Free Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo

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 are you feeling—”
    “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 kiss him then.”
    “You are in disgrace, Youngster. Do you hear me? Disgrace .”
    I concentrate very hard on putting on my scarf and don’t answer.
    “Do you hear me?” he booms.
    “Yes!”
    “What are you in?”
    “Disgrace.”
    “Qué?”
    “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 backward! 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 my grandmother used to say.
    “Well, I don’t mind telling you that I’m frankly appalled , Youngster.”
    I don’t answer, which fires him up even more.
    “What am I?” he says, blocking the doorway that I had taken a step toward.
    “Appalled,” I say.
    “That’s right. I’m appalled.”
    “Well, good luck with that.” I push past him and go out to the registers, knowing that the perfect comeback will come to me later that night as I am ironing tomorrow’s school shirt.
    No doubt it was Ed who squealed on me—he and Chris are best friends after all. Chris continues to ride me about the “polished mahogany incident,” as he takes to calling it, for the rest of the week. I don’t see him once speak to Kathy, though.
    When I walk into work on Wednesday, Chris and Bianca are leaning against the service desk counter next to each other. I swear they both smirk when they see me.
    “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the Youngster,” he calls as I scurry past. “Feeling all right there, sport?”
    I make for the locker room.
    “You’re still in disgrace, Youngster! Got it?”
    I studiously avoid making eye contact with anyone, especially Jeremy. I do glance toward the service desk, I hope in a subtle fashion, when this girlfriend of his is around. Chris was right—she needs a sandwich. And the cigarettes Jeremy slips her probably aren’t doing her any favors. Whatever, like I care.
    On Thursday at school, I bemoan the work situation to Penny. We are hovering at the edge of the grassed area, talking just to each other before we join the group. I don’t think she quite knows what to make of Chris, or what outcome to hope for.
    “He’s being a