Writer's Excerpts

When Belle Walked Along Spadina

by Joyce Wayne

published in TOK: Writing the New Toronto - Book 6

Whenever Belle walked along Spadina, the shopkeepers would leap from the comfort of their worn stools to offer her the juiciest orange or the most luscious square of strawberry cheesecake. Schwartz, who owned the lady’s apparel store, would attempt to lure her into his premises by showing off his most glamorous red frock. With her tight black curls and her smooth olive skin, crimson suited Belle.

“Bellele,” he’d shout, yanking the stub of the cigar from his stained lips. “Give a fella a chance to make a shayne maidele happy.”

Usually Belle played along with Schwartz’s game. “Sure, Mr. Schwartz, if you don’t mind the neighbours telling your missus all about us.”

Belle never actually minded when the shopkeeper would hold the sample up to her chin and press the bodice against her chest. Schwartz was harmless, unlike foreman Mandelbaum, the giant with forearms the size of the sailor Popeye’s in the funnies. At the garment factory, Belle sewed buttons onto the jackets of the servicemen who were cleaning up the mess the Nazis had made of Europe.

On the shop floor, the foreman’s word was law, and Mandelbaum had convinced himself that he was entitled to cop a feel at least twice a day.

To read the full piece, purchase TOK: Writing the New Toronto - Book 6