Eighteen

'I like to imagine things,' said Nina casting her eyes up the shoreline.

'Yeah? Like what?' She didn't seem to be looking at anything in particular. There was a bunch of seagulls ahead, squawking around a shallow tidal pool.

'I don't know. How things might be, or might have been. I'm going to study Arts next year, maybe philosophy.'

I nodded. 'Deep. I like to imagine things.' I tried to imagine what was beneath her big green dress-sack. 'Like the slob-a-matic.'

She raised an eyebrow and blushed - I'm not sure why. 'The what?'

'The slob-a-matic. To run slob's lives so they remember to flush, and to pick up their dirty jocks and put dirty dishes in the sink - even if they don't wash them straight away.'

'Oh.' She laughed. 'That sort of stuff bugs you?'

'I guess.' I'd never really thought of myself as anal before. It wasn't really the image I was looking to project.

'You couldn't live with Lisa then.'

How smooth was that? 'Let me guess. She makes Hagrid look tidy?'

'Something like that.'

Woah, fifteen words in thirty seconds. I was impressed.

'I'm a bit worried about her,' said Nina quietly.

'Lisa?' I can be quick sometimes. I managed to stop myself from slapping my own forehead. Of course Lisa.

'She hasn't seemed herself lately. And last night, I don't know, she seemed kind of different. She sounded... '

I smiled to myself. She was on the Des cloud of love.

'...depressed.'

'No way! I mean... I've never seen Lisa down.' I picked up a shell and hocked it at the seagulls, now only a few metres in front of us.

'I know. Me neither - besides the usual boyfriend ups and downs.'

Be proud of me, I resisted the obvious line.

Nineteen

Seventeen

I never was very good at fishing. I lost my bait but never jagged anything much. Life had turned out pretty much the same. But I stupidly assumed today would somehow be different.

'So...' I began.

Nina squelched her toes into the wet sand.

'What do you do?' Don't ask me I hadn't already asked that. Conversation isn't really my forte, and besides, the question probably wouldn't lead us to talking about me, so hadn't been a priority.

'Do?' She looked up with a smile of joy as the undertoe sucked at her feet.

The dark gold sand trailed from her foot in a thin stream in the otherwise clear water. 'Yeah... between waking and sleeping.'

She shrugged. 'Whatever.'

Now I respect the free flowing take on life; I make it a rule not to plan a day before it actually arrives, in case something happens in the delivery - and then I've wasted my planning time, but even I know what I spend most of my time doing. My fingers were getting itchy thinking about it. (Don't make me slap you.)

Eighteen

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