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Previous Chapter: Too Much to Hope
Danny picked Isla up in a dark blue truck. Her outfit, a short black dress with black capri leggings and lug-soled Mary Janes, accounted for every contingency from hiking to a nice restaurant, including an awkward-to-enter vehicle, so she clambered in gamely, composed herself, buckled, folded her hands on her lap, and said, “Hello.” The conversation that had led to this outing laid out a specific agenda: build community by getting to know and understand someone—well, Danny specifically—by sharing an experience. Isla was comfortable with agendas and had made a mental checklist for accomplishing this one. She’d start in on it once niceties (“opening remarks”) were concluded.
“Hi,” Danny smiled, not quite comfortably, but it was clear that being in the actual driver’s seat put him at ease a bit more than the other contexts in which she’d seen him.
“So where are we going?”
“I need to pick up some parts for the shop.”
“You can’t just order them?”
“I can, but since I’m going to Portland with you, I figured I might as well pick them up.” Isla didn’t think this had been the chronology of the arrangement, but let it go.
“Ok.”
“Then maybe we can get coffee or something.” He didn’t have a plan, which struck a decidedly discordant note with Isla. But this was the point, she told herself. To understand someone different from herself. It was ok. It was good. It takes all kinds. She needed to loosen up anyway, maybe. She took a deep breath, smiled, and nodded.
“I know a nice place in the Old Port.”
“Great.” They rode in silence for a bit while Isla tried to review her mental checklist. Logical thought seemed to have gotten muddled when she entered the truck.
“Ahhhhh. Soooooo . . .” she began, at the same time that he said, “So, Isla . . .” He stopped to allow her to finish, and she continued, disconcerted, “No, please. Go ahead. I don’t even know what I was saying.”
“Well, I was just going to say . . . we’ve kind of butted heads and I don’t know why. When I met you at the shop, I thought you were very friendly and efficient. Non-threatening, even though I know that the council was out to get me. Thanks for that.”
“Sure.” She smiled uncertainly. When he didn’t say anything else, she cleared her throat and said, “ I guess you’ve kind of gotten to know more about me than I have about you. I get on a bit of a roll sometimes. Bit of a soap box. I don’t mean to be obnoxious.” She sighed and looked out the window, knowing how strongly she could come across without meaning to.
Danny smiled again. “It’s ok. You’re not obnoxious. You just talk too much.”
Isla frowned and sat up a little straighter. “Who’s to say what’s too much?”
“I’m sorry. I mean . . . I mean . . . I thought . . . it’s fine. You’re fine.” Danny sighed, and Isla sighed, and there they were in a knot again despite themselves.
“Well, anyway,” Isla decided to take another crack at their experiment, “I want to know more about you. What is your family like?”
“I have two brothers and two sisters. I’m the youngest.”
“Ah, the baby.”
“Kind of old for a baby.” Trees, interrupted by the occasional gas station or daycare, slipped endlessly behind them as they sped towards the city.
“I’m the baby, too.”
“Really?” He sounded surprised.
“Yes, and the oldest, too.”
“You were all they could handle, huh?”
Isla considered being insulted, but she saw the hint of smirk on his face and responded, “You can’t improve on perfection.” They smiled at each other for possibly the first time since his shop.
“How’d you end up in Scottsville?” she continued.
“Followed a girl.”
Isla had an unpleasant feeling that she knew she had no right to feel. “Oh? Have you been married before?”
“Before what?”
“Before . . . before in your life of course.” Isla pondered how stupid she could possibly be.
“No. You?”
“No.” Isla laughed. “No, I don’t believe I’m the marrying kind.”
“Oh, you and Dave aren’t a thing?”
“No! Did you think we were? I mean, even if we were, it wouldn’t mean I was the marrying kind. Right?”
“You tell me.”
“It wouldn’t. And Dave and I are just friends. That would be like dating my brother, if I had one. Although I haven’t really known him that long. Anyway . . . no.”
Danny chuckled again and said, “Ok, then. But it happens sometimes. Friends become lovers.”
Isla deflected this by turning it back on him. “Is that what happened with you and the girl?”
“Nope. More like friends who became . . . well, nothing. Not enemies. Just nothing.”
“You moved for a girl you weren’t even dating?”
“Yes.” Danny was unapologetic.
“To Scottsville?”
“Yep.”
“I hope this was when you were very young and naïve.”
“I was 26.” Isla sighed and shook her head and Danny said, “Some girls might think it was romantic.”
“Very silly girls. I am not some girls.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“In fact, I’m a woman and I’ve been one for a long time.”
“Does ‘girl’ offend you?”
Isla sighed, “No, not really, but I’ve heard it’s supposed to.”
“Life’s too short to take offense when you don’t even really want to, isn’t it?”
Isla nodded. “Good point.” She filed that away in Danny’s favor. “What made you stay here when that relationship didn’t pan out? Why not go home?”
He shrugged. “It’s close enough to visit my family now and then. I’d been working for a guy and he offered to sell me the business when he decided to retire. Seemed like a good career choice.”
“Do you like being a mechanic?”
“I do. I like being my own boss, I like putting things together. I’m not rich, but it pays the bills.” Danny put his blinker on.
“What do you do for fun?”
“I’m a volunteer firefighter.” The truck growled loudly as they pulled away from a stoplight.
“That’s fun?”
“Well . . . not fun, exactly. But it’s important. Why waste time on things that aren’t important?”
Is that why he always seemed a little tense? It sounded like it might put a lot of pressure on every moment of the day. He must do something with his idle moments, though. He must relax sometimes; if not, maybe that was something she could help him with. She wondered what he would think of her pastimes: reading, watching TV with the folks. But she didn’t need his approval, did she? Maybe he was just trying to impress her.
“So how did you get to Scottsville?” Danny was asking.
“Oh, I’ve always been here. I mean, I’ve traveled, but I’m from here.”
“That’s interesting.”
“That I’m from here?” Why did she always sound defensive when someone asked where she was from?
“Sure, but I meant it was interesting that you were so quick to tell me you’d traveled. Not like us common folk?” Isla looked for a sneer on his face, but only found a trace of sadness and insecurity.
“Well, I do think it’s had a big influence on my perspective, having seen other places.”
“How so?”
“Well . . . I’ve seen that people do things differently, because everything that formed them was different, and it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re wrong, even if it strikes you wrong at first.”
“I guess I see things a little more black and white.”
“Oh?”
“Like with what you said about there being no bad people.”
“I said that?”
“Yeah, at Thanksgiving.” She was a little chagrined that he’d thought more about that conversation than she had, and she’d done so much more of the talking. “That leaves a lot more gray area than I’m comfortable with. And I’m not sure I really believe that you’re that comfortable with it. Surely there are people you dislike.” Isla thought about Lacey, about Bill, and just as quickly as their faces flashed in her mind, she pushed them away.
“I mean, there are people that irritate me, or things I don’t understand. Relationships I don’t understand. But . . . but . . . I don’t want to say I dislike anyone.”
“Even though you do dislike some people?” Isla had no answer. She very much wanted to say that Danny was of course wrong, but it seemed he’d see through her. “You’re a thinker, Isla. You think about everything so much. I’m more of a doer. If I see something that needs to be done, I do it.”
“I think of myself as a woman of action.”
“There you go thinking again.”
“So thinking’s a bad thing?”
“Overthinking is.”
“Look, when someone comes to me and says, ‘so-and-so’s business is an eyesore’ or ‘so-and-so’s a pain in the bum,’ I try to ask myself what circumstances might have caused that behavior before I assume they’re a second-class citizen.”
“I just don’t assume it at all. Seems easier that way. Or if they’re a bum or bad blood, I just acknowledge it.”
Isla paused, because she was a thinker. She was used to Mum and Dad and Dave nodding at her, affirming her insights. She knew she had wisdom to offer. But it had been a long time since anyone had pushed back, and she tried to ignore what she knew was true: this was good for her. Being challenged could make her grow. Besides, she settled back smugly, just think how much Danny’s own understanding could expand if they did manage to be friends.
“So,” she started in again on her next agenda item, “let’s go deep. What do you see as the purpose of your life? What’s your 10-year plan?”
Danny furrowed his brow. “Ten-year plan? You’ve been to too many town council meetings.”
Isla was miffed, again, and it was getting tedious for both of them. “You don’t have any kind of vision for your life? Some overarching goal?”
“No. Do most people?”
“I . . . I suppose I don’t know.”
“Well, I don’t. Sounds like a kind of meaningless security blanket to me. There’s too many moving parts to know where I’ll be in 10 years. I just try to do the best I can now. I mean, I’m not saying I don’t plan ahead at all, but I mostly just want to do a good job, help people when I can. You know, that sort of thing.”
“You have zero plans for the future?” The landscape was more suburban now as Danny got out a dollar for the turnpike.
“I have projects that will take a long time because of time and money, but I don’t think that’s the same thing. It will be finished in the future and benefit me in the future, but it’s a far cry from a 10-year plan.”
Isla couldn’t believe there was anyone who didn’t lie awake at night wondering if they were where they should be in life. What were your 30s and 40s for if not for that? Even the fact that he thought it was true, that he wanted it to be true and wanted her to think it was true was interesting. Wasn’t it? Or was she overthinking again?
“And then what happened? . . .” Kim pressed her for details later, leaning forward over her coffee cup.
“Do you know what he said? We drove by the art museum and he said, ‘There’s the Museum of the Weird.’ We just don’t like any of the same things at all.”
“Maybe he hasn’t had much exposure to art.”
“Because he thinks it’s a waste of time.”
“Did he say that?” Kim asked, chidingly.
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
“Then we went to the cafe, and we had these big gorgeous lattes in mugs and a plate of little cookies and just when I thought we were really going to have a good time, I noticed him squirming and looking over his shoulder. Finally, he said he stuck out like a sore thumb in there.”
“Did he stick out?”
“Well . . . I suppose.”
“Then you can’t blame him, right?”
“I suppose not.” Isla looked annoyed. “But he said it was full of the same emaciated intellectuals that wander the Whole Foods parking lot.”
Kim laughed. “That’s hilarious. Admit it.” Isla didn’t admit it but made a saucy face that was almost the same thing. “What else happened?”
“I don’t know. We drove. We talked. We irritated each other, and then we apologized. Over and over and over.”
“That’s relationships for you. Good ones, anyway.”
Isla rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Seems like it might be easier just to stay away from people who irritate you.”
“What’s easier isn’t always better.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Besides, it isn’t always possible.” Kim laughed and pointed out the window as Danny’s truck pulled into the driveway.
“Oh, come off it, what is he doing here?”
“Dunno. He brought some pallets for Dave the other day for some project at the studio. Maybe he’s bringing some more.”
“Ugh. Maybe he won’t come in.”
“Do you really dislike him, Isla?”
“No. So many things went wrong, but I do know him better than before. And I see a lot of ways I could help him; be a good friend to him, you know? But I just don’t get him. He doesn’t even try to be nice.”
“So, he’s your kindred spirit then?”
“I try to be nice! I try so, so hard. But, you know. Tough love and the truth hurts, etc.—insert appropriate cliché here.” She shrugged.
“Why is he bringing Dave pallets if he isn’t trying to be nice?”
“Ugh!” Isla crossed her arms across her chest petulantly.
“Really, though?”
“I mean, he doesn’t try to be nice with his words.”
“You’re good with words, Isla. You can’t expect everyone to be.”
“He doesn’t even want to be. Kim, why do you want so much for us to hit it off?”
“I don’t. Not if he’s not right for you, and I don’t know one way or the other. But I think you want to hit it off with him, and I find that . . . interesting. You have to admit that he’s a good foil for you. You’re drawn to that, if you’re honest.”
“I think . . . I think he’s maybe interested in me. But that doesn’t make him say what I want to hear, and I can’t help but respect that to some extent. But then . . . he could try to be nice. It’s like he says stuff in the most abrasive way possible.” Kim smiled and shook her head at how little Isla understood how alike she and Danny were. “Well, I don’t think anything will come of it. I’m not interested in anything coming of it, in fact. I’m deciding that here and now. The day served its purpose. I did find things to appreciate about him. He did become more human to me. Yes.” Isla seemed to be trying to convince herself.
“You know what I think?”
“What?” Isla looked at her warily.
“I think if you didn’t have a crush on him you’d find him a lot easier to get along with.”
Isla turned red and started to bluster. “Don’t be so juvenile, Kim, what is this, junior high?” A hearty knock on the kitchen door right behind her head startled her into stopping, eyes wide with panic. Kim hopped up to let Danny in and Isla smiled too cheerily in greeting.
Next Chapter: One Day at a Time
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Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson