Monique Polak

I was taking in the laundry when I spotted a young person scraping the neighbour's balcony. "Hello," I said, "who are you?" (If you don't know me, I should explain that I am unusually friendly.) Imagine my surprise when the person looked up -- and he was one of my students from last semester. He was even more surprised than me. "Miss Polak," he sputtered. Gee

, no one has called me Miss Polak for several months now!!

So, because it was hot and humid out, I offered him some of my homemade lemonade and also some zucchini bread (made by a different neighbour). About ten minutes later, it started to thunder -- then there was lightning and heavy rain. So, because the neighbours whose deck he was scraping (so that he can paint it afterwards) are out of town, I told him he might as well take refuge in my livingroom while I worked upstairs on my new new manuscript (I'm only on page two). I offered him this week's Maclean's Magazine, but he asked about my book that's coming out this fall... and since I happened to have the galley copy in the living room, he started reading that. AND GUESS WHAT? HE LIKED IT. In fact, he stayed quite long reading it -- even after the rain had stopped. I took this as a very good sign. And because I am working on chapter one of a brand new book and there is a male character, guess what job I gave him? Why, a student painter, of course!