Love and Other Perishable Items

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2010 by Laura Buzo
Jacket art copyright © 2012 by Irene Lamprakou/Trevillion Images

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in paperback in Australia by Allen & Unwin, Sydney, in 2010.

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Extracts on
this page
and
this page
copyright © by Kate Jennings.
Reproduced by kind permission of the author.

This project has been assisted by the Australian government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Buzo, Laura.

[Good oil]
Love and other perishable items / Laura Buzo. — 1st American ed.
p. cm.
Summary: A fifteen-year-old Australian girl gets her first job and first crush on her unattainable university-aged co-worker, as both search for meaning in their lives.
eISBN: 978-0-375-98674-1

[1. Love—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Maturation (Psychology)—Fiction.
4. Work—Fiction. 5. Australia—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.B98319Lo 2012

[Fic]—dc23
2011037579

Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

v3.1

To absent friends

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Spheres of No Influence: January

Lights Up

Land of Dreams

The Ropes

Christmas

The Kathy Virus and Other Anomalies

Daylight

A Valid Lifestyle Choice

The Purple Notebook

Nothing but Interesting Times: April

Lonely Days Begone

Disgrace

Special Treat

The First XV

Dad

The Purple Notebook (continued)

Smoke and Mirrors: June

The Beethoven Dance

The Sisterhood

Maturity

Bathurst

Fraying Ropes

Opening Night

Slammer

Bubble Girl

Ugly

Radio Silence

Getting the Hell Out of Here

Where the Beer Is Cold and the Women Are Friendly

The BLACK Notebook

Clear Water: December

Acknowledgments

Lights Up

“I’m writing a play,” says Chris, leaning over the counter of my cash register. “It’s called
Death of a Customer
. Needless to say, it’s set here.” He jerks his head toward the aisles lined with groceries and lit with harsh fluorescent bars.

It takes me a moment to place the reference, but then I remember
Death of a Salesman
from when Dad took me to see the play last year.

“Sounds good.”

“Want to be in it?”

I nod eagerly.

“Cool. We’re going to the pub after work to workshop it. You should come.”

“Who—” I squeak. “Who’s going?”

“Oh, Ed, Bianca, Donna … people.”

I am only three weeks past my fifteenth birthday, but my braces came off a month ago, so I could possibly slip into a pub looks-wise. Trouble is, my scorching unease would give me away to the door guy, and even if by some miracle it didn’t, I am terrified of interacting socially with my coworkers. Except Chris.

Donna is my age, but she has no trouble keeping up with them. She wears eye makeup and pulls it off. She wears calf-high black boots with purple laces. She smokes and has been kicked out of home by her father several times. She has serious street cred. Unlike me. Ed is nice enough, but he’s eighteen and kind of vagued out all the time. Bianca is twenty-three and ignores me so consistently that it must be deliberate. I am not going to the pub with them.

“I can’t,” I say.

“Why not?”

“I have homework.”

This is not a lie. I’m struggling in math as it is. Getting behind will make it worse. My shift ends at nine o’clock, so even if I go straight home, I won’t get to my homework until nine-forty at least.

Chris’s face contracts in annoyance. “So? I have a two-thousand-word paper due on Friday. Life must still be lived.”

“I can’t.”

“You can do it in the morning.”

I shake my head.

“I’ll take you home afterward. You’ll be home by midnight.”

Now I’m torn. Two hours of sharing him with the others and then I’d be rewarded by fifteen minutes of having him all to myself on the walk home.

“Ed’s got his parents’ car tonight. We’ll drop you right at your door.”

Crap
. “I can’t.”

“Fine, whatever,” he says, withdrawing his presence like a parent confiscating a favorite toy. He stalks off in the direction of the deli, probably to ask “She’s-big-she’s-blond-she-works-in-the-deli” Georgia to go to the pub and join the collaboration on his dramatic masterpiece.

As Chris’s name for her suggests, Georgia is in fact blond, has big breasts, and manages to wear the deli’s white uniform in a way that is quite fetching. However, my point of envy is the fact that, at eighteen, she is a good three years closer in age to Chris.

“No fair,” I mutter as he disappears from sight.

Land of Dreams

Chris never refers to the Coles supermarket we work at as “Coles.” He calls it the Land of Dreams. On nights and weekends, the Land of Dreams is staffed by part-timers. Mainly high school students (me, Street Cred Donna and several others who go to public schools in the area), university students (Chris, Kathy, Kelly, Stuart) and a few other “young adult” types who obviously haven’t yet decided what to “do” with their lives and are working at Coles while they figure it out (Ed, Bianca, Andy).

Come to think of it, that may be a bit of an assumption on my part. I’ve never actually seen Ed, Bianca or Andy grappling with the mystery of their existence or their place in the universe. They’re just
there
. Ed to earn enough money to support his pot habit. Bianca to flirt with the teenage checkout boys. And Andy? Well, who knows; he rarely says anything.

I started work at the Land of Dreams last year, almost on the dot of age fourteen and nine months. This was a move motivated by a passionate aversion to asking my parents for money and the knowledge that there was not much of it going spare around our way in any case. Money is never openly discussed in my house, but I suspect that last year was a bit tough. My sister Liza moved out to go to university in Bathurst, and my dad was longer than usual between jobs. Asking for money began to stress me out. Dad would say he didn’t have any cash and to ask Mum. Mum would sigh and look pissed off and give it to me with less than good grace. So I thought,
Enough of that
.

I went to the local shopping center and asked for work at every shop except the butcher (eww) and the tobacconist (evil). I
really had to push myself to go in each time and not stumble over my words. I did stumble a bit, but most took my number and said they’d call if something came up. One week later a lady from Coles rang and asked me to come in for an interview after school. I started a week after that.

The morning of my first training shift I came down to breakfast. Dad was reading the newspaper and Mum was wiping up some Ovaltine spilled on the floor by my little sister.

“I’ve got a job at Coles,” I said.

“At Metro Fair,” I added.

“On the checkout,” I concluded.

Mum nodded as she wiped.

“Good,” said Dad, looking up from his newspaper for a second. “That’s good, darling.”

Ever since then I’ve been working three nights a week from four till nine, and from noon till four on Saturday or sometimes Sunday.

I’ve got my work routine down pat. At the final school bell I make my way to my locker amid hordes of girls stampeding to freedom. My locker is next to my best friend Penny’s, so we always meet at the end of the day. I change out of my school uniform and into my black work pants and black shoes.

“Sweetie pie,” Penny often says, watching me struggle into my work pants and hoick my tunic over my head, trying not to take my shirt up with it. “There’s got to be an easier way.”

She holds the shirt down for me and catches me if I lose my balance while unknotting the laces of my school shoes. I stuff my school uniform into my backpack and gather up my textbooks and folders. Then we join the throng and negotiate our way outside.

As Australia is “girt by sea,” my school is “girt by road.” Major six-lane traffic arteries on all sides. Heavy on the fumes. When it rains, great swaths of dirty, oily water collect in the gutters. Then buses roar past and send gallons of energetic spray up onto the pavement. In the five yards between the curb and the school fence there’s no escape. It’s bad enough if you get drenched while waiting for the bus home, but getting caught on the way
to
the school gates in the morning seriously blows.

My afternoon bus is the 760. I never get a seat, as the boys from the brother school next door are ferocious pushers. Some of my most disillusioning school moments have involved getting stuck in a crush of twenty or so teenage boys who have no qualms whatsoever about going straight over the top of anyone smaller or less inclined to push. They shove, swear, show off and certainly aren’t above hair-pulling. Vindication sometimes comes with a certain bus driver who won’t let any of the boys on until all the girls are aboard. The boys jeer under their breath as we girls file on, and you can bet they’re even more merciless the next day.