Gravity Brings Me Down Read Online Free Page A

her back for saving my life earlier today. That way, I owe her nothing, karmically speaking.
    Her face lights up when she sees me. “Oh, Marie, my darling! I was looking for you.”
    I take her by the arm. “Come on.”
    Cars speed past. One person finally stops to let us cross, so I escort Miss Marple as quickly as I can to the sidewalk. When we get there, she smiles up at me as though everything is completely normal and fine.
    “I hardly recognized you, Marie. What have you done with your hair?”
    She reaches up to touch my hair but I jerk my head away. Sharon is gaping at us, completely wigged.
    “What did she just call you?” she says.
    “Are you coming home?” Miss Marple asks.
    Sharon looks back and forth from me to Miss Marple like she’s at some kind of weird tennis match. I can see Tod from the corner of my eye, idling his moped behind Giovanni’s Hair Salon.
    “You should stay off the road,” I tell Miss Marple, then walk away.
    Sharon trots after me. “Do you know her? Why did she call you Marie?”
    I shrug.
    Sharon shakes her head. “Bizarre.”
    At the Tip, Sharon and I nurse a couple cups of sludge while Tod hovers outside the building, just within my periphery. I have to ask myself: does following someone on a moped constitute stalking?
    Despite Tod, I try to enjoy my tea biscuit while Sharon dissects a chicken wrap. I think eating dead animals is gross. My whole family is vegetarian, but Sharon’s dad is a butcher so she was raised on a staple diet of meat. It makes me sick to think of cute little chickens beingchopped into chunky cubes for something as disgusting as a Coffee Tip wrap. It’s just so … wrong.

    “I can’t believe my parents are making me visit relatives tonight,” Sharon says, picking at her wrap. “It’s Friday, for God’s sake. And it’s not as if they live anywhere cool, like Toronto. They live in Eastdale.” She continues to push the wrap around on her plate until I can’t stand it any longer.
    “Eat it or throw it out.”
    She sighs, shoving the wrap to one side. I try to get my mind off the chicken chunks by talking about my CPP.
    “I want to add a graphic element,” I say.
    Sharon blows on her coffee even though it was cold before it arrived. “Like what?”
    “Some photos at the cemetery, maybe.”
    “Cool.”
    “What topic are you going to do?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe the women in pornography thing.”
    “Have you cleared it with Miss B.?”
    “No. Have you cleared yours?”
    “No. But I don’t think there should be a problem.”
    Sharon raises her eyebrows.
    “What? You think there’ll be a problem?”
    “No, no.”
    Sharon begins picking at her chicken wrap again. I toss my serviette on the table.
    “I’ve got to go.”

Past-Life Transgressions
    A s soon as I leave the Tip, Tod fires up his beast and rolls slowly behind me, thinking he’s being stealthy.
    “I can see you, Tod.”
    “What about next Friday?”
    “No.”
    He sputters unsteadily beside me.
    “Don’t try to sit next to me in class any more, okay?”
    “Okay. That was nice of you to help that old woman cross the street.”
    “Yeah, whatever.”
    I put my headphones on and blast my MP3 player. Tod’s mouth keeps moving but I can’t hear a word he’s saying. We continue like this, past Harvey’s and the ice cream parlour and the hemp shop that’s always being raided by the cops. There’s a thirsty-looking dog tied to the door. I hate seeing dogs treated like that. I hope they give it water.
    Tod sticks his face in front of mine. “I hope they give that dog some water,” he shouts over the music.
    Now he’s reading my mind. This is totally unacceptable. I pull my headphones off. “I’d really like to be alone, Tod. Okay?”
    “Okay.”
    He keeps following me so I stop walking and look off into the distance to one side of his gold helmet. I just stand there, looking at nothing, until he gets the hint and finally leaves. I wait until I’m sure he’s gone,