Sixteen

My date with Nina started with an afternoon walk along the beach. I had to pick her up from her place because she didn't have a car. I didn't have to see the toilets to know her parents were loaded.

She'd been kind of surprised and kind of excited when I rang her and that was pretty much a first for me since my semi-cool high school days.

I guess that's why I was feeling pretty buoyant until we ran out of nothingy conversation half a mile down the beach.

'Beautiful day,' said Nina, after several minutes of silence.

'Yeah.' I looked about. The sky was blue, a few puffy white clouds floated in the distance, the sea breeze was cooling but not cold and the waves sighed restlessly onto the sand. All that nice nature kind of stuff.

I was trying to think of a casual way to bring Lisa into the non-existant conversation but impatience got the better of me. 'Have you heard from Lisa?'

'She called me late last night.'

'Oh right. How is she?'

'Fine.'

We left several more footprints in the sand as I marvelled at her ability to effortlessly share information.

Seventeen