Someone Like You by Victoria Purman

down here?’
    ‘The paving guys called me. Hey, I need to ask you…’ And then he stopped.
    Lizzie waited. ‘Ask me what?’
    ‘No, it doesn’t matter. I’m waiting on costings for the outdoor furniture. I’ll email you when I get it.’
    ‘Okay.’
    ‘Okay,’ Dan replied.
    Was Lizzie imagining it or was he hesitating again? ‘I’ll wait for your email then.’
    ‘Cheers.’ And he ended the call.
    Dan didn’t want to ’fess up. The truth was that he had been down to the pub. He’d just done it late at night, in the darkness, when he could be sure the rest of Middle Point was tucked up in bed. Elizabeth had called him a vampire, only coming out at night. Maybe it was a fitting description.
    She’d seemed suspicious that he wasn’t on top of the project. He couldn’t blame her, given his project management style was a little experimental, but he knew exactly what was going on. Right down to the number of pavers he’d calculated for the new dining area and the exact cost of dumping the bitumen. He’d created all the documentation he needed and cost projections for Ry on his laptop, the same laptop that had become his connection to the world. He could order groceries, Skype his parents, keep up with what was happening in the rest of the world, all from a twelve-inch screen and a phone line.
    The only drawback was that he was doing it in isolation. He regretted that he hadn’t been on site with the tradies, felt the sun on his face or the cool breeze on the back of his neck when he was covered with sweat. He had to see the site coming together to get a real feel for how it was working and what else needed to be done. None of that came from staring at a computer screen or sending text messages. He looked through his front windows and checked the sky. It was already growing dark. He decided it was time for another walk.
    Dan had grown to appreciate Middle Point at night. He loved the quiet, the rhythmic and relentless breaking of the waves interrupted only by the barking of a curious dog or the occasional car passing on the esplanade. When it wasn’t too windy he could hear the relaxed chatter of people sitting out on their balconies, taking in the last of the light before the blanket of night fell over the point. He’d come to learn the rhythms of the place in the past four months. On weekends he watched from his living room as the street teemed with cars and people and surf school trailers and body boarders and little kids with buckets and spades and faces white with sunscreen.
    By nightfall it was very different. He’d been able to walk the beach with barely any other person for kilometres. He figured the fresh air and sunlight exhausted people down here. Everyone was out on the beach during the day and sound asleep when the sun fell.
    The thing about coming out at night was that he missed watching the surfers. Man, he’d wanted to be one of them. He’d always liked watching them out in the water, wherever he’d been in the world. It looked so Zen, the way they sat floating on their boards, waiting for a wave. Not just any wave. They’d learned to read the rhythms of the ocean and, most importantly, they were patient. He wished he’d learned as a kid when he still had a low centre of gravity and little fear. He doubted he’d be able to stand up on a board now without looking like an arse.
    ‘Dan?’
    He stopped in his tracks.
    ‘Is that you, Dan?’
    He knew Elizabeth’s voice, even in the distance and above the crash of the waves. He’d know it in his sleep. She was heading towards him from the other direction, coming along the esplanade from the pub. It was like a scene out of a movie, he thought. The dim glow of a streetlight, a beautiful woman, a man with empty arms, suddenly wanting her in them.
    ‘Hey,’ he called out. And then she was right there, looking up into his face with her smiling, generous eyes. The night breeze teased the soft golden strands of her hair and he was confounded