Sunny Garden

    We walk to the Toowong shops, with Jacq saying it'll be good for us, walking, and smoking only one cigarette on the way.
    I take a hundred and seventy dollars out of the ATM, keep twenty for myself and give the rest to her, as agreed.
    Lovely, she says, looking at the three fifties.
    How you got them up to one-fifty, I don't know.
    Don't think there weren't negotiations. But your mother, she's no negotiator. She buckled. Of course, she called me back a few minutes later to say that Bob wanted me to know that it was a lot of money. As though there was a possibility I was scamming him. As though it surely couldn't all be essential to your upkeep.
    She folds two of the notes carefully and pockets them, and with the other we pick up a cold six-pack of Hahn Ice at the Royal Exchange bottleshop on the way home. She pulls one out to start drinking as we walk, and gives me the other five to carry. (p. 62-3)

Continue with the 48 Shades of Brown tour.

Excerpts from 48 Shades of Brown are © Nick Earls and are used with permission.

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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.