"I've felt attracted to black men for years and years, especially the ones from the island of Haiti, but I've always felt ashamed of what people would think of me," Karen Mazandarani said to Toussaint "T-Man" Vincent, as the two of them sat down at a quiet corner on the main floor of the Carleton University library. It was a frosty night in the City of Ottawa, and the Ontario winter showed no signs of leaving as March finally began...
On that bitterly cold late-winter night, things were heating up in the Carleton University library. For Karen and Toussaint, two long-time best friends who found themselves at a crossroads, there was an unspoken attraction that demanded to be acknowledged. The question is, will the two of them finally get the ball rolling or what?
"You shouldn't care what people think of you," Toussaint replied as he looked at the tall, curvy, fifty-something Iranian woman. Clad in a white blouse, long dark skirt and boots, with a dark gray shawl draped over her shoulders, her long, grey-streaked and curly dark hair cascading off her shoulders, Karen looked elegant as usual. Frowning at him, Karen leaned back in her chair, and sighed deeply.
Sitting at a back corner near the windows, with a bunch of file cabinets behind them, Toussaint and Karen sat sufficiently far from most library patrons to afford them some privacy. As was their custom, they kept their distance from the others while having their customary heart-to-heart discussions about anything and everything. In a topsy-turvy world, the library was their sanctuary...
"I know that," Karen said and she smiled, and gently laid her hand on Toussaint's thigh. The big and tall, ruggedly handsome, twenty-something Haitian student licked his lips and smiled at Karen, but said nothing else. For years he'd known Karen as a brilliant, beautiful and fearless woman. The two of them met in the campus library, and struck a friendship. One which endured for years and years, much to everyone's surprise...
What a pair they made. The aspiring law student, dutifully toiling away at his criminal justice assignments on the library computer, and the Iranian-born Canadian author with a fondness for libraries, political debate and activism. Truly two of a kind. Toussaint and Karen had been pals for ages, sure, but they were never more than that, until she told him she was divorcing her husband of thirty years, Maher Zanganeh.
