Love and Other Perishable Items (2 page)

Most days I’m happy to hang back and see if I can squeeze on at the end. But on workdays, I
have
to get on or I’ll be late. The 760 gets me to Coles by four, whereupon I don my red scarf and name badge, shove my stuff into my locker, check the roster to see what register I’m on that shift and jump on.

The Ropes

“Miss Amelia Hayes, welcome to the Land of Dreams!”

The boy grinned at me and motioned me into the same tiny room I’d been interviewed in.

“I’ll leave you to it then,” said the manager, and she closed the door.

The boy and I regarded each other for a moment. I judged him to be about twenty. His features were unremarkable, but his face was open, immediately warm and engaging; he seemed to twinkle.

“I,” he said, “am Chris, your friendly staff trainer. You’ll be with me for three four-hour shifts. I will call you Grasshopper and you will call me Sensei, and I will share with you what I know. Right?”

“Okay.” I smiled. It was hard not to.

“Now,” he said, fumbling in his pants pocket. “Where’s your …? Got it.” He pulled out a name badge that said TRAINEE. “This baby is yours for three days, and after that, if you play your cards right, you’ll get your very own to love and cherish for all your days.”

He approached me and fastened it to my shirt. I wasn’t sure where to look.

“Just so you know, I’m open to all kinds of bribery.”

“Good to know.”

“Now let’s get out there.”

Chris taught me how to pack groceries in such a way as to incur the overall least amount of wrath from the customer. However, he stressed, you can’t please everyone. He taught me about the more obscure fruits and vegetables: swedes, rambutan,
jackfruit, persimmon, durian, tamarillo, dragon fruit, star fruit, okra. And the many different kinds of apples: Fuji, Braeburn, Pink Lady, Bonza, Jonathan, Sundowner, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Granny Smith. Then there were brushed potatoes, washed potatoes, Desiree potatoes, new potatoes, Kipfler potatoes and Red Pontiac Potatoes. At the beginning, he said, I would have to look up the different codes for each of them, which would be tedious and slow, but soon enough they would all be in my head.

Chris also told me that every so often I would have a complete jerk come through my register.

“The important thing to remember,” said Chris, “is It’s Not About You. Some people are just pricks. And that’s not only true in here.”

On the third night of training it was time for me to serve my first customers. Chris stayed beside me for the first few and then hovered close by for an hour, twinkling encouragement and appearing at my side if I was struggling with anything. At about eight o’clock the rush had finished and he sidled over.

“I think you’ve earned a break, Youngster.” He smiled and put up the CLOSED sign on my register. “I’ll buy you a Coke.”

We sat drinking our Cokes in the deserted food court of the shopping center. All the shops were in darkness, with their security shutters down.

“So, Amelia, how old would you be?”

“I’m fifteen. Almost.”

“Wow, you really are a youngster.”

“Guess so.”

“You like school?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I like it most of the time. Not math, though.”

“The best thing about finishing school is not having to do math anymore. You mark my words.”

“Can’t wait.”

“Favorite subject?”

“English. Definitely. My teacher this year is a bit weird, but still …”

“Your love is strong and true.”

I looked at him. “What?”

“For English.”

“Oh yeah. For sure. I just hope I don’t get her for senior English.”

“Got someone else in mind?”

“Miss McFadden. Everyone wants Miss McFadden.”

“But they can’t all have her.”

“No, they can’t.”

It’s really easy to talk to him
, I thought.

“What about you?” I asked.

“Me. I’m in my last year at University of New South Wales.”

“What do you take?”

“Major in English with a minor in sociology. I’m thinking of staying on another year to make it a double major.”

“Then what?”

“Oh, don’t you start,” he said sharply.

Chastened, I drank my Coke.

“Got brothers or sisters?” he asked.

“Older sister, Liza. She’s away at uni. Charles Sturt. Lives in Bathurst in some share house.”

“Half her luck.” He grimaced. “I’m with the folks.”

“You don’t get along?”

“They’re nice people. It’s not
bad
. It’s just … It’s gone on too long. But there’s no other choice. So …” He trailed off.

“And my other sister has just turned three.”

“Three! Wow.”

“I know.”

“Contraception doesn’t work in the top drawer.”

“My parents know that now.”

We laughed.

“She’s super-gorgeous, though,” I said, my heart swelling a little at the thought of Jessica’s soft chubby cheeks and philosophical musings. That morning she had approached me while I ate my toast.
Amelia
. She laid one of her hands gently over mine.
My hands don’t come off. They’re attached to my body
. So true.

“Got a boyfriend?”

“What? No. How would that even happen?”

I hadn’t really talked to a boy since primary school. My only male contact was with the pushers and shovers on the bus, and they fell short of every expectation.
Talking to them wouldn’t be like this
, I thought.

“Got a girlfriend?” I countered.

He twisted the pull tab on his Coke can and then pulled it off. “No.” He threw the can in the direction of a trash can a few yards away. It missed, clanged against the metal and hit the ground.

“We’d better get back in there.”

I nodded and pushed back my chair.

“Oh, and you should join the union, Youngster. It doesn’t cost much and by God you’ll get screwed around here.”

The weeks went on and I settled into the routine of going to work after school. It was a little harder to keep up with schoolwork, but nothing that couldn’t be remedied by late-night caffeine hits and working through the odd lunch period. Chris often brought drafts of his uni essays into work for me to read during my breaks. His favorite course was the History of Popular Culture. His essays were littered with references to his favorite
films, which I soon learned were along the lines of
Alien, Rambo, Platoon, Apocalypse Now
and
The Godfather
. So different from what we were studying at school. He asked me what I thought of his work and he listened to my replies.

“So, Youngster,” he said one day, fixing me with an eagle eye. “Why did Barnes shoot Elias?”

“Why did— Who?”

“Barnes! He shot Elias. Why?”

“I don’t know what you’re—”

“Don’t—do
not
tell me you haven’t seen
Platoon
.”

I obliged and remained silent.

“What do they teach you at that school?”

Another day, in line to pick up our pay slips at the back office: “So the mother ship in
Alien
clearly draws on feminist theory, don’tcha think?”

“I don’t watch horror movies.” I mean it. Not ever. They make me scared. Scared of being alone in the house. Scared of being alone upstairs at night. Scared of walking home from work in the dark. Penny can watch scary movies and be completely unaffected. She can watch
The Silence of the Lambs
in bed and then fall sweetly asleep. I didn’t sleep for a week after we watched it last year. Never again.

“It’s not
horror
, Youngster; it’s science fiction. Trail blazing science fiction.”

Each conversation with Chris seemed to prompt an exhausting mix of excitement and forehead-slapping embarrassment at my inability to keep up with the references and in-jokes. Real or perceived. I go to an all-girls school where people are bent on studying. I wasn’t used to talking to boys at all, let alone grown-up ones with university essays to write and incredible charisma. So, so far out of my depth.

Christmas

I worked Christmas Eve, as did Chris and most of the other part-timers. He finished his shift an hour before me and spent a good half hour doing his man-about-the-supermarket routine: entertaining the girls; engaging in serious-looking talks with the managers, his arms crossed, nodding with a furrowed brow; counseling Ed at the service desk about his life choices, or lack thereof. It was amazing how he was able to talk to anyone and everyone with confidence. I wasn’t the only one who reveled in the easiness of talking to Chris. Everyone had a better shift when Chris was on.

After the routine had concluded, he disappeared into one of the aisles for a couple of minutes and reappeared carrying a bunch of flowers. He walked past the checkouts on his way to the exit.

I was focused on the task of maneuvering a huge frozen turkey into a plastic bag, but I was acutely aware of his movements. (It was a skill I’d developed. At any given time, in addition to performing my checkout duties, I could tell you where Chris was, where he had been and when he was due to finish.) It looked as though he was going to walk out without saying goodbye or merry Christmas or anything.

At the last moment he paused at my checkout, threw the flowers down on the counter and muttered, “Those are for you, Youngster. Merry Christmas.” And barreled on out.

I looked from the flowers to the exit and back again.

I wiped the icy turkey residue from my hands onto my pants and moved the flowers underneath the register. They had a Coles
staff-purchases seal on them and a sticker that said REDUCED FOR QUICK SALE.

After work I walked home hugging my flowers with a queer fluttery excitement in my chest.

“Who are those from?” asked my mother, in front of a gaggle of Christmas Eve relatives, as I walked in the front door.

“Um … someone from work,” I managed.

She raised one eyebrow. “Well. We’d better put them in a vase.”

I was distraught when they died a few days later and Mum insisted they be thrown out.

All December, I’d looked ridiculously forward to shifts when Chris would be working, especially if he was on a checkout within earshot of me, or better still in front of me, so I could watch him chatting to his customers, doing that thing he did. He could have a conversation with absolutely anyone.

He was not to be messed with, though, for all his chumminess with the managers. The store’s air-conditioning busted a few days before Christmas, and several of us checkout staff almost fainted from the heat, thanks to the heavy felt Santa hats we were required to wear. Maybe those hats would make sense at the North Pole, but here in Australia, Christmas falls in the dead of summer. Most of us cursed and bitched as we wiped away the sweat that ran down into our eyes, but we continued to scan and pack groceries. Not Chris. He petitioned management to have the Santa hats abandoned until the air-conditioning was fixed. Management remained unmoved and said the Santa hats were an important part of creating a Christmassy atmosphere. Chris went to the union. Pretty soon the Santa hats were a thing of the past.
Chris, the hero of the hour, personally removed the Santa hat from my overheated head, waved it triumphantly in the air and threw it under the counter. He winked at me, leaned in and whispered in my ear with playful conspiracy, “Rage against the machine, Youngster.”

And, almost imperceptibly, his hand touched my arm before he returned to his own register. It was the first time that any of his skin had touched any of mine.

Working alongside Chris transformed five hours of boredom into a wonderland of banter and laughter. I surreptitiously scanned the roster to see which shifts we were scheduled on together and always made sure my hair was washed and as anti-frizzed as possible on those days. When school holidays began, we worked a lot of the same shifts. That fluttery feeling in my chest felt as though it was starting to bruise my rib cage.

The final nail in the coffin of my sanity came one night toward the close of business. Chris was lounging over my register, chatting. I think we were talking about social hierarchies in high school as compared to social hierarchies at university.

“I’m not saying that Beautiful People don’t have the right to
exist
,” I remember saying. “I’m not saying that they should be rounded up and taken to an island. I’m just saying that they are never, ever to be trusted because they can never know what it’s like not to be Beautiful and their priority will always be being Beautiful with other Beautiful People.”

“So you think that everyone should know their place and be happy in it, and not seek to have any congress beyond that?”

Bianca (who was the service supervisor, and so the boss of us) barked at Chris from down at the service desk, where she was
delicately adjusting the uniform red bow tie of one of the better-looking checkout boys. “Chris! Back to work!”

He didn’t move right away. He looked at me and, with full eye contact for maximum impact, said, “You are the real thing, Youngster. I hope you will never change,” before moving slowly back to his own register.

I know a compliment when I hear one, even if I don’t fully understand the nature of it. The hammer shot that last nail in with one strong blow.

One afternoon in January, I sit on the couch watching TV with my little sister. Jess likes to watch TV snuggled up to me. All right, all right—
I
like watching TV snuggled up to her. We are watching
Sesame Street
. Apart from wondering whatever happened to Grundgetta, I’m not really paying attention. I’m mulling over the last few weeks at work, in particular thinking about Chris, when it comes to me. The whir and fog in my mind suddenly clear and leave three words standing tall and indisputable:

I love Chris.

My tummy feels weird. I sit there pondering for what must be a long time, letting Jess watch the older kids’ programs that are on later and later. Eventually my father comes in and starts making a whisky and soda for himself and my mother. Whisky and soda signals six o’clock and time for me to get up and set the table for dinner. In love or no.