Sunny Garden

   

Rick declares kitty to be in surplus when I get home. This is a negotiated right, the trade-off I made for the others to agree that we would each pay twenty dollars more than the rent every fortnight so bills wouldn't take us by surprise. This entitles Rick and Jen to call for a night of cocktails on any occasion when we're more than sixty dollars up and no big bills are known to be due.
    Tonight is such a night. Rick waves the Quality Street tin in front of me, encouraging me to listen to the rustle of notes. Big surplus, he says. Cocktails tonight.
    They only make you sad, I tell him, but he won't be talked out of it.
    We go to the Royal Exchange bottle shop and buy Cointreau, Tia Maria and Bailey's, and we pick up four litres of vanilla ice cream at the Night Owl at Auchenflower. (p. 43)

   

    We load the groceries into the car and go across the road to Kwali for chicken satay and beef rendang. Our standard Thursday night. Sitting at the window looking down at the shoppers moving in and out of Toowong Village, probably the same shoppers, week after week. Observing this rhythm, this seven-day cycle. Not unlike hamsters, really. With the possible exception of fluctuating gonad size. Or maybe not. (p. 51)

Continue with the Bachelor Kisses tour.

Excerpts from Bachelor Kisses are © Nick Earls and are used with permission.

All virtual tour photos are © Liz Perkins and may not be reproduced without permission.

Disclaimer:
Sunny Garden is designed, written and maintained by Liz Perkins, in cooperation with Nick Earls and Penguin Books. Any questions about Sunny Garden should be directed to Liz

All original contents are © Liz Perkins.