Someone Like You by Victoria Purman Page A

out the door at closing time. The woman was absolutely adamant that she’d only had three drinks and couldn’t understand why she’d been hung-over all weekend, leading her to the inevitable conclusion that someone had snuck something suspicious into her vodka. That one made Lizzie smile. She’d seen it before. The only thing that young woman’s drinks had been spiked with was alcohol. Lizzie assured the officer she’d seen no suspicious activity and, if she ever did, she’d be sure to let him know.
    That busy work only filled the hours until five p.m. when the first of the locals began arriving for dinner. The pensioners came first, on the dot of 5.15 p.m. They sat at the same tables and ordered the same thing every week: Roast of the Day. Lizzie took a booking for a fiftieth wedding anniversary party and answered a phone call about the gluten-free options on the menu.
    And then it was six p.m. She couldn’t contain herself any longer, so she grabbed her phone, locked her office, and walked out to the pub’s rear car park. As the screen door clattered behind her, she looked around the open and barren space. It had always been an afterthought, unused, forlorn, as if it was sad about missing out on all the action happening on the beach side. Dark bitumen, divided into parking spaces by bright white painted lines, shimmered in the heat. A row of rubbish bins had gathered in a huddle and a few cars were parked there. The glare from the bright afternoon sun on the corrugated iron fence almost blinded her. For the first time, Lizzie realised there wasn’t even a tree to sit under. She paced on the bitumen, shielded her face from the glare with an outstretched hand and waited for Julia to pick up.
    ‘Hey Lizzie.’
    ‘Jools. I need to debrief. Or maybe that’s pre-brief. God, I need to talk to someone.’
    ‘This sounds interesting. What’s up?’
    ‘Dan’s coming here for dinner. To the pub, I mean. Tonight. In,’ Lizzie checked her watch, ‘two hours.’
    There was silence. Lizzie wiped the beads of sweat from her top lip. This place really was like an oven.
    ‘Jools? Are you there?’ If only Lizzie could see her best friend doing a silent happy dance in the middle of her kitchen.
    ‘What did you do to lure him out of his house?’ Lizzie could hear Jools’ sigh down the line. ‘ His house . That sounds weird. I still think of it as my house.’
    ‘Enough about you, Jools, this is about me,’ Lizzie snapped.
    ‘Sorry. You’re right. Prepare for twenty questions: why are you freaking out? How did this all happen? Where? When? And what are you going to wear?’
    Lizzie relayed a highly edited version of all the events so far. She told Julia about Dan’s surprise visit the night before, the wine glass incident and Dan’s parting words to keep a table for two. She conveniently failed to include specific details about his eyes, his shoulders, her raging hormonal response to being lifted off the ground like she was a feather or the beard fondle. And she most definitely forgot to tell her about the rejected offer of a drink. All of that was way too humiliating.
    ‘That all sounds extremely promising, Lizzie,’ Julia said.
    ‘It’s dinner. That’s it.’ No strings, no expectations, Lizzie told herself. The booking was at eight o’clock. It would probably be all over by 8.45, including dessert. And then she could go home and watch a weepy movie and get drunk. How ridiculous to be thinking this was anything more.
    ‘Lizzie. You’ve gone quiet. What aren’t you telling me?’
    Lizzie could hear the suspicion in her friend’s voice and tried to snap out of her ridiculous, uneasy mood. She’d been totally distracted by Dan’s eyes and body and that thing he did when he looked at her. That thing that scrambled her brain and her resolve. Wasn’t he complicated enough without throwing sex into the mix? Staying away from him and his problems was definitely the best thing she could do. So why wasn’t she