Julia laughed. 'I promise you can choose whatever dress you want. It can be black for all I care. I just want to marry Ry and throw a fantastic party for all our family and friends.'
Julia's bottom lip trembled and Lizzie knew exactly why. There was one person who would be missing the wedding – Julia's mother, Mary. She'd died suddenly eighteen months before and it had taken a year after that for Julia to return to Middle Point and work up the courage to sell the family home. And now, being home again, living among the memories of her childhood and her family, with both parents gone, was hard. It showed in Julia's eyes. Julia's mum would never know that she and Ry were getting married after all those years. Would never meet any future rug rats, who might, at certain times in their lives, look like their grandmother.
Lizzie regarded her friend, tears welling, her own heart swollen with love. She knew that Julia would come to realise, as she had, that people have a way of creating families of their own with their own unbreakable bonds of friendship and trust and love.
'Have you set a date yet?'
Julia shook her head. 'Nothing specific. We were thinking maybe February next year, after the holiday season is over and it's quieter at the pub. But it's all a bit up in the air. Ry wants to wait until Dan is … ready.'
Ready was a loaded word where Dan was concerned, Lizzie figured.
'Has Ry actually asked him to be his best man?'
'Not yet. You know what guys are like. Ry keeps finding spurious reasons not to. I think he's just worried Dan'll say no. But that doesn't have to stop us from driving up to Adelaide and visiting a few wedding boutiques, does it?'
Lizzie tried not to let her face fall. She pressed her sweaty palms onto her skirt. The thought of going to the city left a lump in her stomach that felt like concrete.
'Wedding dress shopping in the city? I think I might be washing my hair that day.'
Julia tugged at Lizzie's fingers. 'C'mon. I thought we could have some girly shopping time together, just you and me. No boys.'
Lizzie frowned. 'I'm so out of practice with the whole girly shopping thing.'
'The truth is, Lizzie, I wondered if trying on a few gowns might help me decide.' Julia took a deep breath and fresh tears welled in her eyes. 'I found Mum's wedding dress a few months ago when I was cleaning out her wardrobe.'
'Oh Jools.' Lizzie reached out to squeeze her hand.
'It's beautiful and hippie-ish and so her. And it fits me perfectly. I just don't know that it's me. I thought trying on some other gowns might help me make a decision. Will you come with me and help me decide what to do?' Julia asked.
Lizzie nodded. 'Of course.'
Lizzie spent the rest of the afternoon ordering stock, meeting the winemaker from a McLaren Vale winery who wanted to spruik their new variety, accommodating a couple of roster requests and probably a good deal too much time simply standing out in the sun checking out progress in the old car park. Pallet loads of pavers had been delivered and were sitting in the far corner, having arrived after lunch on the back of a semi-trailer, and small wooden stakes connected with blue string marked out the edges of the new garden bed around the fenced boundary. The boundary. Where the trees would be planted. Lizzie grabbed her phone from her pocket. After one ring, Dan picked up the call.
'Elizabeth.'
'Dan, the trees.'
'Yeah.'
'Originally I was thinking plane trees but now I'm worried they'll grow too big and what if they don't survive down here along the coast? We need to decide on something else.'
'Lucky I haven't ordered them yet.'
'Oh. Good.' Then she stopped. 'Why haven't you ordered them yet? Didn't we decide on that last week?'
'You decided on that last week. I'm still waiting on quotes from nurseries and they're checking on availability. They can't just pluck mature trees out of the air.'
'Okay. Will you ask the nurseries what might grow best down here? They'll know.'
'I've already asked, Elizabeth.'
'Oh. Okay. Hey, the pavers arrived today.'
'I know.'
Lizzie decided that having a conversation with Dan was totally infuriating. It was like talking to someone who was already two chapters ahead in the same book. 'How do you know? Have you been 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 by a sudden urge to run his fingers through them, wondering what it would be like to hold her face in his hands and pull her lips to his in a kiss.
'Where are you off to?' If Lizzie was surprised to see him out at night, she didn't show it. It might be what she'd ask anyone she came across on the streets of Middle Point in the evening.
'Just walking,' he said, shrugging his shoulders. 'What about you?'
'I left my phone at work so I had to go back. It was right there on my desk as it turns out. I'm the one the cops call if we get broken into or if the place burns down so I need my phone.'
'Right.'
'I was just heading home. Again,' she laughed.
Over her shoulder, the lights of the pub in the distance flickered in the twilight, beckoning him. Maybe he wouldn't get there tonight after all.
'Actually,' she started and then paused before searching his face. 'Why don't you come and have a look? See how things are going?'