Love and Other Perishable Items Page 3

  “I shouldn’t have asked you anyway,” he was saying. “You go home and do your homework.”

  I don’t want to go home and do my homework! I want to come with you! I want to be out late at Ed’s house and fall asleep on his couch with my head in your lap. I’ll eat ice cream! I’ll do whatever it takes!

  “All right. See you.”

  “See you.”

  I must have looked crestfallen.

  “Are you still studying World War I?” he asked, taking pity on me like the big baby I was.

  “Yeah,” I replied in a small voice.

  “You should read All Quiet on the Western Front. I’ll bring it in for you on Tuesday night, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  He turned on his heel and went back to join the others.

  I’d walked home muttering curses and clenching my fists. When I arrived, the house was dark and quiet. I rummaged around for the phone number for Liza’s share house, took the phone into my room and dialed in the number.

  It rang and rang before the beep and a female voice inquired somewhat uncertainly, “Hello?” over very loud music. I asked several times to speak to my sister before the female voice undertook to go off and find her for me. About five minutes later I heard fumbling and then finally Liza’s voice.

  “Hello?”

  “Lizey. It’s me.”

  “He-ey, little sis! How’re you?”

  “Yeah, fine. Look, I was wondering, um, what’s a bowl?”

  Mystified silence.

  “You know, like, if people are ‘having a bowl’ … What’s a bowl?”

  “Oh. It’s a kind of pipe thingy you use … you know, like a bong.”

  “Oooooh, right.”

  “Got it?”

  “Yep. Thanks. Better go. Lots of homework. Bye.”

  I hung up and sat motionless on my bed. Then I dialed the number again.

  “Lizey? Me again. What … what’s a bong?”

  “It’s a water pipe for smoking pot in.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why are you asking?”

  “Um …”

  “Are you getting on it?”

  “No, no … I’m not ‘getting on it.’ ” So, so not, I thought. Almost, but totally blew it.

  “Well,” mused Liza, “if you’re going to try it, you should come up one weekend and I’ll get some for you. That way I can keep an eye on you. And give you the talk.”

  “Thanks. Maybe I will.”

  “You’ll love the talk.”

  “I’m sure I will. I miss you.”

  “Yeah … I miss you too.”

  Liar. She was having an absolute ball up there, I could tell. I lay back on my bed. The indignity! Why did my parents have to have me fifteen years ago? Why couldn’t they have had me eighteen years ago? Then at least I’d have had a fighting chance of knowing what a bowl was, and that would be a fine thing!

  A Valid Lifestyle Choice

  For those who are unfamiliar with the lifestyle, you do get used to having a whopping, pointless crush. By using the word lifestyle, I don’t mean to imply that it is in any way glamorous or desirable. Just that it becomes a normal part of everyday life, and your body gets kind of attuned to functioning on that plane. Your friends and teachers get used to you staring out of windows when you used to be quite sharp. You stare out of all kinds of windows: classroom windows, bus windows, your bedroom window, over the sink and out of the kitchen window. Your central nervous system speeds up when the object of your affection is near, or expected to be near. Your senses sharpen, particularly peripheral vision. I am acutely aware of Chris’s movements at work. I see him approaching even when I’m studying a bag of beans to distinguish whether they’re pinto beans or lima. I know which girls he’s talked to throughout the shift. I know when he’s preoccupied or playful by the way he moves. I know when he’s pissed off that Kathy has been talking to Stuart Green from Canned Goods. I know it all. Sometimes I mutter his name under my breath like a madwoman.

  I’m grateful for the twenty-minute walk home after work as it gives me time to unclench my muscles and recover from the strain of watching Chris flirt with the endless parade of my competition.

  Aside from the constant threat of the Kathy virus (don’t know why I say threat, as if I’m actually in the running) and the effortless superiority of Street Cred Donna and Georgia from the deli, there are quite a few new female part-timers. One of them is a sixteen-year-old called Sveta Tarasova. Her name alone conjures up images of gorgeous Russian Bond girls who could kill you with their thighs after you have succumbed to their charms. Villainesses who wear slinky black dresses, have long dark hair, smoke cigarettes from a cigarette holder, drink vodka martinis and bat their smoky eyes, saying, “Da, darlink.” Later on in the penthouse, afterward, if you came around to their way of thinking, they would mix you another vodka martini, bring it over to you and toast, “To crime, darlink.” Oh God, maybe she’s going to kill Chris with her thighs.

  Or maybe I’m getting a bit carried away. Let’s face it; it wouldn’t be the first time. Unfortunately, Sveta actually is extremely slim, with long dark straight hair. She doesn’t say much. She has killer legs, and at work she wears a very short black skirt with black tights and Mary Jane–style shoes. After watching her reach up high to put some home-delivery bags on top of the trolley, Chris and I find out that she wears stockings. Real stockings. The kind that are held up by garters. We are treated to a generous glimpse of them while she strains with the heavy bags.

  “Oh … my … God,” murmurs Chris.

  I’m incensed. Who does that? Who wears stockings with garters? There are plenty of normal stockings to be had. Why can’t she buy a pair of ’em like everyone else?

  Chris is gone in seconds, down to the service desk to tell Ed about this unexpected and heaven-sent eyeful.

  To add insult to injury, Sveta also wears a demure little black cardigan over her white work shirt, probably a deliberately titillating juxtaposition for the garters. Bitch.

  I overhear Chris asking her to have a coffee with him after work. Of course. Why wouldn’t he? Nothing I can do about it.

  There is actually nothing I can do about most things, I realize walking home. Being a slightly frumpy fifteen-year-old does not lend itself to much agency in any field. Chris is writing an essay on E. P. Thompson and has been telling me all about “structure versus agency” at various intervals.

  I live at home with my parents. I have to do as I am told there.

  I go to work. I have to do as I am told there.

  I go to school. I have to do as I am told there too.

  I never get a seat on the school bus because the pushers and shovers defeat me. As soon as I turned fourteen, I put on a few pounds, and no matter how I crash-diet and run around the park, I can’t seem to shed them. My sister Liza lives in a big share house with other students and tells tales of parties and boyfriends every time we speak on the phone. I live in a small room in my parents’ house. My hair frizzes up around my face no matter how much I comb it down. Chris keeps on flirting with the other girls at work no matter how much I will him to stop. There’s not a single thing I can do about any of it.

  One day last week I’d been mouthing off to Chris about Othello, which we had just started studying at school. He’d listened to me with his head slightly cocked to one side, offering small arguments that I talked over.

  “Why is it called The Tragedy of Othello—should be The Tragedy of Desdemona!”

  “Well, it’s a tragedy for her too, but you know he’s the main protag—”

  “He kills his wife! Just kills her! I mean, what kind of psycho kills his wife and then gets to be the hero of the play?”

  “He’s a tragic hero, Youngster. He has a fatal flaw—they all do.”

  “It’s not his tragedy! It’s Desdemona’s!”

  “But the play is not about her, Youngs—”

  “How small a man is he? He’s this big war hero, but he’s so insecure t
hat he believes all that crap about his wife. Who loves him, the poor woman. Big mistake. But how was she to know?”

  “He was willfully deceived by Iago. If someone is that good at deception, it’s easy to believe them.”

  “It shouldn’t have been that easy. Men!”

  Chris gave up.

  “You should get your own TV show, Youngster,” he’d said.

  Blimey, I thought, picturing his face yet again. I should have my own TV show, all right. It would be called Lifestyles of the Young and Powerless. Lifestyles of Them That Had a Mouthful of Metal Until a Short Time Ago. Lifestyles of Them That Still Let Their Mums Choose Their Clothes and Spent Last Saturday Night at Their Best Mate’s House Studying. I’m a disgrace. The only high points in my life are those rare moments when Chris offers to walk me home after work and listens to my rants with what appears to be tender amusement. I have become a bit of a ranter, I must admit. School, work, the disrespect with which my dad addressed my mum the other morning, the injustice of the universe, the crappy marks I keep getting in math, Madame Bovary, how one of my teachers drops the s in hubris like you pronounce debris.

  “Breathe, Youngster, breathe. You’re an Angry Young Woman.”

  But he listens.

  August 5

  Time: 2 p.m.

  Location: Uni library

  Hours rostered at Coles this week: 22

  Uni essays to research and write: 3 (and a presentation)

  Health: head hurts, shoulders hurt

  Cars owned by myself, Christopher John Harvey: nil

  Hours spent waiting at bus stops this week: 4.2

  Status report on the Search for the Perfect Woman: fruitless but ongoing

  Money saved from Coles job this year: $250

  Money spent on random shit including alcohol, caffeine, aspirin, angsty music and one or two items of Young People’s Clothing: the rest of it

  Mum and Dad were asking this morning if I’m going to have a twenty-first. Hmm. This would probably involve assembling the usual suspects and having a party in the backyard. I’ll undoubtedly get tanked, as will everyone else, and it might be rather a pity for the parentals to have to see me in such a state. So I’d just as soon do all that at the pub and have a night I will try to remember rather than one I wish I could forget.…

  The uni bar, bless it, has a special on Long Island iced teas this week. I have to work after class this afternoon, but tomorrow after noon I’m fucking going. I’ll be there as soon as they roll up the metal shutters, demanding my value-for-money oblivion in a tall glass. I have my History of American Foreign Policy double lecture in the afternoon and I’m sure as hell not going to it sober.

  Now, dear reader (of whom there are none, but I can’t seem to stop writing that), it is 2:45 p.m. and time for me to leave for my history tute. If I leave right now, and take a circuitous route via the physics building, I may run into Kathy. For the benefit of the new notebook, Kathy is at present—once again—the focus of my Search for the Perfect Woman. She seems to look hotter every day, and while she pretty much ignores me at uni, I do seem to be able to engage her at odd moments when we are at work. She’s dropped down to two shifts per week, though, so that’s a bit crappy. The upshot is that I pretty much don’t have a chance with her. And, you know, thank God, because if I did, I’d have to give up my lifestyle of soul-wrenching loneliness and sexual frustration. I’m too good at it to quit now. I could brood for Australia.

  Harvey out.

  P.S. I didn’t think about Michaela for a good several-hour stretch today. Go figure.

  August 14

  I’m writing outside on the lawn today as the sun is out and blessedly warming the back of my neck. Looking forward to the summer break. I have decided to stay on to complete a second major next year after all, because the idea of leaving uni in three months’ time and looking for a real job is quite frankly a little too much for me to contemplate in my (perpetually) delicate state. Seemingly as per, woke up hungover this morning, fully clothed and feeling as if something had died in my mouth. Stumbled into the shower, too ratshit even to jerk off. Put empty wine bottle into my backpack (it upsets my mother to see empty bottles on my bedside table) and left for uni. After a couple of ibuprofen and two coffees I am almost a human being again.

  Coles is pissing me off royally. Now even Kathy has been made a service supervisor and no longer has to work on those godforsaken registers. I’ve been there as long as her! Bianca only beat me by a few weeks and she’s been a supervisor for months now. They think that giving me the staff trainer role is going to placate me. Well, it’s not. It’s a gristly old bone and frankly they are going to have to throw me a better one. Yes, I get to torture, ridicule, perv on and flirt with (as appropriate) the unending stream of hapless teenagers that keep getting hired, but I still spend most of my time on the registers. Fuck that. If they don’t make me a supervisor by the new year, I’ll either quit or ask Mr. Albertella for a transfer to Perishables or something. As long as it’s not to Canned Goods with that fucker Stuart Green. Anyway, I digress.

  Uuuuum. Yeah. Stuff. Kathy wore a skirt and tights to work last night instead of her usual pants. So that was exciting. I was excited. I’m still excited. So excited I may have to go to Ed’s for a joint or three after work tonight. Take the edge off.

  It’s time for an update on the Search for the Perfect Woman. The Field is as follows:

  —Kathy Never in a million years.

  —She’s-big-she’s-blond-she-works-in-the-deli Georgia Sanders Ed and Lincoln reckon it’d be a done deal if I got off my arse and did something. They’re probably right—and a man is not a camel. However, I have never, ever been interested in anything she has said.

  —Lauren from sociology seminar Pretty token, though. I hardly know her. Funky necklaces. Hates Durkheim.

  —Michaela Never in a trillion years. Unbelievably unhealthy for me to have even written it down.

  August 22

  Okay. Let me begin by saying I am pretty fucking drunk, and as the wine I quaffed just now cannot possibly have hit my bloodstream yet, I will get drunker still. The reason for my drunkenness is I got a phone call from Michaela today. I was flummoxed, to say the least, at her calling. I thought I made myself perfectly clear about this sort of thing at the airport. That grisly day. But no, she calls me from Perth and starts making pleasant conversation.

  She asks me how I am. She asks me how uni is going; how Mum and Dad are!?!

  I ask her where she is calling from.

  She hesitates—then says she is calling from Brad’s place.

  “Oh, how is Brad?” I ask with considerable Tone.

  She balks, then recovers and says he is fine.

  “Well, that’s great, Michaela,” I say. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that. Now why the fuck are you calling me?”

  She says she is still hoping we can be friends.

  Friends. Let me share with you, dear reader, or indeed anyone who will listen, why Michaela’s hope that we “can be friends” is a vain one.

  When I think about her life in Perth, I feel jealousy like a sickness. I can taste it in my mouth and feel it pulsing through every cell in my body. It expands my capillaries. It thuds in my ears. I don’t mean just jealous of Brad. That’s not casting the net nearly wide enough. I am jealous of her family: her parents, sisters, uncles, aunts and cousins, who see her all the time, who get to celebrate with her every Christmas and birthday. I am jealous of all her mates, who get to go for walks on the beach with her after class, who play soccer with her on Sundays, who drink with her at the session afterward, who come over to watch campy movies every Monday night. I’m jealous of the bus drivers whom she buys tickets off, for their moment of proximity when she dips her bus ticket into the ticket reader. I’m jealous of the salesclerks who get to sell her packs of chewing gum and newspapers, for the momentary greetings and brushes of skin when she hands over her money. I’m jealous of the hot water from the shower that slides o
ver her skin and soaks into her hair. I’m jealous of the mirrors that reflect the brilliant brown warmth of her eyes. I’m jealous of the pillow on which she lays her cheek at night. Bastards, all of them. They have so much and I have nothing.

  Did I mention that I have Tom Waits playing as I write? I do. It’s certainly not hosing down the fire. And I’m not going to be wrapping this up anytime soon, let me tell you.

  Her shoulders. That collarbone.

  Brad gets to kiss her shoulders at will. He can have an all-you-can-kiss buffet of shoulders anytime he likes, and I can’t bear to think about it. But suddenly I can’t think of anything else.

  That’s why I can’t be friends with her—as she dared to suggest at the airport, and by letter, and now by phone. The gall of her! I really miss you, Chris. We were always such great mates, Chris. Let’s at least salvage one part of what we had, Chris. She’s just trying to salve her own conscience.

  How does she think it would work, this friendship gig? So, Michaela, my friend, my buddy, tell me, how did Brad fuck you last night? Mmmm-hmmm, mmm-hm. Yes, and tell me more, old pal—tell me from the very beginning. ’Cause you know, mate, I just can’t stop visualizing a variety of scenarios. Were you sitting on the couch together watching TV after all the other roommates had straggled off to bed? Maybe you were curled up together on the couch and the program you were watching finished. As the credits rolled, he turned your beautiful face to his and kissed your soft, perfect lips. Maybe then he raised the remote up over your shoulder and turned off the TV. You climbed the stairs to his room with your arms about one another. Did he undress you on the bed, lying down, helping you struggle out of item by item of clothing, a painstaking but delicious process? Or maybe it was too cold for that and you both just quickly took your own clothes off standing up and then dived under the covers. No, come on, Michaela, you can tell me, we’re all friends here! Give me the details, go on! Think of me as one of the girls. What have I been up to? Um, let’s see now, bit of this, bit of that. Going to uni, going to work, jerking arhythmically like a fish on a jetty, suffocating in the vacuum left by your departure, having half-waking dreams about the time we made love for three days, hallucinating that your lips just touched my neck … The usual.