Sunny Garden

   

    Rick knocks on my door.
    We go down the road to the Cat and Fiddle shops. We buy the Australian and the Courier-Mail. In the bakery Rick buys three croissants and I ask for a loaf of this morning's white bread, not sliced.
    It's too hot to slice, the woman says, not for the first time.
    I'm not sure what point she's making and on the way home I tell Rick it's beginning to piss me off.
    You just don't see the parentheses, he says. She's actually saying it's too hot to slice, anyway. The anyway is just understood.
    No. She's not saying that at all. It's the tone. You're not paying attention to the tone. She's saying it's too hot to slice, fuckwit. It's the fuckwit that's understood. And that's what I don't get. (p. 64)

    After breakfast, she goes off in her T-shirt and shorts to her Saturday morning job, working in the team that cleans the Toowong Village offices. Jen is their shiny surface specialist, and there are plenty of shiny surfaces. Like villages the world over presumably, all chrome and pastel pink, travelators and musak. (p. 64)

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.