2

I can tell straightaway I’m

dealing with a high-maintenance customer. Strolling the aisles in click-clack heels, picking at the clothes with a look on her face that says none of it’s good enough for her. I busy myself with Dulcie the mannequin, struggling to pull a ski suit off her armless body.

There’s a delicate cough behind me. I ignore it, and concentrate on pulling a blouse over Dulcie without snagging any sequins. Coughing in my ear doesn’t exactly equal asking for help. It’s amazing how many people don’t realise that.

‘I’m going to leave my bags here, okay?’ the girl says belatedly, after she has already dumped her twenty billion shopping bags on an armchair.

I nod. She’s obviously been on an all-day shopping frenzy. She’s around my age, so god knows how she can afford all that stuff.

‘Have you got anything in smaller sizes?’

I sigh and abandon Dulcie, who looks pissed off that I’ve left her with one plastic boob out and no arms. ‘That whole rack at the end is Japanese vintage. You’ll find most of it is pretty small.’

I leave her to browse and peer over the edge of the balcony. Ruth is dusting the record shelves downstairs. It must be nearly closing time. She’s dressed head to toe in autumn colours to match her red hair. She sees me and waves me down with a Chux. I try to mime to her that I have a customer upstairs.

‘What?’ she yells. ‘You have a pet moose?’

I make a pair of antlers out of my fists and position them on either side of my head. Then I grab Dulcie’s loose arms and slap them together in front of my body, making my best walrus sounds.

‘Where’s your change room?’ asks Miss High Maintenance behind me.

I point to the far corner of the mezzanine with a plastic arm, refusing to lose my dignity. The girl hauls an armful of clothes into the cubicle. ‘Can you watch my bags?’

As if I don’t have anything better to do. I decide to leave Dulcie au naturel overnight, and instead straighten the racks near the change room. I’m just wondering if I can peek inside Miss High Maintenance’s designer bags, when she struggles from behind the curtain. I have to swallow a gasp.

She’s wearing the Japanese Princess Dress.

The JPD has hung, unwanted, on the racks for the entire time I’ve worked here, which must be four months now. No one has ever looked at it, except to laugh at how OTT it is. It’s a riot of salmon taffeta, with a high neck, puffy sleeves and a waist that makes a deep V. There are ruffles on the skirt hem, lace windows at the collarbone, and the whole thing is scattered with seed pearls and crystals.

‘You don’t have a mirror?’

I drag the standing mirror out into the open. I’m enjoying the sight too much to take offence at her demanding tone. To my surprise she swivels in front of the mirror, gazing at her reflection approvingly. I bite my lip to keep from smiling. The colour is terrible on her. She could have been dead for ten days. In the water.

‘I don’t know…’ she says. ‘I love it, but I don’t normally wear skirts this full.’

‘It’s all in the accessorising,’ I tell her, snatching up a nearby belt and looping it around her. ‘You have a tiny waist so you should pull it in tight, like this. You look great. Not many people can pull off this look.’

The girl nods. I should change my job title to Retail Psychologist and get some impressive letters after my name. And a pay-rise. The not-many-people-can-work-this-look thing gets them every single time, not to mention the word ‘tiny’ in relation to any body part except boobs. The girl tears herself away from her reflection, her mind made up.

‘I’ll take it.’

‘Excellent choice.’

I carry her bags down the stairs. On the ground floor Helen struggles with a late delivery, signing the invoice, counting the boxes and trying to get the storeroom door open all at the same time.

I ring up the dress. ‘Seventy dollars.’ I subdue the JPD enough to fit it into a carry bag. Ruth slides behind me and puts the duster back underneath the counter.

The girl hands me a gold credit card. Out of a lingering habit I’m trying really, really hard to break, I check the bank name on the front of the card, even though I haven’t seen another FutureBank card since that night in Shyness. But it’s just a regular old credit card for a runof-the-mill rich girl.

I staple the receipts together and drop them in with the dress. ‘Enjoy.’

‘Thanks,’ the girl says, finally, and smiles, happy with her purchase. She looks almost sweet.

Ruth leans on the counter next to me, and we watch the girl struggle out of the shop with her billion-and-one bags.

‘Turn that sign over!’ Helen calls from the depths of the storeroom. ‘I want to get out of here on time. I haven’t even cashed up yet.’

‘She bought the Princess Dress.’ Ruth sounds like she’s seen Jesus burnt into a piece of toast.

‘Uh-huh.’ I try not to sound smug. I sound extremely smug.

‘That’s exactly why I hired this girl.’ Helen backs out of the storeroom and squeezes my shoulder. ‘No retail experience, but I could tell straightaway she’s got the Midas touch. You two take off now. I’m nearly done here.’

Ruth leaves to meet her boyfriend Duncan while I switch off the lights.

‘Oh, Nia, before you go.’ Helen is out of breath from moving the heavy boxes, her long dark hair mussed. ‘There’s a special customer coming in tomorrow, but I’m not sure what time. I’ve kept aside some things for her in this tub, okay?’

‘What does she specialise in?’

‘Anything black and funereal. She drops in every few months. Nice woman.’

‘Gotcha,’ I say.

The sun is sinking by the time I walk down Mayfield Street. It’s the nicest part of the day when I finish, when the light is turning golden and soft, and the temperature has dropped enough to walk without sweating up a storm. I put my headphones in as I reach the station, relying on my music to keep the world at bay.

The train rattles through the tunnel under the river and then shoots through the industrial zone towards Plexus. The Emporium is miles from my house. All up, it takes me about forty-five minutes one-way. Everyone in the carriage looks crumpled and tired and sweaty. A little kid starts to whine. I turn the volume higher, until guitars and synths fill my ears.

I first heard Dreamer rock in this crazy underground club in Shyness, on the night I met Wolfboy. I still can’t think of him as Jethro. A couple of months ago curiosity got the better of me, and I hunted for some Dreamer rock, not even sure if it existed outside Shyness. Turns out there’s a whole world of it out there, online. Turns out I actually don’t mind the stuff. I downloaded the perfect soundtrack for the long commute. One good thing to come out of that night.

I thought there would be more. I wouldn’t have said that about an ordinary one-night hook-up, but nothing about that night was ordinary. Not meeting Wolfboy, not getting mugged by the Kidds, not breaking into Orphanville to get his brother’s lighter back, not the rooftop showdown with the creepy Doctor Gregory. Not the feeling that we were just two stars in the endless night sky, as dazzling and dwarfed and stupendous and insignificant as that made us. I let my guard down with Wolfboy, and I think he did the same with me. I like to think that I’m a good judge of people, but I guess I’m not.

At first Dreamer rock reminded me too much of Shyness, but I’m over that now. Now the music is only a tool to take me someplace else. I’ve trained my brain not to think about things that are not worth thinking about.

We express through Southside Station and, as always, I hold my breath as we pass my old school and look the other way, out over terracotta roof tiles and other people’s backyards. That school and those mean girls are in the past, along with so many other things from that time. I thought I’d have to wait until I finished school and moved out to change my life, but then I decided to start changing it immediately.

My job at the Emporium has been one of the best things to ever happen to me. A far cry from the days of slimy Neil and the call centre. But my final year of school starts next week and Mum has ordered me to cut down on my shifts, even though I know she’s grateful for the extra money I bring in. I haven’t spoken to Helen about it yet. I’m scared she’ll tell me she can’t fit me on the roster at all if I can’t do weekdays.

The train has emptied by the time we reach Plexus. The ugly towers of the Commons stick up above the skyline. Lights are beginning to ping on through the grounds.

I pull my earbuds out when I go through the gate and skirt the crowded basketball court.

‘Baby!’ yells someone from the knot of players, provoking a wave of shouted suggestions, some coming from kids too young to even know what they’re suggesting. I flip them the finger and watch them turn.

‘Bitch!’ screeches a boy, clinging to the wire fence.

I move to the fence so he can see I’m not scared. ‘Make up your mind,’ I say through the wire. ‘Am I your bitch or your baby?’ I throw an imaginary ball at his face, and laugh when he drops backwards off the fence. I walk fast, not too fast, to my building.

Mum is in the kitchen gathering together her handbag, her textbooks, and trying to tie her hair back.

‘Shouldn’t you have left already?’

‘I know, I know. I got held up making soup for you.’

‘I told you, I can feed myself.’

Mum kisses me on the cheek. She smells of this disgusting peach perfume I’ve been trying to wean her off for years. ‘I just want to do things properly, darling. Message me before you go to bed.’

Sometimes I don’t recognise this new mum, who cooks dinner and goes to night classes at TAFE and checks up on me constantly. She even looks like a student in the new jeans I helped her pick out. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be on the couch all night with my Lit reading.’

‘Good. Don’t stay up too late.’

I hand her a mandarin from the fruit bowl. She stops at the front door. ‘Oh, I checked the train times today. You’ll have to meet me at Central Station straight after school on Wednesday.’

‘Ma, I wasn’t joking when I said I’m not going to skip school in the first week. Go on your own to Fish Creek.’

‘But you never see your aunt. And what about your cousins?’

I feel like banging my head against the wall. She always springs this stuff on me just as she’s leaving the house. ‘First you carry on about marks and homework and university, then you try to pull me out of school for two days. The only reason you want me to come is because you’re scared you and Aunt Shell will wind up throttling each other as usual.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘It is true.’ I push her out the door before she starts going on about the sacrifices she’s made. ‘You’re late. Go to class.’