“Scruffy! I haven’t seen you for ages! Hey everyone, Chris is doing a shift again!”
“Hi Dan!” I waved. “It’s great to be back!”
I smiled as I walked into the familiar A&R bookstore in Perth and saw my fellow casual employees come up to greet me. It was the mid-2000s and the store was not doing well. A&R had always held its own against the Dymocks bookstore up the road, but when a new book cafe opened it was clear that there wasn’t enough customers in the city to support all three bookstores. A&R had done everything it could, trying wave after wave of customer training, promotions and events, but it simply wasn’t enough.
I was in my final year of university at this point, where the fun life of an undergrad had given way to the stress of post-grad and uncomfortable questions like “Is this degree actually going to get me a job?” As the oldest casual employee in the store (older even than some of the trainee managers in smaller stores) I was more expensive than the other casuals and found my hours cut to the absolute minimum required to keep me formally employed. When Catherine, who had first hired me years ago, was manager, I always managed to score a shift. When the store was being run by one of the other managers, I would go more than a month without getting a call.
“What have you been up to, man?” asked Dan, going in for a high five that showed off his arm muscles.
“Studying and waiting for a call to work. What’s been happening here?”
Dan’s usually confident face turned cloudy.
“Not great,” answered a new voice, interrupting before Dan could reply. I waved as I recognized the newcomers. Anton, the tousle-haired music student, was chatting with a customer while Denise, a tall, tawny-haired young woman, frowned at me.
“We’ve all seen our hours cut,” Denise continued. “They’re putting on less staff during Friday nights and weekends, too.”
I understood Denise’s frustration. She was roughly the same age as me, and I guessed her hours had been cut as well.
“Hey Scruffy, where have you been hiding?” asked another new voice, and the final two casual employees of A&R emerged from the lines of shoppers. “I know it’s been a while since you had a shift here. Do you need me to show you where everything is, teach you how to work the till again?”
I tried not to smile at the at sarcasm, but couldn’t help myself. Lana, a short arts student and the youngest of the group, winked at me and took up position at the front counter with Dan. She was followed by Elaine, the a physics student and part-time model, who greeted me, gave Dan a quick peck on the cheek and went downstairs the lower floor counter.
“When did you and – ?”
Dan smiled and made a show of tidying up the nearest stack of books.
“Ah, we started dating a few weeks ago,” he relied. “A lot has happened since you’ve last worked here.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I replied a little sadly. After working at the store for almost seven years, the place suddenly seemed unfamiliar. Anton, who had always been the best at picking up on people’s emotions, glanced at the others and stepped forward.
“Look, how about we all go and get a drink after work?” he asked. “We haven’t gone out together in ages. And who knows when we’re all going to be working together like this again?”
“Sounds great!” said Denise.
“Count me in,” replied Dan.
Lana glanced sideways at me. “Are you coming along Chris, or are you going to disappear again?”
I shrugged and tried to shake myself out of the sudden funk.
“Yeah, why not?” I smiled. “It’ll be just like old times.”
The rest of the shift passed without incident, and for a while I was back in the comfortable groove of working at A&R. I operated the tills, stacked books, and cleaned the shelves. I laughed and chatted with old women buying stories for their grand kids, debated sci-fi with twenty-somethings and tried (unsuccessfully) to convince a teenager to buy something other than Harry Potter. At the end of the night I threw myself into the familiar tasks of vacuuming, bringing in the discount table and pulling the doors closed, but I couldn’t help but notice that there were fewer customers than there should have been.
When we were all finished, the casual employees met out the front of the store and started wandering across the railway line into Northbridge, Perth’s entertainment district. We made for an odd group, considering we were still in our A&R uniforms, but we were just happy to be together and brushed off the odd looks from the well-dressed clubbers.
“Where shall we go?” asked Elaine, cuddling up to Dan in the cold night air.
“Metros Nightclub?” replied Dan, scratching a stubbly beard.
“That’s a meat market!” protested Denise. “I want to go somewhere I won’t get felt up by some drunk bogan.”
(Note for international readers: “bogan” is an affectionate Australian term for young men and woman who love drinking and do not possess a great deal of intelligence).
“Can’t we just go to a restaurant or coffee shop?” asked Anton. “Otherwise we won’t be able to talk to each other over the noise.” Dan rolled his eyes at the classical music student. Anton was unlikely to enjoy nightclub tunes and as a strict Jehovah’s Witness, didn’t drink much.
“Where do you want to go, Lana?” I asked the short blonde arts student.
“I want to go somewhere fun,” she said, looking up at me with a crooked smile. “Don’t you?”
Eventually we settled on “The Brass Monkey,” one of Perth’s oldest pubs and a landmark on the main strip of Northbridge. We bought some drinks, and as always happens in this situation, all immediately lost each other. Anton and I chatted for a bit, but he got a call from his girlfriend and had to step outside to take it. Denise and Lana disappeared to the toilets together, to do whatever strange and arcane things groups of women need to do in toilets at pubs and clubs. Dan and Elaine ran off to dance, leaving me alone to guard the drinks and bags. Usually I would be happy to jump up and dance with everyone else, but I couldn’t shake the funk I’d been feeling all day and was happy just to sit back and let the music roll over me.
Eventually Dan and Elaine came back and sat with me, still sweating and energized from the dance floor.
“Why are you sitting here by yourself?” asked Dan, sprawling down onto the sofa next to me and laughing as Elaine pulled him off so she could sit down as well.
“Just waiting for the others, I guess,” I replied. “What about you two though? I mean, you’re a lovely couple, but this is new.”
Elaine smiled and shared a glance with Dan.
“It’s not like we’re picking out a house our anything,” she shrugged. “This big lug is actually a great guy, and we’re having a lot fun together.”
“We’re just going to take things as they come,” nodded Dan. “Who knows what’s going to happen next?”
“What about you?” asked Elaine. “I haven’t caught up with you in forever. Are you dating anyone at the moment?”
“No, not really,” I shrugged. I was hardly a Casanova, lacking Dan’s physique and easy confidence, or Anton’s cultured style and insightful mind. I had dated one or two girls during uni, but at this particular point I hadn’t seen anyone for months.
“Well stop waiting around,” said Elaine. “It doesn’t have to be perfect.”
The beautiful young woman’s speech was cut off by Dan tickling her, and as she laughed he pulled her back up and they joined the line for drinks at the bar.
I sat and sipped a drink when Anton returned from calling his girlfriend.
“Everything ok?” I asked.
“No problems,” he replied, sitting down next to me and drinking a Lemon, Lime and Bitters. “Anna and I are thinking of backpacking around Europe for a few months once my music exams are over.”
“Wow! How did you save up for that? A&R doesn’t pay that kind of money.”
“Tutoring first year music students. Looks great on my application for the Western Australian Youth Orchestra.”
“Sounds like you’ve got it all planned out!”
Anton sipped his drink and looked at me in confusion.
“You mean you haven’t?” he asked. “It’s not like I intended to work at A&R for the rest of my life – this was only ever going to be a stop along the way. What are your plans?”
I scratched my stubbly beard and tried to put my sense of unease into words.
“I don’t really know,” I replied. “I mean, I know what kind of a job I want to do, but right now, I’ve just been focused on lectures, study, sleep, and then picking up the occasional shift at A&R if Catherine gives me the call.”
“Can’t do that forever, mate.”
“I suppose. You’re right – it just felt like that future was still a long way off.”
I was still frowning at the questions I didn’t have the answer to when I wandered back to the bar to get another drink. I placed an order, and found that Lana had pushed her way through the crowd to stand next to me. This lightened my mood enough to put the unpleasant thoughts away. The short art student had a grotesque sense of humor but our conversations and occasionally flirty jokes had always been the best part of working evenings at A&R.
“So what have you been up to in my absence?” I grinned. “Not missing me too much?”
“You wish,” she snorted. “I’m off the market, actually.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m seeing someone. I didn’t expect you to know, it’s been more than a month since we’ve seen each other.”
“Oh, well congratulations,” I replied, sipping my drink while trying (and probably failing) to keep the disappointment from my voice. “Is he someone you met at uni?”
“Yes, he’s into free-form abstract art, especially the stuff where American artists used their own-”
“Nope. No, actually, I’ll think I’ll be ok without knowing all the details, thanks.”
“Well, I’m going to go dance then,” she replied, grabbing her drink with a wink. “I can’t stay here, I gotta keep moving!”
I wandered back through the crowd to the table, only to find Anton had wandered off to dance with Dan and Elaine. Looking at the happy group, I still couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling and contented myself with sitting back and watching the crowd. I was so preoccupied with my own grumpy emotions that I failed to notice Denise sit down next to me.
“Are you ok?” she asked, frowning in concern. “Everyone else is up dancing. Is everything alright?”
I shook my head, determined not to let my discomfort bring down the mood.
“I’m ok – but what about you? How are you feeling with everything.”
The tall, tawny-haired young woman sat back and looked out at the dancing crowd.
“I’m not sure,” she shrugged. “I’ve barely had any shifts at the bookstore, but – I don’t know. I’m upset about that. But I’m also not as upset as I should be?”
“I think I understand. We’re approaching the end of our time at A&R.”
Denise nodded. “Do you remember Paul, the casual we both started with?”
“The law student?” I chuckled. “I remember him leaving me to deal with a collapsed customer because it was too much a legal risk to put our hands on the guy. That was, what? Six years ago?”
“Almost seven. So much has happened since then.”
Denise sipped her drink and stayed silent for a while before continuing.
“You know Chris, I think it’s time we moved on from this place.”
“I think you’re right.”
“We’ve had a lot of fun though.”
“Yeah – we have.”
The two of us sat together at the pub, not needing to speak, content instead to watch as the other casuals danced the night away. The rest of the night wasn’t too bad, I vaguely remember we all drank too much and ended up in a strange competition where we were raised our glasses to toast the most random thing possible. I think the group got a strange look from the bar when we were all shouting “To the clitoris!” before collapsing in laughter.
That was a good night.
A few weeks later I got the call to come to A&R, but instead of the usual group shenanigans the casuals were gathered up into the staff room by Catherine.
“Alright everyone, thanks for coming,” she said. “As you know, things haven’t been going well. Unfortunately, I have to let you know that we’re going to be letting our casual staff go in preparation for what’s coming next.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“A&R is closing down.”
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