Shutterspeed Read Online Free

on.’
    â€˜Seen it.’
    â€˜When? Who’d you go with?’
    â€˜No-one.’
    â€˜Dustin, you know you don’t have to do that.’
    â€˜It’s dark. I don’t need friends in the dark.’
    â€˜So where are you rushing to now then?’
    â€˜Motorbike store. Nugget’s dad’s getting him one for his birthday and I’ve gotta help him choose it.’ He’s surprised at how easily the lie comes out.
    â€˜Tell him to get a green one.’
    â€˜Okay, see ya.’
    â€˜Or purple with green pinstripes. Something funky. Actually, I think I’d better come too.’
    â€˜No, don’t,’ he says into the phone, not liking this. He’s never lied to her before.
    â€˜Come on, let me meet you there. It’ll be fun.’
    Her persistence grates at him.
    â€˜Actually, I just remembered I’ve gotta help at the lab today.’
    â€˜What? Since when do you work Mondays?’
    â€˜Since there’s a big backlog.’
    The lies keep slipping out and he wonders if she can tell. He doesn’t wait to find out. Within minutes he’s cruising along at 30k an hour, with the school dissolving behind him.
    It’s the ‘in-between’ bits that Dustin prefers: in-between home and school, in-between school and work, in-between work and home. These are the times he can breathe and anything is possible. The in-between places matter. If he’s got an hour or two, he’ll criss-cross through Fremantle onhis bike, or straightline it down the coast to Woodman Point and back. If he’s got more time he’ll spend it in a cinema, and it doesn’t matter what the story is or who’s in the movie, as long as it’s fiction. Twenty-four hours in a day is too much to dedicate to reality anyway.
    But today there’s something he needs to do, so he cruises south-west, weaving through suburban streets to reach the esplanade where pine trees prick the blue sky. He cycles past picnickers with greasy fish and chips spread out on paper before turning right into Collie Street, past the new row of expensive clothing stores and the waffle place that makes his stomach churn with the sweetness of it. He pushes on past the cinema and its wafts of salty popcorn, but he’s not stopping for a movie.
    He drops his pace along the cafe strip to avoid running into pedestrians preoccupied with gelati. Beside him on the pavement, umbrellas shade latte-drinkers from the late afternoon sun. Window shoppers walk and talk slowly, not rushing anywhere either. He sees it all at 14k an hour and knows they’re just like him: in-between places, in-between meals, in-between chores and responsibilities. Like him, everyone along the cafe strip delays the inevitability of being where they’re supposed to be. He grins because he likes it here where laziness is cool.
    And the Freo noises make a soundtrack as he rides through the strip: chinks of crockery, teenagers chatting outside Simmo’s, Japanese techno music from the games arcade, clip-clopping heels on pavements, squeals of braking CAT buses, fragmented conversations that fill his head and leave no room for thinking. He lets it all in.
    But the soundtrack fades as he heads north to his father’s lab. Dustin lets his momentum roll him along High Street, and that’s when the gut-feeling returns — the feeling that had distracted him this afternoon, especially in chemistry whenever his attention lagged and the picture of her came to mind. The woman with the Ducati. She’s been occupying his head without good reason today, and he doesn’t feel entirely right about it.
    He stops out the front of the photo lab and chains the Avanti’s cool chrome alloy frame to the light post. He knows he’s got to have another look, to see if she really is worth this fuss, or if he’s just making something out of nothing.
28
    The sharpness of processing chemicals hits him at the door.