. Claudia wasn't sure that she would get a chance to show her artwork anywhere ever. She couldn't be sure of the chances of it happening here. And she has never been about begging.

Jessie suggested this idea during a reunion of their old university friends. Jessie has always had a good sense of business and opportunity and has made a lot of suggestions for a lot of people. Those who listen to her take her seriously but few follow through. Claudia has always thought having her artworks on display at a local place was a good suggestion but she was one such person who never bothered to follow through – she figured that suggesting it here would only lead to it being politely listened to but not acted upon.

Jessie figured this might happen. She acted for Claudia.

Good to know, Jessie, says Claudia, suddenly quite pleased with it all.

On the outside, Claudia's still sore but peaks at glad then after increasingly lugubrious. She could go from highs to lows like that sometimes.

You'll have a certain window for this, says Jessie.We were thinking mid-April. I know that is a ways away, but how does that sound to you?

Claudia has always dreaded the lead-up to Easter, more so than that of Christmas. Her feelings post-Easter have never been much better. For her, that time of the year never changes, unlike the weather, no matter what she was going through in life.

Her analytical mind suddenly goes into high gear over what she ought to display. She certainly has no shortage of things to exhibit. And it will be good to get rid of some clutter in her apartment.

Her creative mind similarly goes into overdrive over what new works she can create for this exhibition and just how many of them there will be.

Some of those artworks will be for sale, while others will be reserved as gifts for those after whom they are modelled: people she knows, including Jessie. She will make sure to take a photo of each artwork. She knows that keeping these artworks in her apartment will ultimately take up too much space. Photos not so much. The new winter boots she bought just after Christmas have given her an available storage box for those photographic reminders which she'll snap.

She looks at Jessie and nods, now happy that Inspiration has paid her a visit.

Jessie smiles and eases away, content to leave Claudia oblivious to the world.

Claudia hopes that her friend will show up, even in her absence.

He'll have to at some point. She smiles. She's gotten lucky in another sense: Even if she's not there, her artworks will always be in his face.

Jessie was in a good mood, better than she felt she ought to be.

She was happy that Claudia had consented to display her artwork in the bistro. She'd gotten a little concerned about the finances of the bistro, especially in the wake of vandalism two months ago. She and many others within the bistro knew who at least one of the group responsible was and a few of them knew where their commune was. Calls to the police proved fruitless: Not one vandal was caught on camera. The police knew who these types were but feigned helplessness in doing anything.

That's never stopped them from arresting anybody before, thought Jessie of last year's spate of racial profilings.

At Jessie's insistence, the co-op board voted to install some additional interior lighting, and just enough to complement the existing set-up. The details of all this would have to be worked out with Claudia.

But first, she needed someone who would review the art exhibition with objectivity. She got the feeling that the reviewer who'd thus far bitten might be used to high-end galleries, not sure what they'd make of a bistro hosting an exhibition, or of the exhibition itself.

She texted her partner.

Are you sure she won't mind?

She doesn't need to know.

And this doesn't bother you?

It's not like we're doing anything wrong. I mean, it's just between two friends, right?

Thank you for this, for your help.

Anything for you.

The ceiling was the first thing Danny's popped-open eyes saw. No gasp. Breathing stable, slow and deep. Hardly a noise. No sudden movements, save for his eyes blinking. His brows: damp, small-weighty – perspiration, by his reckoning, and more than normal for him.

Someone left the heat on, he thought.

Chantal, his partner, was still sleeping soundly: He hadn't disturbed her. He took some solace from this.

He also took some water from the fridge. Relief in a glass.

The dream was curious – stressful, too. He recalled his mother once saying that dreams were the subconscious mind's way of sorting out things. He thought that the event, far in his past, which spawned this dream had already sorted itself out. He began to have second thoughts. It bothered him in a way he couldn't explain.

Worse, it was not the first time he'd dreamt it.

Josianne smiled at what had appeared on her cellphone screen.

It wasn't often that she heard from Charles, one of her group from university. And she hadn't done an art review in a while. She was due for this.

As well, it was for an exhibition to be held at a bistro co-op where her daughter and son-in-law were board members.

Pen twiddling amongst her fingers. She did this a lot since she'd given up smoking a few years ago. It was better on her teeth than sticking the non-writing end in her mouth and gnawing it.

She marvelled at the timing of the texto she'd received. She was about to archive her website, unsure she could continue to justify the expense. She hadn't been inspired to put anything on it for nearly a year. Despite this, her earlier entries still got hits, particularly the ones about bike paths, pedestrianised streets, and green alleys, as well as the odd art exhibit from more than five years ago. She knew that no matter what she posted, there would never be a shortage of people to turn their received notifications into hits for her website.

Her son, Gordie, had been after her to post anything, even random photos and observations, as opposed to being exclusively concerned about urban beautification themes.

Her daughter, Marie, even offered to ghost-write commentaries to keep Josianne's site current.

Despite their offers and suggestions, she had yet to take either of them up on things.

She had no idea what kind of exhibition this would be, nor did she have any idea how to write about it, but she suddenly felt that she needed to get back to doing something else that she liked, and this, she felt, might just fit the bill.

She couldn't believe it.

The grandmother of her partner: misdiagnosed.

The doctor thought it was shingles in the optic nerve tract.

Painful at the best of times, thought Annie.

What was more painful was the follow-up.

Cancer of the brain.

The news was horrifying.

News like this tested Annie's fun-loving, jokey attitude about life in general, a way that she wanted everyone else to feel, too. She realized how selfish it sounded that she didn't want to be depressed or feel sorry for anyone, least of all herself. She knew that people would see her as unwavering in good attitude in the event that all-around sadness broke out, but she had to make sure that she didn't go overboard with the humour or look annoyed at others.

But she also realized that she had a good sense of what people liked and didn't like, and that this could help her read the crowds to come. She'd been like this for as long as anyone could recall. It put her in good stead while running a café near a cégep in a small city outlying Montreal. At some point, someone made a lame attempt at humour, saying that her sociology degree merely confirmed her personality type. She recalled fake-laughing at that comment, saving her true laughter for something veering on real humour.

Her father hadn't laughed when she was accepted into sociology at Concordia. He'd hoped she would be the follow on to his mechanical trade and go into engineering.

People say I’m tough, but I'm not that tough, she'd said of the idea of being among the minority in that field at that time. However, the thought had quite strongly crossed her mind to go into engineering when the Polytechnique shootings during her last year of secondary school, shocking as they were, fortified her resolve to give the act and the subsequent memory of Marc Lépine a big middle finger. But it may have been for other reasons that she ultimately avoided engineering, reasons which weren't clear to her when she applied for social sciences in cégep instead of pure and applied sciences. Upon reflection, it may have been that she'd wanted to give back in some way to where she'd grown up: once a small industrial centre but fallen on the sort of hard times that many small towns had experienced between the early 1970s and the mid-1990s. Still, she wasn't sure what a sociology degree would do for such a community, even then. Her father, never having gone past secondary school back in the day, told her to couple the degree with something useful. She opted for a minor in economics.

Looking ahead now, what was coming up still wasn't pleasant. She had time to plan for it and to practise putting on her poker face.

Mid-April

He rolled his eyes.

His editor had seen this before but had long grown immune to it. TC was one of his best writers, the snobbish, too-cool-by-half attitude aside: TC got the job done and that was what counted.

We haven't had an art exhibit review in a while. One of our other arts features didn't come through – the writer opted to publish her review on some website. Damned freelancers. The editor scribbled out something while saying this.

TC examined his editor, unemotionally. TC was also a freelancer. He had no attachment to what he considered some been-there-too-long Boomer boss, most likely one who'd wrung his hands with glee over the idea of hiring freelancers rather than keeping talent on the payroll. TC had no sympathy for this editor's present plight. TC also had many other projects on the go to pay his bills and afford a slightly pretentious lifestyle, so he could've dumped the editor and run. But any by-line in a major publication was still a feather in TC's cap, and the extra money was good.

Here's the address: a bistro in Hochelaga. Sounds like a contradiction.

TC didn't care what his editor thought. He obviously hasn't flipped his calendar since the last referendum. Maybe he should get out of his three-storey Parc Avenue walk-up a little more often.

Do you understand, TC?

Gotcha, chief.

Please don't call me that. We don't do hierarchy here.

TC examined his editor once more and faked him a smile. I'd have your job if you weren't in a dying industry. I wouldn't want to die or retire being seen as 'uncool'.

Once outside, TC looked at the editor's chicken scratch on the note paper, thankful that numbers in cursive didn't exist. He recognized the address as one of a number of newer places in Hochelaga which had been vandalized by people from well-off economic backgrounds who were slumming it as anarchists. These were people he knew within his network of this-and-thats, people who had moved their commune only a few years ago from Villeray into what they'd considered fresh territory.

Fresh territory to steal kids' toys and garden plants from, he recalled, and not favourably either. They should feel lucky they haven't been arrested and charged yet.

He recognized the bistro. He'd been there before and found it rather pretentious. He resented the competition.

Her artworks have been up for a week.

This has given Claudia a reason to visit the Bistro without even having to order anything. She never intends to talk to anyone, but on occasion, someone might discover she's the artist. They will no doubt try to strike up a conversation with her. When this happens, she will try to be interested in what they say – maybe once in a while, she will be.

She's heard that her friend has been in but she hasn't had the good fortune to see him. Who she did see were others from her old university group, people she has hung out with on occasion to this day. This sparks joy and dread in her at the same time: Some of her artworks are of them. One of those people has an arts blog going and spoke of reviewing this exhibition. She knows the others unable to be there will read about it. She will send them their artworks later.

He wanted to be there for the opening.

Work rendered him mobile only within his immediate catchment area – no time for even a daytrip to Montreal.

Philippe was a writer, or so he called himself that once in a while. And perhaps he would have been a writer of some renown by now if only he had gotten around to publishing something. He was never short on ideas – sometimes, he had too many of them. And starting a writing project had never proven problematic for him.

Finishing a writing project, however, was another matter altogether.

When he first started writing in his last year at university, he'd shown some of his work to his gang. Beyond merely supporting a friend, many of them thought there was potential in what he'd written. They saw familiar things, familiar situations, and even hints of Philippe's then-recent ex, causing anyone on occasion to ask, Am I in it?, though usually jokingly.

Jokingly or not, those questions stopped when one group hanger-on took Philippe too seriously and somehow managed to bother others by being serious to the point of cloying-earnest whenever he asked mopily, Am I in it?. After his fifth time asking, Philippe started referring to this person, Herman, as Uncle Pester and joined in with the rest of the group thinking it wise to tune Herman out when possible, tolerate him when not.

The group declined to tell Herman or anyone connected to him about subsequent meet-ups. Mark mentioned that Herman had eventually found others to bother elsewhere. There was much rejoicing.

Thinking about Claudia's art exhibit, Philippe knew he could still see it while her works were on display, but it galled him that he could not be there for the opening.

He liked art. He liked the artist even more.

Isabelle wondered should she sell.

It was an odd time for this thought to arise, considering that she had to think about how to put away her groceries. But, priorities.

She lived a good distance from the epicentre of expensive, but her neighbourhood wasn't immune to property-value increases mainly prompted by developers trying to remake the city in their view, as well as speculators who, by her reckoning, should've been jailed a long time ago. She hoped the new administration at Montreal city hall would apply the brakes on all this, and soon.

If worse came to worst, she always knew that her half of the duplex could fetch her a pretty sum at current market value, enough to afford her a nicer, bigger place off-island.

But she had to wonder if moving off-island wasn't the worst. She was born and raised in Montreal and was loath to leave the city which nurtured her into being. And she loved her neighbourhood. It was a good place to raise her daughter, Solange. School and services alike were never too far away, not enough to warrant someone taking a bus to them. Transit connections to the rest of the city and to off-island were very good. The bike path network was also good and soon to be improved. And a big park where all manner of events took place could be reached in a matter of minutes from her one-way, tree-lined street.

She was neighbourly enough with others living in proximity to her. They all looked out for each other whenever one of them was away for some reason – the reason never asked though sometimes volunteered. People knew something of each other's personal business but not too much. Isabelle's neighbours knew what her work situation was, and they knew that Isabelle's partner, Kris, worked in marketing and publicity. Even collecting the mail for a neighbour never elicited more than a look at how many pieces of mail there were. She considered it all a good balance.

Kris helped Isabelle maintain things physically and financially, but he had an odd living arrangement whereby he sometimes lived with Isabelle and sometimes at his mother's place in the far reaches of the northeastern third of the island. Kris told Isabelle that this was to help his mother with her expenses. Trouble was, knowing Kris' mom as she did, Isabelle wasn't aware that his mother needed any help with her expenses.

In a quiet moment, Isabelle realized that she could theoretically sell her half of the duplex and Kris couldn't do anything about it – likewise for the sale money, all hers. When buying their place, as they termed it back then, they were to have bought it together, but at the signing over, there was only Isabelle to take the financial brunt. To make sure he became legally liable, she wanted him to take responsibility for half the place. He'd told her then that he'd get around to it.

Somewhere, in Kris' mancave, downstairs, there was a manila envelope, most likely gathering dust – its legal contents, inside and unsigned. Other parties concerned with her place confirmed that he hadn't handed anything in yet.

She smiled at the notion that her modest place could sell for enough to afford her a bigger place farther out.

Father away from work, more travel expenses involved. More time in traffic, less time in my community.

She paused and then put away some more groceries.

It would also put me away from where ABC formed, leaving just Claudia and Mark on the Island.

She frowned despite herself when she realized that there was one other.

A few days ago, she'd gotten her hair done by a friend's sister at a hair salon in one of those buildings that seemed to form an umbilical cord with Gare Central. Hair done, she ran into someone from her university days, just getting off The Adirondack from New York City. She estimated he had two heavy bags in tow and a medium one on his back. To her, Herman had the air of nostalgia about him upon arriving in Montreal, though she couldn't be too sure of that.

On the platform of Bonaventure metro station, he'd mentioned having stayed with a friend north of NYC in an effort to get his life sorted out.

The Orange Line, Montmorency-bound. During the metro ride, she'd tolerated his presence. His clothes were tattered in some parts, soiled in others, as if someone had tried to put his pants through a shredding machine and then an oily bike chain, cuffs first. His entire get-up looked like it hadn't been washed in a while – him neither, judging by the odour coming off of him. Not even the openness and improved ventilation of the new-ish Azur metro cars could keep that away from people.

He recounted his experiences to her, and this for quite a distance before he recalled that he should've gone in the other direction. This was something he did quite suddenly after he'd asked her if he could sleep on her sofa for a few days but got a negative response.

She felt bad for Herman but had a worse feeling about inviting him into her home. She'd heard from others that he tended to overstay his welcome, and she wasn't sure how to get rid of him were he to like his new surroundings entirely too much. Her budget didn't allow her to feed another mouth

Under normal circumstances, she budgeted tightly. Kris wasn't always on time to help with the mortgage or any other payment. She rarely spent money on luxuries, and even then, they were small or for special occasions, like Solange's birthday. She put aside enough to ensure that Solange would one day have an education but with little or no debt, not like Isabelle had had – she had only managed to pay off her student loan debt just after she'd turned 40.

It was mainly her two-shift-a-week bar job, as well as a four-day, part-time job working in a city library, that kept Isabelle on track and funded Solange's future education, but she knew she had to do more than that. She had the foresight to have brought up Solange to be capable of managing things for herself so that she didn't have to be too concerned for her daughter eating properly or being able to let herself in – Solange had been latchkey since the age of 11. But Isabelle knew that she'd have to attempt a career change at some point – there was only so far she could go on her current wages before hitting a ceiling.

No, she didn't need Herman as an indefinite, uncertain lodger. She needed to put away the last of her groceries and shelve the thought of him for the moment, hopefully for good.

She had an exhibition to go to.

Her fingers danced on the fretboard.

Solange practised whenever she could, whenever she had an idea she wanted to explore.

The electric guitar whose neck she was wringing had been hers since first-year secondary school, courtesy of an old friend of her mother's. In recent times, she learned that she was the guitar's fourth owner, but the first two owners hadn't played it much.

She had it strung for left-handed playing, something the previous three owners hadn't needed to do. Her practice acoustic guitar, also a gift from her mother's friend two years earlier for her 10th birthday, was also strung for left-handed playing. The only guitar teacher she'd ever had had noticed her frustration whenever playing right-handed, the notes coming out right but more painstakingly than she'd anticipated. She suggested restringing the guitar, and that did the trick. Her guitar teacher quipped about her being the next Jimi Hendrix.

Her response: Who?

Others who knew her to be right-handed when writing thought it looked strange to see her playing the guitar left-handed.

Her response: Just feels comfortable.

She was quite adept at playing by ear but was always curious about any notes she might have missed. Sometimes, she just threw it all to chance and winged it. She ignored those who whinged, Those aren't the right notes but didn't know which notes were right and didn't know how to play any instrument. She took comfort in being able to at least get it in the right key.

Who Jimi Hendrix was became evident to her when her mother's friend gave her her first USB key full of music – she continued to get these from him as birthday and Christmas gifts, but the content of that first key resonated far longer with her than did the others which followed.

Sometimes, she was asked why.

Her response: The first one is always the best.

Any time she saw friends at school, she held court by playing, sometimes singing as well, whatever she'd learned from her growing collection of USB keys.

This was while she had friends at school.

There were friends whose families were only in the area for a year or two until their house in some off-island suburb was built.

There were those whose families moved away to who-knows-where, as well as others who moved into the area.

Some friends had been lovers, and some friends would become lovers, but only two of those – one a girl, one a boy – were what she could have called serious relationships, which fell into the had-been lovers by later becoming friends with benefits and then steady friendships.

On occasion, someone asked her if there was someone serious in her life

Her response: a shrug and a smile.

She wasn't smiling the week before Secondary IV even started, when her school had been closed due to mould and mildew, her class separated and shuttled off to whichever schools could accommodate them. There was a certain sadness in Solange's eyes when she saw people she knew boarding school buses she was not directed to – she knew no one on her own.

She felt relief in knowing she could stay in touch with her friends via social media and texting.

But it wasn't the same.

Despite all that, there were only two people she called best friends.

At home, her BFF was her mother, Isabelle. Her father, Kris, was never someone she was close to, though she was social whenever she did manage to see him, but that was about it – he always felt like a stranger to her. But Solange and Isabelle had been undeniably close from the word go. It was something Solange never questioned.

Sophie was Solange's away BFF, namely because Sophie lived with her family in one of those far-flung, off-island suburbs that wasn't a suburb before she was born. They usually saw each other whenever Solange's mother and Sophie's father met up with other friends from university, but sometimes Sophie got a lift out to see Solange play at a café in another far-flung suburb. They phoned, texted, messaged, and face-timed, filling the day-to-day gaps between them whenever they couldn't be around each other. Regardless of how they communicated, they always knew each other's news. No matter Solange's situation with friends locally, she always had Sophie.

He melted into The Big Room's ottoman.

In all the years of running a bed & breakfast, Owen never once sat in or on any of The Big Room's furniture.

He closed his eyes. He felt he had to: He loved the sun, but its light hurt right now. He let go and counted the seconds – inhale, hold, exhale – just to see if this technique still worked. Taking a pill would have to be the last resort.

He couldn't hear a sound in the whole place – compared to the apartments he used to live in, he figured palace was a better word.

A big, spacious, wooden palace. A touristic Baranof amidst a Shee Atika of trees.

One couple was staying for the weekend, and another small group was to arrive this evening for a week. The couple had left after breakfast for whatever spring offered them in the Mont-Tremblant area. What spring was for this area was transitional: at risk for more snowfalls, and existing snow not completely gone but much melted, thus ground not dry.

Note to self: Be prepared to clean up any mud they track in.

The cat had found its place and was napping in sun rays.

Ev, his daughter, was at cégep in St-Jérôme and wouldn't be back until later. Her bus back would take at least 90 minutes – maybe more, considering the weather forecast for later today – just to get to the Esso station at St-Jovite, where Michelle could have picked her up after having done a grocery run, most likely to the Super C off Route 117, were the timing good.

It wasn't.

Tommy, his son, was nowhere to be seen.

Most likely at his school's library, working on that class project he's been banging on about lately.

It was quiet. Very quiet. He liked quiet. Right now, he needed quiet.

This late morning's meeting he'd had with the administration of the cégep where he taught had sapped him, worse than any call-centre job he'd ever done in his past. Once more, pressure from the powers-that-be to teach full-time – he'd lost count of how many times this had been. He'd lucked out getting work at the same cégep Ev eventually attended but at a campus only a 15-minute drive away from his B&B. On occasion, he taught a class at another campus but an hour and a quarter away. His schedule always fell short of full-time, but he preferred it like that, leaving more time to help run the B&B.

However, there was an increasing demand for what he taught, and the other English profs worked part-time at either campus, but the turnover rate for