I look nothing like myself while still being completely me. It’s weird and slightly unnerving how a few hours and hundreds of dollars can be so transformative.
The next morning, there’s more swearing than satisfaction as I repeatedly try and fail to recreate the same standard. When I finally call it quits, the new products are littered across my dressing table, and I’m on the verge of swiping them straight into the bin.
And it’s all for nothing. Zach doesn’t show up at all, not even in my text messages. Even Trent and the wider rugby team seem to be taking a break from me.
It’d be enough to cue the second nervous breakdown of my week, but I really can’t afford to skip any more classes.
After school, I have work at the dairy, and at least Mrs Kuzmanic appreciates my new style.
“You look like those fashion girls,” she says, grabbing my chin and twisting my face back and forth, then repeating it when her husband ambles into the shop at the wrong time. “Isn’t she pretty?”
“Yeah,” he says without glancing my way, intent instead on unpacking boxes. “But does she know where these go?” He lifts two boxes of macaroni cheese.
“Put them with the dry goods,” she says, pointing a finger towards the rear of the store, and a choice of three extremely cramped aisles. “Not those,” she blurts as he attempts to put the boxes of dry pasta next to a kilo of flour. “The other dry goods. Themeals.”
She shakes her head and tries to catch my eye for a sympathetic men-are-useless sidebar, but I’m too entranced with both of them to pick a side. Their long marriage is such a novelty that I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of watching them work as a team.
“Honestly, we planned this entire layout together and the moment we run out of a single stock item, you can’t remember where anything goes.”
“At least I know how to reorder products,” he snarks back, the entire rant falling off his elegant shoulders.
The couple must be in their late sixties at a minimum. Maybe more—probablymore—but I’m too shy to ask.
“You should’ve seen him when our daughter was getting married,” she says in a wistful tone. “We had every table set packed in individual boxes to make the settings easier, yet somehow we still had some people with no cutlery while others had double.”
I’ve never been to a wedding and have no idea what she’s grumbling about, but I throw a sympathetic smile towards hubby while nodding along with her.
“Packet of Rothmans?” I ask a man who’s come in every day I’ve worked there—only eight so far—and picked up the same brand of cigarettes each time.
“And a lighter,” he says, picking one from the display on the counter. “And a chocolate bar? My kid’s staying over. What sort d’you think an eight-year-old would like?”
I put a Moro bar on top of the other purchases. “This one’s a safe bet.”
He nods and gathers up the supplies, disappearing them into various pockets. The moment he’s out the door, Mr Kuzmanic groans and heads out the side door, into the adjoining house.
“That man’s getting lazier every day.”
“I hope so,” I say with a grin, sorting out a mixture of loose sweets into one- and two-dollar packets. “If you were both happy to serve out here full time, I wouldn’t have a job.”
The flow of foot traffic into the store comes in fits and starts. Unlike when I’ve worked in cafes and restaurants, there really aren’t set rush times. At least, not for the afternoon and evening hours I work.
Mrs Kuzmanic’s chief concern is shoplifting. As she constantly reminded me, their profit margin is so tiny that anything walking out the door could form the difference between managing their mortgage repayment and defaulting.
“He’s got a new system set up for reorders,” she grumbles to me now. “Haven’t you?” she loudly shouts so her husband can hear all the way from the house. “Just when I got used to the old one.”
It doesn’t seem very new to me, given it’s a lined notepad with codes written on the sides. I can’t imagine how much older a system could look while still being new.
“Sometimes, I think he does it just to vex me. I’ve never been one for change.”
If I’d moved halfway around the world, leaving behind my entire family, including two children, I might be change averse, too. The couple’s stories from their old life in Latvia entrance me. So foreign, they might as well be talking about a country from a fairy tale.
Mrs walks into the house, chasing her husband, probably to complain directly about the new system without having to shout. A few minutes later, Em walks through the door with three far less pretty friends as an entourage.
“Well, if it isn’t the school skank,” she says, encouraged by the titter of her friends. The only one of them I recognise is Dee, and her friendly attitude from my first day at school has long evaporated.
Dee picks a packet of crisps from the ‘specials’ bin. Codeword for expired but we’re still trying to make money on them. I wouldn’t chance it, but that’s just me.
Meanwhile, Em sidles close to the counter. “Have any condoms left in here, or did you use them all?”
