Page 36 of Shifting Gears

Saturday dawns with a curiousblend of excitement and nausea.

Eleanor wakes up just after the sun, tossing and turning until it’s clear that she’s up for the day. After coffee, a shower, and laying out half her new wardrobe, it’s still only nine thirty in the morning. Even though she knows it’s an entirely platonic outing, it still feels like she’s preparing for a date, and Eleanor resigns herself to pacing the house until Dani’s truck rolls up at twelve forty-five.

She’s tired of feeling overdressed. So, after a long and arduous decision-making process, Eleanor has landed on a pair of cutoff jean shorts that Mila insisted she buy, with a simple, red cotton T-shirt. Her makeup is sparing, and she spent a very focused forty-five minutes this morning carefully clipping and filing her nails. Completely unnecessary, but she needs something to fill the time.

At the last moment, she grabs the flannel that Dani left at her house last week, throwing it overtop as she opens the door.

When Dani climbs out of the truck, Eleanor is treated to a wonderful moment of gratification: Dani’s eyes widen and drift down to take in her outfit. They linger on her thighs and then again on the flannel shirt around her shoulders. She even stumbles a little as she walks toward the house.

The gratification doesn’t last much longer than that, though, because the moment Eleanor gets a good look at what Dani is wearing she completely forgets the painstaking morning she spent deciding on her own outfit.

In contrast to Eleanor dressing down, Dani has dressed up. She’s wearing the first pair of fully clean blue jeans Eleanor has ever seen her in—tight blue denim worn low on her hips with a thick, brown leather belt and a big buckle. Her dark-red shirt is buttoned all the way up and tucked into her jeans, and her hands have been scrubbed clean. There’s not a trace of engine oil or shop residue to be seen. But the most arresting part of the whole ensemble, the part that hits Eleanor the hardest, is Dani’s hair.

It’s the first time Eleanor has ever seen her without her ever-present ponytail and ballcap. Dani’s hair is down, falling in slightly messy waves around her face, and she’s biting her lip with what looks like apprehension.

In short, she looks absolutely delectable. But Eleanor can’t say that to her face. She struggles to find a compliment that won’t bare her entire soul as Dani makes her way from her truck to Eleanor’s door, sinceyou look especially climbable todayseems a little bit intense.

“Wow,” Dani says, her hands shoved deep in her pockets as she reaches the bottom step of the front porch. “Nora, you look… I mean, you look better in that shirt than I do.”

Dani’s cheeks are pink. Eleanor’s heart hammers.

“You showered,” is what comes out of Eleanor’s mouth in response.

After a few seconds of stunned silence, Dani bursts into laughter. Her nervousness seems to disappear, and suddenly she’s the Dani that Eleanor has known for weeks now—loose, confident, and grinning.

“I’m known to do that every so often.”

Eleanor grabs her keys and shuts the door behind her before she can dig an even deeper hole, feeling rather warm. When Dani opens the truck for her and helps her up into the seat, Eleanor notices something else that makes her smile—Danidressed up, but she’s still wearing the same scuffed, dirty work boots she always does.

When they arrive at the park, people are under a pavilion by the widest bank of the river, scattered over a mass of picnic tables overladen with food. Adults are playing horseshoes, kids are weaving through the tables with armfuls of water balloons, and the potluck offers everything from Swedish meatballs to walking tacos. Dani’s contribution is a dessert—some kind of chocolate-and-peanut-butter bake that looks deliciously cavity inducing—and though she assured Eleanor that she didn’t need to bring anything, Eleanor contributes a few bags of chips to the table anyway.

With a bright, sunny day overhead, it seems as if the entire town has come out. Naomi, Owen, and Ryan wave from a nearby bench. Ryan’s mouth is crammed with half a bowl of guacamole dip. Sarah makes her presence known by throwing a Nerf football with such devastating accuracy that it pegs Dani on the side of the head, and Mila and her husband turn up around 3 p.m., this time with no moonshine to speak of.

In comparison to last weekend, this celebration is tame, though things kick up a little when the sun goes down. There’s a collection of communal coolers near the river, and Eleanor sits with Dani on a tailgate to watch Ryan and Owen unload a huge speaker system, then connect it to the AV in someone’s truck. People back their cars and trucks in to surround a makeshift dance floor on the grass, and the kids congregate on the dock that juts out into the river for some sort of diving competition.

When an upbeat and only vaguely familiar country song starts to play, Ryan and Sarah even start up a choreographed-looking dance.

“Danielle!” Sarah shouts, waving Dani over as Owen steps in line and joins the sequence. “Get your ass over here!”

Dani jumps off the tailgate, holding out an expectant hand. The moment she realizes what Dani wants, Eleanor clutches the side of the truck bed.

“Absolutely not.”

“Nora!” Dani whines, jumping up and down impatiently. “It’s my favourite line dance!”

“And?” Eleanor says, not letting go of the truck that she’s fully convinced is the only reason she’s not being made to dance right now.

Everyone else seems to agree with Dani—they’re joining the line, hands hooked in belt loops as the song lyrics pontificate about deals with the devil over a heavy fiddle solo.

Eleanor shakes her head again when Dani makes a come-hither motion. “Not happening.”

With a groan, Dani finally gives up. She grabs a cowboy hat off the nearest person’s head—it happens to be Mila sitting in a lawn chair next to the truck—and runs toward the growing line of people.

Mila throws her empty cider can in retaliation. It misses by a solid two metres, hitting Owen instead.

“She better not wreck my hat,” Mila grumbles, settling back into her chair and opening up a fresh drink. “Why didn’t you go up with her?”

“I don’t know this dance,” Eleanor says, gesturing at the line of people all moving in perfect sync. “How the hell does everyone here know it?”

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