The waitress sidled up to the table, pen poised over her pad. Carson glanced back down at the menu. “So what’s good here?”
“Well, we definitely want some spicy tuna rolls and eel and salmon sashimi. And the ebi. Oh, and miso soup. And probably some inari,” Julie said.
He started to laugh. “Just how much fish do you plan to eat?”
“You’ve officially been warned. This is not amateur hour.” She raised her eyebrow in a mock challenge, and he grinned up at the waitress.
“Okay. Bring us everything she said.”
“And some edamame!” Julie added as the waitress started to walk away. “Please!”
She met Carson’s eyes and smiled. He was so gorgeous, with the gold flecks in his eyes and his smooth dark skin. She almost couldn’t believe he’d wanted to go out with her.
“So, Julie, tell me something about you that I don’t know,” he said, fidgeting with the straw in his water glass.
Julie blinked. There was so much he could never know. She spooled through her life details, looking for something innocuous. “I’m a lifeguard at the indoor pool at the Beacon Rec Center. It’s just a lot of wild kids and old-lady lap swimmers.”
His eyes twinkled. “A lifeguard? You sure you’re not an Aussie?”
“An honorary one, maybe,” Julie joked. “I guess everyone’s born knowing how to swim there, huh?”
“Pretty much,” Carson said, his fist resting on his chin as he gazed at her. “And, you know, everyone rides kangaroos to school and wrestles crocodiles.”
“And here I was thinking you all just drove around the Outback, talking in sexy accents.”
“You think my accent is sexy?” His voice was low, and a smile played around his lips.
Julie smiled back at him, filled with a sudden confidence. “The accent, yes. I’m still deciding about everything else.”
“Well,” Carson said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table. “Let me see what I can do to change your mind.”
The waitress brought out their edamame, and they swapped stories, laughing almost the entire time. Carson told her about filming comedy sketches with his friends in Sydney, and about surfing in the Tasman Sea. “One time, a great white shark circled my surfboard for forty minutes,” he said, widening his eyes. “I had to just stay there and wait him out. I thought I was shark bait for sure.”
“You think that’s scary?” Julie teased. “One time, my friend Parker persuaded me to hitchhike to Portland for a Taylor Swift concert. We spent hours on the highway with no luck. And then this skeevy guy picked us up. His car was full of bobbleheads—I mean packed—and he kept humming this weird song that sounded like it was from a horror movie. We were so creeped out we made him let us off at the next exit. And then this other car came along, and it ended up being Mr. Downing, our algebra teacher.” She giggled at the memory. “Let’s just say that we never made it to see Swift.”
Carson reached for an edamame pod. “I’ve done some hitchhiking in Sydney and the outskirts—it can be dicey. Who’s your friend you’re talking about? Parker?”
“Uh-huh.” Julie’s smile dimmed a little.
“Does she go to our school?”
Julie picked an imaginary ball of lint off her sleeve. But before she had to figure out how to describe Parker, the waitress walked up with their sushi and rolls, and the subject was dropped. Carson gasped in mock horror at the mountains of food on the table before them. “How are we ever going to finish all this?”
“Have you ever had eel?” Julie challenged. “Trust me. You’ll be licking the plate.” She reached for a piece with her chopsticks and dunked it in soy sauce. Carson grinned and followed her example.
After some more easy conversation, Julie stood up and excused herself. She slipped into the bathroom and checked her makeup in the big round mirror over the sink. Then she experimented with a big, honest, dazzled smile. Everything was going so well that she almost couldn’t believe it. Maybe she really could do this. Maybe she could even have a relationship. It might be easy to keep her secret. Nyssa had never come to Julie’s house, and Julie had been friends with her for years.
She rummaged around in the depths of her purse for the petal-pink lipstick she’d bought just for tonight, thinking about how she was going to ask Carson more questions about life in Australia. He was so playful and funny without being boastful or lame. She snapped the lid back on the lipstick and reached for a paper towel to blot. Then a face materialized in the mirror behind her.
Julie almost screamed.
“Hello to you, too,” Ashley Ferguson said, a cold smile spreading across her thin lips.