Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo Read Free Book Online Page B

Chris? The bitch broke your heart and hasn’t even called you for months! Sure, that might have something to do with the way you said—nay, snarled —something to the effect of “Don’t you ever call me again, bitch” last time she called, but surely she realized that it was just the bleeding red mess of my heart talking?
    Anyways, I’m off like a bride’s nightie to meet the gang in the city for Rohan’s farewell. He flies out tomorrow night.

December 21
    I did a bad thing. I got home last night stinking drunk and singing the “Romeo and Juliet” song, rang Interflora and spent $400 on sending a huge arrangement of flowers to Michaela, across the country , mind you, with a very alcohol-induced Christmas greeting.
    And all on my sleeping mother’s credit card. When I came to this morning, I had vague recollections of doing it but hoped that it was just a dream. The credit card on my bedside table next to the phone indicated otherwise. I paid my mother back today, which leaves very little in my bank account. Fuuuuuuuck. Chris, it is high time you got over this girl.

December 24
    Whillikers! It’s almost midnight. Just got home from work, which was insane. Why do people always leave things to the last minute? I did too. Of course. I was in Go-Lo today during my lunch break buying crappy little gifts for my family with what’s left of my money. I have very little remaining in the way of brain cells. What’s everyone else’s excuse?
    As testament to this, dear reader, I did something this evening that I cannot account for. I finished my shift an hour before closing time and hung around for a while wishing people merry Christmas and the like. I seized my chance to kiss Kathy on the cheek. She didn’t slap me or anything, which was nice, but that’s not the unaccountable thing. I was chatting to Vic as she was marking down some bunches of flowers and sticking the REDUCED FOR QUICK SALE stickers on them. I looked over Vic’sshoulder and saw young Amelia, who was up on register seven. While I was watching, she stopped scanning for a moment and wiped some sweat away from her temple with the outside of her wrist. The bloody air conditioner is broken. That’s another story.
    “Hey, Vic,” I said, “I’ll take one of them.”
    I wished Vic merry Christmas. Then my legs took me down to register seven, where I gave the flowers to Amelia. When I say gave , I mean I kind of threw them at her, mumbled something and bolted.
    Go figure.
    Anyhoo, Mum, Dad and Zoe are all out on the patio, having some relaxing ales after the frantic all-day Christmas preparations that I successfully avoided by being at work. Thank you, Land of Dreams! I’m going to go out and join them for what could be a rare moment of togetherness.
    Merry fucking Christmas.
    Harvey out.

January 15
    The weeks are starting to blur. They consist of going to the beach with Mick and Suze, going to work, sinking a few coldies out back with Mum or Zoe in the evening, playing the odd game of tennis with Dad, reading my course-work texts for uni, reading the paper, staying up late watching crap TV, losing entire days to watching cricket and brain cells to the accompanying steady stream of beer. My dad and I live the cliché that men can’t relate to each other on an emotional or interpersonal level so they do it through sports. When we are playing tennis, we are comfortably absorbed in the game, and the fingernail-scratching-down-blackboardwho-the-hell-are-you suspicion that we usually regard each other with is gone. Because he is so much better at tennis than me, there is no destructive competitiveness. We both enjoy letting him give me pointers and he is chuffed when they lead to a slight improvement in my play.
    Similarly, we can watch cricket together all day in companionable silence. No pressure to attempt conversations that are doomed to crash in a ball of flames. No speech whatsoever. We ask each other if we’d like another beer with either a grunt or