Good Oil by Laura Buzo Read Free Book Online

got a hangover. I suspect there will be squealing on both sides.
    Luckily there is an already-ironed shirt in my wardrobe. With some effort I get dressed and pack up my school things and my work clothes. When I get downstairs I can hear Mum remonstrating with Jess over some potty-related issue. I couldn’t possibly eat, so I don’t even bother to enter the kitchen.
    ‘I’m late . . . I’m off’ I call to Mum.
    ‘Oh . . . Bye Amelia.’
    ‘I want my Dorothy undies!’ I hear Jess shouting as I head for the door.
    ‘They’re all in the wash, Jess; you’ll have to wear the stripy ones.’
    ‘No! Dorothy!’
    I pull the door shut behind me. Looks like I got away clean.
    My headache lasts for most of the morning, then subsides leaving a general tiredness. I find that I am actually far from proud of the Jeremy thing, but I tell Penny about it anyway and skip immediately on to the Chris/Kathy/ Stuart debacle. She takes it all in with a shake of her head and a big exhale, taking a cue, I think, from my general lack of animation. I sleep through the lunch period until Penny gently wakes me for science.
    When I arrive at work, Jeremy is behind the service desk. I stand right next to him to check the roster – he doesn’t look at me or speak to me and I’m not sure what, if anything, I should say.
    ‘Hey, do you know if Chris is here yet?’ I venture.
    He looks at me for a microsecond, with what I’m pretty sure is a mixture of pity and distaste and gives the briefest shake of his head. So that’s how it’s going to be.
    I head to the locker room to put my bag away, wondering whether Chris will be too upset about the Kathy thing to come to work. Wondering whether Ed will have told him about my . . . thing with Jeremy. Until a bolshie voice booms at me from the doorway.
    ‘You!’
    Uh-oh. I turn to face the object of my desire.
    ‘Hey,’ I say. ‘How’d you pull up—’ ‘You!’
    ‘What?’
    He is still standing in the doorway. ‘You know what.’
    Holy crap.
    ‘Do you think , youngster, do you think that’s any way to behave when you are a guest at someone else’s house?’
    ‘I—’ ‘Didn’t your parents teach you any manners?’
    I hang my head and won’t look at him, although by now he is standing right next to me.
    ‘I should call them and tell them how out of control their daughter is. Drunk and disorderly at fifteen!’
    I abandon my contrite pose and bristle a little bit. ‘Look—’
    ‘Is this the real youngster then? Look out world; here she is, ready to polish all your dining-room tables with her back. A lick and polish as they s—’
    ‘Hey!’
    He cups his hands around his mouth and shouts, ‘Look . . . out . . . world . . . The . . .Youngster . . . has . . . landed!’
    He’s enjoying this. He’s actually enjoying it.
    ‘I turn my back for five minutes,’ he continues, ‘and you’re fucking young Jeremy on Bianca’s dining-room table. They have to eat off that table, you know.’
    ‘I wasn’t . . .’ I can’t bring myself to say fucking .
    ‘Well no doubt you would have been if I hadn’t asked Ed to keep an eye on you.’
    I blush at the (hazy) memory of Ed’s intervention.
    ‘Jeremy fucking Horan of all people. I hate that guy.’
    ‘Well, don’t you pash him then.’
    ‘You are in disgrace, youngster. Do you hear me? Disgrace .’
    I concentrate very hard on putting on my bow tie and don’t answer.
    ‘Do you hear me?’ he booms.
    ‘Yes!’
    ‘What are you in?’
    ‘Disgrace.’
    ‘ Que ?’
    ‘Disgrace!’
    ‘Damn right!’
    He seems pleased with this.
    ‘Did you know Jeremy had a girlfriend, the little shit that he is?’
    ‘No, no idea—’
    ‘How could you not? She hangs around the store all the time. The skinny one in the St Lawrence uniform.’
    ‘They all look the same to me.’
    ‘He wears baseball caps backwards! And you let him put his tongue in you!’
    Now that is altogether too frank for me. I want to tell him ‘steady on now’ as