Sagging face, sloppy feet, arse outgrowing its pants, right hip which has, in the three years since she’s turned forty, woken her most nights with its urgent ache. Not all bad, though, or else Jase from the stockroom, who goes to the gym every morning before work and wears tight shorts and tighter singlets to show how well that regime is working for him, wouldn’t whistle appreciatively and call her gorgeous when she passed him, and Reg the store’s night manager wouldn’t stand far closer than polite in the break room and ask her for the thousandth time if she wouldn’t consider joining the night shift so he’d have something good to look at during the long quiet hours between six and closing.

Night shift is better money, but aside from having to dodge Reg there’s the matter of transport. Nic isn’t a panicky person; not like her sister Michelle, who sees rapists and meth heads where there are only passing motorists and harmless neighbourhood kids. Still, even the calmest and most reasonable woman doesn’t take twenty-minute walks alone after midnight. Or accept the no-doubt-insistent offer of a lift from the creepy manager finishing work at the same time.

Besides, if she got home after midnight she wouldn’t get to sleep before one, but would have to rise at six anyway to make sure the cats didn’t howl the neighbourhood awake in hunger.

Besides, if she didn’t walk home in the bright, clear light of afternoon she would miss so much.

Like the newly pasted telegraph pole poster telling whoever passes to LOOSE WEIGHT NOW!!!! She tears a tab off and slips it into her uniform pocket to nestle with the SECRETS OF YOUR SOUL TAROT business card she picked up from the shopping centre information desk this morning and the kebab shop receipt with today’s queue number 14 in thick black texta on the top. On second thought, she unsticks the whole poster, working carefully so the bits of tape come away with the paper. Folds it in three so the tabs are safely tucked away.

Like the way this pair of sneakers looks ready to chuck on the inside edge and yet near new on the outer. Is it time to swap them with one of the pairs she bought in Kmart’s January sale or should she wait until the canvas wears right through? First sight of skin, that was the marker.

Like the fact the diamond chip in Mum’s engagement ring is not sparkling as it should in the late afternoon sun. Michelle, who wears Mum’s plain gold wedding band, told Nic to keep it sparkly with a monthly bath of half hydrogen peroxide, half Windex solution, but that was typical Michelle over-fussiness. Dishwashing liquid, warm water, soft toothbrush, good as new. She’ll do it tonight while watching Married at First Sight.