This is us (minus Colleen), happy to have met Alba and each other in this lifetime

The Roncy QBC #13 was on July 7, 2026

and, as the thumbnail of this article suggests, it was Alba’s last appearance. Unlike you sexy reader, we didn’t know until the end of the session that we were enjoying Alba’s warm and quiet presence at SAVA Crepes & Coffee for one last time. I, for one thought it was just another Tuesday morning with the clubbers.

Some Tuesday

But Tuesday July 7 surely was a peculiar day. First, because I came with an original hairstyle I had never done before. I parted my hair in two big braids and brought them together not behind my head, but in front of my forehead! And everyone complimented me on my hairstyle, which is typical of Toronto, a city that celebrates creativity and individuality. In France, I would have heard a different story, I can tell you that!

Second reason why July 7 was peculiar: I had once again decided to read (something I do every day) and not to write (something long overdue). But I didn’t just bring any book: the book I had decided to bring to the Roncy QBC #13 was the one I brought to the Roncy QBC #8, after I first heard that I was to move out of my current place. I had brought BROKEN FICTION by Marlene Kadar, because, as I wrote in The Roncy QBC Gazette #8:

“I had finished writing the first scene of my play. Now was not the time to start a new one and potentially open fresh wounds. No, now was the time to read something both tragic and beautiful to keep me afloat, because I had been drowning for two weeks already—or trying my best not to drown. I had been witnessing my own demise while breathlessly swimming to my own rescue. I counted on BROKEN FICTION to be my lifebuoy, my broken door frame in the Titanic waters.”

I needed a book about mortality and life-threatening disease to accept the loss of my home.

The Roncy QBC #8 was incidentally the first time I had met Alba, but also Olivia, Gemma and Carianne, who all turned out becoming regulars! (I also met Chantal who hasn’t returned yet, but hopefully will: WHERE ARE MY BLACK PEOPLE?!) I brought BROKEN FICTION to The Roncy QBC #13 after finding a new place to live (the one I’m moving into next week). This time, Marlene Kadar’s book didn’t work its magic like the first time. It felt like biking on third gear on a flat ground. Like wearing a helmet on foot. Like keeping watching porn right after the orgasm.

WHERE IS MY QUOTE AND VOCABULARY CARD PUTAIN?!!!!

As I am writing these words, I realize that I misplaced my own quote and vocabulary card from that day. I laid down all the QVCs from the QVC box on the floor and sorted them chronologically, and my card from July 7 is nowhere to be found. Not even between the pages of BROKEN FICTION (that I still haven’t returned to the library. As a matter of fact, I returned it this morning after the book club, and reborrowed it 2 seconds later).

Here’s my QVC posing with the others before it vanished. It needs its own Netflix documentary.

Lucky for me, I had taken a full picture of it when I took the group photo that day. I still want the physical copy though, it’s a piece of archive, a piece of the history of this neighborhood, the history of bibliophilia in Toronto, one of those micro-chapters in the history of humankind. Where is my QVC? I would understand if I couldn’t find someone else’s, sometimes they forget to give it to me. How can mine just disappear?

Jo

Anyway, that day, despite watching porn after the orgasm, I managed to retire a quote that I decided not to read to the clubbers. I knew I would share it in this journal and that it would belong to the national archives of the Roncy QBC until the end of time (provided that I didn’t misplace that quote and vocabulary card). Let me share with you the quote I wrote on the missing QVC but didn’t read out loud, and the one I didn’t write on the missing QVC but ended up reading to the clubbers. Here’s the unread one that I’m showing to you first, you privileged hottie:

“But I’m losing your attention. I can tell I may just not have written this up well enough, but another matter may have influenced our rapport. When you are literally outside the circle of the “cancered”, you may actually feel outside the circle, or even actually disinterested, tempted to say critical things like “Can’t you talk about something else already?” or, one I have heard screamed at me a few times this fall, “I had cancer, too, you know””

The one that I read to the gang that day was the poem when I first randomly opened that book on a bookshelf of the education center of the Women’s College Hospital where I was working last spring. I opened page 28 and read a poem and thought to myself, “I need to take a picture with this book right now because I sense that it will change my life.” And i had someone take that picture with her phone, and I emailed her to get it and never heard from her. But that’s OK, the poem changed my life, not the book. And here’s a picture of the poem on page 28, called “Soft Figs”. And now I miss the softness of figs.

This sentence stays on my mind rent-free: “Loved ones still have jobs they think are important.”

I learned a few new words that day:

TO WRITHE (v.): as a transitive verb, it means

1a: to twist into coils or folds, b: to twist so as to distort (TO WRENCH), c: to twist (the body or a bodily part) in pain

2: To intertwine

But as an intransitive verb, it means

1: to move or proceed with twists and turns (ex: “writhed to the music”)

2: to twist from or as if from pain or struggling

3: to suffer keenly

I don’t think Marlene Kadar was writhing to any music then.

I was pretty sure I knew the meaning of the next word I pronounced to the group. I had only written it down to double check later. I thought it was another way to say “body”, but apparently not. The group said I was wrong. The group knew what it meant, I surely didn’t:

BODICE (n.): 1. the upper part of a woman's dress, 2. (Archaic) CORSET, STAYS (learning just now that stays are what you call a corset stiffened with bones, and yes, it’s a plural noun)

The next expression felt like putting a hat on a hat, like “au jour d’aujourd’hui” in French. I had heard it before, but I had always assumed that whoever used it was not that eloquent. I was surprised to see Marlene Kadar use it too: “in my mind’s eye”. I thought it meant “in my mind”, so I didn’t understand why people would add an “eye” to the mind. But it turns out those terms cover different realities. According to Collins dictionary,

IN YOUR MIND’S EYE: If you see something in your mind's eye, you imagine it and have a clear picture of it in your mind.

“In my mind’s eye” focuses strictly on seeing a mental picture, whereas “in my mind” covers the thought, not the visualization. Ralala les Anglophones…

Do you know the next one? “Billow.” Here’s its definition from Merriam-Webster:

TO BILLOW (v.): 1: to rise or roll in waves or surges (ex: the billowing sea) 2: to bulge or swell out (as through action of the wind)

CHINK (n.): 1: a small cleft, slit, or fissure (ex: a chink in the fence) 2: a weak spot that may leave one vulnerable (ex: his lawyers found a chink in the law) 3: a narrow beam of light shining through a chink

Colleen

On July 7, my Roncy twin Colleen came to read THE PECULIAR LIFE OF A LONELY POSTMAN (2017), by Quebecois author Denis Thériault. That novel came out in French in 2014 under the name Le Facteur émotif, it was selected by the BBC Radio Book Club and it’s “a love story between two people who've never met, thanks to the magic of a deepening correspondence” (according to someone on the Internet).

Here’s a quote Colleen shared:

“The sun is rising like a golden cheese — now let’s go and have breakfast”

I absolutely love this quote, perfect for our morning book club.

Colleen had to skedaddle, which is why she isn’t on the picture around Alba! By the way, what’s the deal with standup comedians and the word “skedaddle”? Every time they use it, they pause for laughs and no one laughs. As a Francophone, I am starting to believe that the word itself is supposed to be funny.

Olivia and Buffy

Olivia came to write her play and Buffy, to keep working on that art proposal she had brought the week before (see The Roncy QBC #12). Sorry I forgot the details of our conversations, I’m writing this on August 4! But I have pictures!

And here’s Buffy’s tea (Buffy is Bri-ish, can you tell?)

Gemma

Gemma, as you already know, is a literary agent who usually brings work to The Roncy QBC (and there’s nothing wrong with that, even though repeating that makes me wonder if there actually is), so it’s pretty confidential. That day, she did bring work (queries from writers), but she also brought a published novel called THE DIARY OF A BOOKSELLER by Shaun Bythell (2017), the reportedly hilarious memoir of a man running a bookstore in a small Scottish village.

She shared the following quote:

“She told me that when the apocalypse comes and only the Jehovah’s witnesses are left on earth, she intends to take my stuff. She keeps eyeing up various pieces of my furniture with this clearly in mind.”

If I were to rank my favorite quotes so far, this would definitely be in the top 5!

And last, but certainly not least,

Alba

Alba, who showed up pretty late and didn’t look so gleeful when they stepped into the café that morning, had come to journal their thoughts. When it was their turn to speak, they announced that it was their last QBC as they were going back to work.

I got all emotional (which means I kept really quiet). I’m glad I found the clarity of mind to ask for our very first group photo, around Alba, an actual group photo with actual people instead of the usual books. Even camera-shy Buffy didn’t hesitate to join us for that photo (I was quite surprised).

It was only QBC #13 and Alba had only been there since #8 and yet, their presence felt so familiar, so expected, so anchored, and it was comforting. I was emotional, but I was not sad per se. I was more overwhelmed with gratitude and joy at the realization that I had got to meet Alba in the first place. And that we were all neighbors after all!

So it hit me: we should be able to see each other again beyond the books, after Tuesdays 11 AM. So it is decided: to celebrate the Roncy QBC #20, let’s all have a picnic in High Park on Saturday August 29 at 11:00 AM. We will meet in front of SAVA and walk together to High Park. Bring your own food and drinks, your musical instruments or any games you’d like to play. RSVP here.

#FunnyBrainyRoncy #Roncesvalles #RoncesvallesVillage

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All the books mentioned here can be ordered on anotherstory.ca or borrowed from the Toronto Public Library.

Book your free spot at the next Roncesvalles Quiet Book Club here (donations are welcome): https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/the-roncesvalles-quiet-book-club-tickets-1986008762671

The Roncesvalles Quiet Book Club #13