Why she wanted to just not show up.
Because it might just be coffee and strudel and then she’d be disappointed, Alison thought as she stepped out onto the street with her sparkly clean teeth. Or, worse, it might be more than coffee and strudel.
Maybe that was what he did—pick someone wherever he went, dazzle her with the full glare of his spotlight.
And he really could dazzle.
Since two minutes past six on Friday morning, he’d been on her mind.
She rang her mum, told her she was having coffee with friends before she went to look at the flat, and as she turned the corner he was there already and looked up and smiled as she made her way over and took her seat at the pavement café.
‘How was the dentist?’
‘Fine,’ Alison said, ‘I’ve earned my strudel.’
He ordered, and her nerves disappeared because, absolutely, he was still easy to talk to and easy to listen to, too. Not working for a few months, Nick said, was the single best thing he had ever done. ‘Because,’ he continued, spooning four sugars into his coffee as Alison tapped in a sweetener, ‘I actually missed it.’
‘Well, you love your job,’ Alison said. ‘That’s obvious.’
‘But I didn’t,’ Nick said, and Alison blinked at his admission. ‘That’s one of the reasons I took a year off. I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to do medicine any more, let alone work in Emergency.’
‘But you seem to enjoy it.’
‘I’m starting to.’ He was in no rush, just sat and drank his coffee as if he’d be happy to sit there all evening and told her a little about himself. ‘There was never any question that I’d be a doctor—preferably a surgeon. My dad’s one, my grandfather was one, my elder brother is, as is my sister…’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Can you imagine what we talk about over dinner?’
‘What about your mum?’
‘Homework monitor,’ Nick said, and Alison laughed. ‘There was no question and, really, I accepted that, right up till the last year of medical school—which I enjoyed, but…’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t know, I wanted to take a year off to travel, but I ended up taking an internship.’
‘I was the same,’ Alison interrupted, which was rare for her. Normally she sat quietly and listened. ‘I wanted a year off when I finished school, but Mum and Dad said I should finish my studies.’
‘I had the same conversation with mine.’ Nick groaned. ‘So I did my internship, decided I liked emergency work, met Gillian and it was all.’
‘Nice,’ Alison offered.
And they could hardly hear the other’s story for telling their own, or hardly tell their own for hearing the other person’s.
‘Work was okay about it—they gave me a year’s unpaid leave, but they made it pretty clear that there’d be no extension. I’ve no idea how bad divorce must be,’ Nick said, ‘because breaking up after four years was hard enough. I mean, there was no real reason—it was just the talk of mortgages and babies and if we’d hyphenate our names…’ He called the waiter and ordered another coffee and Alison ordered a hot chocolate. ‘I was having a midlife crisis apparently!’ Nick said. ‘At thirty!’
‘I had one too,’ Alison said, ‘and I’m only twenty-four.’ And she laughed, for the first time she laughed about the sorry situation she had found herself in a year ago. She told him a little about Paul, her one serious relationship—how well he’d got on with her mother, how hard it had been to end it—but there was something she wanted to know about him. ‘So…’ Alison was cautious, but terribly, terribly curious. ‘Are you two having a break…?’
‘No,’ Nick said. ‘I ended it and it wasn’t nice, but it was necessary. I just hope one day she can see that—four weeks later I’d got a round-the-world ticket and was flying to New York.’
And she sat outside a pavement café with a man who came from the other side of the world, but who felt somehow the same, and there was a fizz in her veins she’d never felt before, a glow inside as they chatted on, and she could have stayed and spoken to him for hours, except she had her real estate appointment at seven.
‘Do you want me to come?’ Nick asked. ‘I love looking at houses.’
‘It’s an apartment.’
‘It’s someone else’s!’ Nick grinned. ‘I love being nosy.’
And Alison smiled back because, even if flat-hunting was hell, yes, she liked that aspect of it too, loved that peek into others’ lives, the solace that wardrobes the length and breadth of Coogee were filled fit to bursting, that some people didn’t even make their beds when they had people coming round to view. And she told him so and told him some more. ‘One couple were rowing on Saturday,’ Alison said.
‘The owners?’ Nick asked, and she loved how his eyes widened in glee.
‘I think they were breaking up.’ Alison nodded. ‘They stood on the balcony and had this screaming match during the open inspection.’
‘God, I wish I’d been there,’ Nick said, and she kind of wished he’d been there too—liked that he liked the same things as her, that odd little things pleased.
‘Come on, then.’ She went to fish out her purse, but Nick waved her away and it would have been embarrassing really to protest—and even there he was different. Paul had decided on their first date that equality meant you split the bill—and she told him so as they walked down the hill and turned at the chemist’s.
‘He lived in constant terror that he might end up paying for a round of garlic bread when he hadn’t eaten a slice,’ Alison said, and then wondered if she should have said that, if it was bitchy to talk about your ex like that. ‘He was a great guy, just toward the end…’ She trailed off and Nick got it, he just completely got it.
‘Gillian and I ended up the same,’ he said as they walked up the hill to meet the real estate agent. ‘At first I used to love it that she did my crossword, but near the end I was setting my alarm early and nearly breaking my neck to get down the stairs and to the newspaper first.’ He glanced over to check that she got it too and Alison smiled. ‘It’s not the crossword, or the garlic bread, is it?’
‘He was great,’ Alison said. ‘It was more…’ And she told him a bit about herself, not enough to have him running in the opposite direction, just a little. ‘It was too nice,’ Alison said. ‘Too easy, almost. Mum’s a bit overprotective and he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, Paul suggested he move in.’ She still burnt at the memory. ‘Mum was delighted, it felt like they had it all worked out.’
‘They just forgot to ask you,’ Nick said, and for the first time in her life, she felt as if someone got her.
ALISON had very few expectations as the real estate agent opened the front door and she stepped inside. There had been so many disappointments, so many letdowns, that, in the name of self-preservation, she kept her hopes determinedly down.
Even as they looked at the surprisingly spacious lounge, even that this apartment actually had a kitchen, though even the real estate agent managed a wry smile at the supposed glimpse of the bay. Nick could see it because he was a full foot taller, but apparently, there at the top right hand side of the kitchen window was her beloved beach.
‘There is a second bedroom.’ Alison peered into a cupboard. ‘Well,’ the real estate agent attempted, ‘it would make a nice nursery.’
‘Or