Love and Other Perishable Items (20 page)

The day passes without further incident. At lunch I sit quietly
among my group, saying nothing to Penny or anybody and pretending to study for a test.

I don’t cry.

In double English we watch
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
. Sitting at one of the desks in the back row, I put my head down on my arms and study the grainy wooden veneer of the desk, which is an inch from my eyes. I doze fitfully.

Mrs. Cumming doesn’t say anything, but I catch her looking at me when I wake.

The bus trip home is the usual assault on my senses. Three alpha-male rugby players torture a tiny nerdy-looking seventh-grade boy. He fights back, the brave little soul.

I meander home from the bus stop, not due back at work until the following night.

When I get home, Mum is about to head out the door. She says she’s going to a superannuation seminar at her school.

“There’s a barbecued chicken in the fridge for you and Jess, and stuff for salad. Get her into the bath before six.”

The front door slams behind her and I stand in the middle of the kitchen. I can hear Jess watching
Sesame Street
in the living room. I put my bag down on one of the chairs around the kitchen table. There’s a paralyzing ache somewhere in my chest, but no sign of tears. I realize I haven’t eaten all day.

“Melia!” calls Jess. “Can I have some Ovaltine?”

Little madam doesn’t even say please
, I think.

“Can I have some Ovaltine
what
?” I shout back.

“Pleeeease!”

“Little madam,” I mutter, and make the Ovaltine.

At five o’clock she wanders into the kitchen, where I am sitting at the table in front of an empty tea mug.

“TV’s finished,” she says leadingly.

“Mmmmm.”

“Can you play with me?”

“No.”

“Ohhwwwwwuh.”

“Go and find something to play with for a little while and then it’ll be bath time, then dinnertime.”

“There’s nothing to play with,” she sulks.

And then I just lose it.

“DON’T
WHINE
, JESSICA!” I shout.

Her little eyes widen.

“JUST LEAVE ME ALONE! GET AWAY FROM ME! GO
AWAY!
” My voice cracks at the end of the outburst. I fling my head down on my arms where they are resting on the table and wail. I feel her little hand on my arm.

“Melia …”

“GO AWAY!” I scream into the table.

Little footsteps sprint away, up the stairs and into her room above, where the door slams.

I cry and cry, until my shirtsleeves are sodden and my body exhausted. I hear little sobs coming from the room above me. I get up, blow my nose and splash some water on my face at the kitchen sink. I take several deep breaths. Then I climb the stairs and knock on Jess’s bedroom door.

“Jess.”

I open the door. She’s sitting on her bed with one arm holding Prize Teddy, who does indeed look fetching with his new Nanna-knitted scarf. I sit down beside her.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

She’s silent.

“I’m
really
sorry I yelled at you.” My voice quavers. “I’m upset today.”

“Why?”

“A boy at my work is being mean to me.”

“Like Felix?”

Felix is a boy at Jess’s preschool who often pushes her over in the sandpit. I’ve threatened to go to her preschool and show this Felix the back of my hand, but Mum always tells me not to talk like that.

“Sort of.”

She nods. I hold out my arms and she flings herself across the bed and into them. Holding her tight, I breathe in great lungfuls of her skin and hair.

“I’m going to run your bath and make dinner while you’re in there.”

Jess has long baths, where she plays out all sorts of dramas with her duckies and various unfortunate-looking Barbie dolls. Crystal Barbie, once resplendent in her polyester ball gown and tiara, is now naked and sporting a crew cut.

Jess nods and pulls off her socks. I wouldn’t stoop so low as to ask her not to tell, but I hope that she won’t mention my episode to Mum.

Half an hour later we are seated side by side in front of the television, watching one of Jess’s shows and eating cold chicken and salad. The phone rings. It’s Penny.

Being mad at Penny is not sustainable. She is the reason I don’t feel alone in the world. We’ve been friends since seventh grade and best friends since eighth grade. Penny is my most intimate relationship and I don’t know how to position myself in the universe without her by my side. If not for her, I would be some
Holden Caulfield–style loner, alienated and miserable. I’m mad as hell, and taken aback that she is going to this party without me, but I can’t stay angry at her. The Chris stuff is unbearable enough; I need Penny. I need to beat a retreat back to our safe harbor.

“Have you calmed down yet?” she asks.

“Only just.”

“My dad wants to split up with my mum,” she says dully.

“Shit! Why?”

“I don’t know. She can be pretty hard work sometimes.”

“I guess. Did you overhear them talking about it?”

“No, he told me about it in the car on the way to school today.”

“Has he told
her
?”

She was silent for a moment. “No. Not yet. And it’s bad timing, with Jamie just home from Banksia House.”

“Do you reckon he’s serious?”

“Seems to be.”

“Where would he go?”

“I don’t
know
, Amelia!”

I can’t believe this. Penny’s mum and dad are like … I can’t believe this.

“Sweetie, I’m so sorry. I don’t get it. Your parents are … You know, they seemed … didn’t they?”

“Hmh.”

“Do you want to come and stay here for a while?”

“No, I’d better … no. But thanks.”

Radio Silence

When I get to work the next day, Chris is standing at the service desk looking at the roster. Bianca and Jeremy see me before he does.

“Hi,” I say, slotting myself in beside him.

He looks at me briefly. “Hi,” he says, then passes me the roster and walks rapidly away. Bianca and Jeremy snicker, or I imagine they do. She’s put me way up on register sixteen again.

Not a word or a gesture all shift.

Bianca takes Chris off register at about seven-thirty to collect trolleys. He walks past me several times and doesn’t even make eye contact.

Jeremy and Bianca seem to be conferring down at the service desk, and then Jeremy is dispatched to my register, ostensibly to take a change order.

“What’s happening with you and Harvey?” he asks, as if it is his right to ask such things.

“Nothing,” I reply, cursing myself for even giving him that much.

“He ignoring you or what?”

“He’s not ignoring me!”
Unbelievable! This guy hasn’t spoken to me in over three months and now he thinks he can show up and question me about the sorest of sore points
. They can sniff out a weak spot, Bianca and her minions, that’s for sure.

I slap my change order down on the conveyor belt. He pockets it and raises his eyebrows, then saunters back down to Bianca.
Does he ever actually serve customers?
I think as a customer with a loaded cart approaches my register.

Surely Chris will say something to me before the shift is over. He has never, ever not spoken to me at work. He’ll come and talk to me and demonstrate to the minions that I am still his favorite youngster and the minions will have to quit—or at least reduce—their snickering. Nine o’clock approaches. Everybody starts cashing up.

Chris and I usually walk to the back office together to hand in our cash drawers. Before I have finished counting the money in my drawer, I see Chris yank his drawer out and disappear around to the back office with it. I follow as soon as I can, feeling minion eyes upon me, only to see him bolting out of the staff exit. I stop in my tracks. Ed overtakes me, carrying his own cash drawer.

“Ed!” There’s a desperate tone in my voice that even a stoner can pick up on and wish himself elsewhere.

“Yeah?”

“Chris … Is Chris not talking to me or something?”

“I dunno, Amelia. Sorry.”

He continues on. I slowly put one foot in front of the other until I hand in my drawer. I collect my backpack from my locker and head to the staff exit. Outside, Bianca, Jeremy, Donna and Alana are lined up against the wall, taking drags on their cigarettes.

Bianca looks at me with a satisfied expression. Satisfied that I have been put in my place at last. No more swanning around thinking I’m smarter than them and riding on Chris’s coattails. She’d have been dripping with saccharine, though, if it had gone the other way and I had emerged as Chris’s girlfriend.

The others don’t look at me, but I see smirks through the smoke. They don’t say goodbye and neither do I.

On my way home I walk past the pub and see Chris sitting
alone at a table with a beer, waiting for the others to join him. I stop to torture myself with a good long stare. Then I walk home. Tonight, walking alone through the dark streets is frightening. The wind whistles through the power poles and makes shop signs rattle against their fastenings. Once I am past the main roads, I walk in the middle of the street to avoid whatever might be lurking in the shadowy sidewalks.

Getting the Hell Out of Here

Two weeks to the day pass since Ed’s party. Work sucks. To make the whole Land of Dreams thing seem worthwhile, I blow my savings on two new pairs of jeans, several new T-shirts and a new pair of Converse All Stars. Blue. One of the T-shirts is cream-colored with brown edging. It has the words CAN SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME? written across the front in small lettering.

Chris has continued to ignore my existence. Well, not exactly, but he makes swift maneuvers to avoid situations where he might have to look at me or talk to me. If such a situation becomes unavoidable, I get the curtest of nods.

I miss him like hell and often have sudden recall of cool bathroom tiles and the taste of lime and tequila.

Street Cred Donna hangs around him a lot, retying the long purple laces on her steel-capped boots. They all go off to the pub together after work. I hover around in the locker room until they’ve gone so I won’t have to parade myself past them all milling around the staff exit. Behold the Dumped. The Publicly Dumped. The Embodiment of Dashed Hopes. The Uninvited.

“I wonder if he ever thinks about it,” I remark to Penny.

“It doesn’t really matter what he
thinks
,” she replies, not unkindly.

We are studying for our final exams, which are in a week. I’m grateful to have something to focus on. Penny’s dad has moved out. Her mum is “on the rampage.” Her brother, Jamie, is staying in his room a lot and missing a lot of school days.

“Where’s he living? Your dad?” I ask.

“Dunno.”

“You
don’t know
?”

“None of us know. He says he’s ‘staying with a colleague,’ but he won’t say where. Maybe he doesn’t want me to know so Mum can’t get it out of me.”

I’m stumped. I cannot imagine my father doing this. Yelling at me? Yes. Not washing up the pots and pans? Yes. Leaving the family? No.

“He’s supposed to be taking Jamie and me out for dinner this Sunday. But he hasn’t rung about it or anything.”

Penny has been buying her lunch at the canteen lately. No more school lunches packed by her dad. Sometimes you can spend twenty-five minutes in that line, and the lunch period is forty minutes.

It’s Sunday night and I’m studying in my room. My first exam is tomorrow. English. They always start with English. My desk is littered with past exam questions. I vaguely register that the phone is ringing.

“Amelia!” my mother calls. “Phone.”

I clomp down the stairs to where she stands, extending the phone to me.

“Chris,” she says.

I freeze.

She looks at me, and I grab the receiver and scuttle back up the stairs.

“Hello?”

“Youngster.”

“Hi.”

“How’s things?”

Play it cool, Amelia, play it cool
. “Why haven’t you been talking to me?”
Crap
.

If Chris is at all fazed by the question, he deals with this by simply not acknowledging it. He mustn’t think it worth answering.

“I’m ringing to tell you some news.”

“Yeah?” I’m back in my room now.

“Yeah. I’m … uh … getting the hell out of here.”

“You’re what?”

“I’m moving to Japan.”

I founder. And collapse on the edge of my bed.

He continues. “I’ve got this job teaching English in a small town. An industrial town. It’s like a night school. During the day I’ll do lunchtime classes at a factory.”

“For how long?” I manage after a considerable pause.

“My initial contract is for a year. Then I can extend it if I’m having a good time. I’ve resigned from the Land of Broken Dreams.”

“Uh-huh.” I’m at a loss for words and in any case need to concentrate on not crying.

“I’m having a thing at my place next Saturday night. A going-away party. I fly out on Sunday night.”

“Mmmm.” Strangled tones.

“I want you to come. Work people will be there and some of my uni friends.”

Silence.

“Can you write down my address?”

I scrabble about under the past exam papers on my desk and find a pen. “Yeah.”

“Sixteen Acacia Terrace, Eastlakes.”

“Right.”

“Well, I’d better go, Youngster,” he says briskly. “Got a whole lotta people to call, and then a whole lotta packing to do.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

I sit for a moment on my bed and then drop my forehead on my knees and wait for the tears. I don’t have to wait long.

My sobs have started to dwindle to sniffling when there is a knock on my door.

“What is it?” I call, using a tone meant to make it clear to the knocker that I did NOT say
come in
.

But the door opens and Mum enters, closing the door behind her.

“I didn’t say come in!”

She crosses her arms and stands in front of me.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” I gather up the soggy tissues surrounding me on the bed and throw them in the bin. Not all of them make it.