Love and Other Perishable Items (18 page)

Chris can be seen holding up both his thumbs at me from register two.

“Excellent. Thank you. I’ll be there. How old?”

“Nineteen,” he says. “I better go cash up.” And he’s gone.

“Sunday next week,” I tell Penny in math the next day.

“Isn’t that the night before the history exam?” she says.

“Yeah, I think so. Hey, what do you think I should wear?”

“Amelia, we both know what you are going to wear.”

Earlier in the year, Lizey had lent me a skirt and top to wear to a friend’s sixteenth birthday party. Penny and I had gotten ready together at my place. At the last minute I changed back into my jeans and T-shirt and could not be dissuaded.

The next bell will signal lunchtime. Lunch used to mean forty minutes of chatting with Penny. It now means thirty minutes of the Scott show, which plays a daily matinee to a willing audience consisting of my best friend. I decide to bring it up with Penny. Gently, though, ’cause she doesn’t respond well to out-and-out confrontation.

“Why do you talk to that jerk Scott every day?”

Whoops. Couldn’t help myself.

She raises an eyebrow. That’s never a good sign.

“He’s a tool,” I continue. “He sits there day after day thinking,
I am so the Man
. And instead of telling him to piss off, you encourage him! Then he just loves himself even more.”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” observes Penny, looking away.

“Well, yeah. And he’s so rude. Every day he comes to sit with you, and he has never, not once, said hello to me. None of them have.”

“Well, gee, Amelia.” She looks at me now. “Do you think that could have anything to do with the death stares you sit there and give out? Your eyes could kill a man at ten paces.”

“They’re not
men
.”

“You make it obvious that you think they’re totally beneath you; you sit there on your high horse sending filthy looks or you bury your head in a book. Why would they say anything to you?”

“They’re
jerks
.”

“For God’s sake, they’re not that bad! And in case you haven’t noticed, for some of us they’re all that’s going. We don’t
all
measure boys against the Chris benchmark. No one else has a Chris. And I guarantee that if you weren’t so bent on comparing every boy in the world to your idol, you might relax about Scott and his friends.”

I sulk. “You don’t
like
him, do you?”

But Penny declines to answer, making a show of continuing with her algebra. I glare down at mine and then out the window.

“I’ll be home late from work on Sunday,” I say to Mum.

It’s about five and I am just home from Friday basketball practice. Mum sits at the kitchen table, sipping a cup of tea and listening to Classic FM. Two large, dirty frying pans are sitting on the sink. They are from last night’s dinner and Dad was supposed to wash them up. I glance at them nervously.

“Oh?” she says.

“Bit of a birthday party for a guy from work.”

“The one who gave you the flowers?”

“What? No, someone else.”

“Right.” She sips her tea.

“Don’t you want to know where it is and what time I’ll be back?”

“Well—”

“You don’t care, do you? Where I go and what I do. I could be out doing drugs and having unprotected sex. I could be
dealing
drugs. I could be getting tattoos. I could be failing school. And you wouldn’t even know.” I’m not quite sure where this is coming from or why. I never go off at Mum. I’m too scared of upsetting her. Further. But I seem to have her attention now.

“Well,” she says, “you could be doing all those things. But I don’t think you are.”

“Why? Why don’t you think that? I could
so
be doing them!”

“Because I know you are a sensible girl.”

No
, I think,
because you know I’m a loser with no social skills and no life, so what possible trouble could I get into?
I stomp upstairs to my room.

My crankiness hasn’t abated an hour later. I sit in my room glowering at the ceiling.
I know what this is about
, I think. I’m cranky ’cause I’m uncomfortably thirsty for Chris all the bloody time. The heart-twinging excitement of yestermonth is gone. Now it just grates. There is no relief. There is nothing to be done. There is no sign of a parachute. I think of Penny’s comment from math: “Not everyone has a Chris.”

I don’t have a Chris!
I think savagely.

“Amelia!” I hear my mother calling from the kitchen below.

“What?” I snap back, louder than necessary, but raising my voice feels good.

“Can you run Jess’s bath?”

Opening Night

On Friday night I’ve been lined up to babysit Jess. Mum and Dad are going to the opening night of Dad’s play at Brooke Street Theatre. Mum arrives home from work at the usual time, clutching shopping bags, Jess and Jess’s little backpack, and looking very tired. She bangs various pots and pans as she puts away the shopping.

“Here, I’ll do that,” I say lamely. “You sit down.”

She ignores me. I wonder whether to offer to make her a cup of tea, but in this kind of mood she’ll probably say no. When she’s finished putting away the shopping, she fills the kettle and gets down a mug and tea bag.

“You go and sit down,” I say. “I’ll bring it to you.”

I give her some gentle shoves and finally succeed in getting her to flop down on the couch in the next room, where Jess is watching TV.

“I mightn’t be able to get back up again,” she mutters.

I bring her the tea. She takes a few sips, then places the mug on the coffee table. Within a minute she’s dozed off.

I make some toast and honey for Jess and me. Mum wakes half an hour later, groggy and disoriented. She looks at her watch, hauls herself up and staggers upstairs. The shower is running a minute later, followed by the muffled sounds of the hair dryer.

“I wish Mummy didn’t have to go out,” says Jess, not looking away from the TV. “Mummy’s tired.”

I climb the stairs to the bathroom. The door is ajar and Mum is in there putting on makeup. I enter and sit on the side of the bath.

“Why do you have to go out tonight?” I say mutinously. “You need to rest. You’ve been working all week.”

“Hmmmm,” says Mum, concentrating on applying eye liner.

“Why don’t you just tell him you’re not going? Tell him you don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

“Not go? What do you mean?”

“You shouldn’t have to go out at the end of the week. You’re so tired.”

“I don’t
have
to go. But it’s Dad’s opening night. Of course I’m going.”

“But you’re tired—”

“Don’t worry about it; I’m
all right
.”

She bangs the cabinet door shut.

Dad appears at the bathroom door. He’s wearing the Ralph Lauren navy shirt and aftershave we gave him for his birthday.

“Everything under control in here?”

I look down at the tiles, wondering how much of the conversation he heard.

“Mm-hmm,” says Mum.

“Ready to leave in fifteen minutes, darling?”

“Yep.”

“Bye, girls!”

Mum is wearing a brown crushed-satin skirt and matching top. Her necklace is the one made from metallic triangles that fan out across her collarbone. Liza has been trying to lift that necklace for years, but Mum won’t part with it. She’s a looker, my mother. No doubt about it.

The front door closes behind them. Jess is tearful for a minute but is easily cheered up by the prospect of a bubble bath and a ham and cheese mini-pizza that happens to be her older sister’s specialty. I let her stay up way past her bedtime because I am lonely.

Slammer

On the morning of Ed’s party I study halfheartedly for the history test, telling myself that I will also study when I get home. At midday, I shower and get into my work uniform. I pack clothes for the party: my darker jeans, the battered old Blundstone boots that Mum bought for me in the winter of eighth grade, my gray long-sleeved T-shirt and a light blue short-sleeved T-shirt to go over it. I also pack one of my only necklaces: a largish jade carving on a black velvet ribbon. I sneak into Mum’s room and pocket her bottle of Coco.

The quiet, genuine Chris of the last few shifts is gone today. In fact, there is an almost manic quality to him.

“Youngster!” he yells when I walk past, giving a curt salute. He packs groceries more vigorously than usual. When Bianca takes him off register to collect trolleys, he crashes them into each other and bangs them into the impulse confectionery stands the whole way down to the trolley bay.

“Are you all right?” I ask him.

“All right? All right? I’m fucking fantastic!” he blusters.

Right.

We close up shop at six. Street Cred Donna heads straight outside for a smoke. The way she wears her work uniform, it easily translates into a going-out outfit—rolled-up sleeves, silver pendants dangling on leather straps, three earrings in each ear, dyed blond hair in a high ponytail with strands coming down on either side, short black skirt, laddered stockings, and boots that come up to just below her knees.

I get changed in the women’s toilets and spray a minute
amount of Coco on my neck. I brush my hair in the mirror next to the loud and jostling Alana and Kelly. Bianca leans against the wall behind us, surveying her minions.

“Nice necklace,” she says, pointing at my jade carving.

I am so surprised that I don’t say anything right away. Alana and Kelly fall silent.

“Thanks,” I manage.

“Yeah, it’s great,” Alana rushes to concur.

“So original,” agrees Kelly.

I nod, and brush my hair furiously.

Bianca approaches the mirror and puts a hand out to touch the necklace where it sits just below my throat.

“It looks old,” she says. “Where did you get it?”

She’s standing so close to me that her body almost touches mine.

“We found it in my grandmother’s things when she died. She did a lot of traveling in Asia. I’m not exactly sure where she got it.”

“Hmm.” She lifts her eyes to meet mine. “Beautiful.”

I have never had a conversation with Bianca that has lasted this long. I have never had a compliment from her. It feels good. Too good. And then it’s over.

“Well, we’ll see you there,” she says, stepping back. “Alana? Kelly?”

She marches out flanked by the other two.

Most people who are coming straight from work fit into Bianca’s and Kathy’s cars, but Chris decrees that he, Ed and I will take the bus.

“But then we’ll all get there before Ed,” Kathy points out.

Chris turns to Ed. “Give her your keys.”

Ed digs in his pants pocket. He comes out with a set of keys on a bottle-opener key ring.

“Eighteen Keith Street,” he says, giving them to Kathy.

We all pour out of the staff exit. Ed, Chris and I walk up to the bus stop, which happens to be outside a liquor store. Chris checks the timetable before he and Ed disappear inside. Five minutes later, Ed emerges carrying a case of beer on his shoulder, and Chris carries several bottles in paper bags.

“Ready to party, Youngster?”

Ed looks at me out of glassy eyes, with something that could pass for sympathy. I rummage in my bag for bus fare.

Ed’s family lives in a little bungalow on a quiet street. It’s very different from Bianca’s parents’ harbor view, which possibly accounts for how badly behaved everyone at this party is from the get-go. Because it’s a small house, everyone congregates in the living room and the small adjoining kitchen.

All signs of Bianca’s earlier friendliness have vanished and she sits close to Alana, Kelly, Street Cred Donna and Jeremy. A little later on she sits on Jeremy’s knee. Jeremy looks smug. I think Bianca and Andy have broken up—he’s not at the party. Kathy seems to be hovering close to Chris.

There is plenty of alcohol and not much food. I nibble at some chips and sip a beer. I talk a bit to Sveta, who is in the same grade as me. Bianca drinks bourbon and Coke, while Kathy has brought her own supply of wine coolers. Several bottles of spirits and various soft drinks are lined up on the kitchen table.

Chris, however, is steadily swigging straight from his own personal bottle of vodka. Full-sized. I’m no expert, but I know from my parents’ example that spirits are generally consumed in
small quantities from a glass and more often than not are mixed with something else. Chris catches me staring.

“Want to try, Youngster?” he asks.

“Sure.”

I put my beer down and bravely grasp the vodka bottle with one hand on the neck and one on the base. I tilt it back into my mouth. The only thing worse than the explosion of foul taste is the harsh burning sensation all the way down my esophagus. I cough and splutter. Chris pounds my back.

“It burns,” I gasp.

“Not after a while,” he assures me, reclaiming the bottle and taking a generous slug for himself.

After a couple of hours there is talk of playing Twister. Unfamiliar music is blaring. Ed, Lincoln and Vic return from the garage with red eyes. Chris is about halfway down his bottle. Alana and Kelly start working the room with a bottle of tequila and a bottle of lime juice, dispensing something called laybacks.

Observation reveals that this involves lying down on your back so Alana and Kelly can pour tequila and lime into your mouth. It’s Chris’s turn. We are sitting on the couch and he obediently stretches out along its length, his legs across mine. He swallows his huge mouthful without flinching and returns to a sitting position. Cries of “Amelia!” go up, and I realize it’s my turn.

“Yeah, maybe not for me …,” I wheedle, the taste of Chris’s vodka still fouling my mouth. But the cries become louder and I find my shoulders being pushed back by Ed and Lincoln. I open my mouth as the giggling faces of Alana and Kelly loom over me.
Pour! Are they emptying the bottles into my mouth?
Undiluted lime juice and brutal tequila fill my mouth to capacity and I wonder
how I will manage to swallow it all. I jackknife away from the stream before they finish pouring, splashes of both ending up on my neck and T-shirt. I swallow the whole lot, battling my gag reflex. Fearing I’m going to lose the battle, I struggle to my feet and find my way out to the only bathroom.