Page 9 of Shifting Gears

“I’m not saying you should get entangled.” Kayla’s voice cuts out slightly as Eleanor gathers her blanket and wineglass and escapes the great outdoors. Slamming the sliding glass door shut behind her, she drapes the blanket over the back of her couch and sinks onto a soft cushion.

“I dunno, entanglement can be fun if you use the right rope,” Ash says. Eleanor can almost see the wink he would have thrown if he were here.

“I don’t think Eleanor could handle maintaining your Rolodex of Grindr tops,” Kayla says. Eleanor hears the reverberation of a playful smack. “Ow—what? Eleanor doesn’t have it in her to be a joyful gay tramp like you.”

Ash huffs, but he has no retort.

“All I’m saying is that a summer fling might do you good,” Kayla says much more rationally. “You’ll never know if she’s gay if you don’t flirt a little. Relax, hang out, make some friends, get yourself laid, and unclench. You don’t need to submit a formal request.”

Eleanor groans, flopping back onto the throw pillows. It’s not like she’s inexperienced by any far stretch. Casual connections are her bread and butter. But asummer fling?Honestly, “submitting a formal request” isn’t far off from Eleanor’s usual style. Her relationship with Lydia was governed by strict rules on both sides to eliminate any need for conflict or hurt feelings. It stopped just short of including a written agreement.

Lydia had deemed it unnecessary when Eleanor made that suggestion.

“I’m going to keep to myself like I said I would,” Eleanor tells her friends.

“Suit yourself, Mother Theresa,” Ash scoffs.

“If you guys only called to make fun of me, I’m hanging up.”

“No, no, I’m sorry,” Kayla cuts in. “We tease because we love. We want you to have the best vacation possible.”

“You said I needed rest and relaxation, and I’m getting some.”

“Doesn’t sound like you’regetting some,” Ash mutters.

Eleanor rolls her eyes. Before either of them can protest, she’s already disconnected the call.

She continues with her night uninterrupted after that, throwing together a quick pasta for dinner and luxuriating in a long, hot bath. She settles into bed, window shades thrown open to let the moonlight filter in, and reads three chapters of the latest book in her years-long backlog of unread novels. But the conversation stays with her.

Her intention for the summer was isolation. It’s what she’s craved for years, what she’s missed the most from her life before her shift to CEO—the ability to retreat to somewhere quiet and work in peace. But her brief interaction with Dani, and the way it’s stayed in her mind, does point to a surprising yet persistent desire to do something besides work, a pull to see the blonde mechanic again.

With an easy month and a half remaining on her project deadline, Eleanor branches out.

She starts venturing into town more often, increasing her frequency the more she realizes that Dani is surprisingly hard to pin down. She makes up more and more far-fetched excuses to herself—she forgot something from her grocery list, she needs a specific type of copper wire for a project, the coffee she brewed isn’t good enough and she absolutely needs to get one from the gas station or the little café in town—but despite her hopes of seeing Dani again, it never lines up.

Dani seems to work constantly. Eleanor only gets glimpses of her—always visible by her blue ballcap—through the open garage doors whenever she drives past the shop. She’s sure that Dani is too busy to see it, but Eleanor can’t help but hope that once or twice, Dani notices the Porsche passing by.

No matter how much Eleanor wishes it would break down again simply for the excuse to see her, Dani’s skillful fix keeps the car in tragically working order.

* * *

Less than a week later, Eleanor gets desperate enough to drag herself to the local bar.

She’s driven past it before, but until now, she’s never considered stopping. Eleanor prefers to do her drinking in private, and indulging in domestic beer with the owners of the dozen pickup trucks in the parking lot isn’t generally her idea of a good time. But it’s the only establishment in town. There’s a chance, however small, that Dani could be there.

With her nerves steeled by the pep talk she gives herself in the car, Eleanor heads toward the illuminated neon sign for The River Run.

The bar is small, unassuming, and inexplicably attached to the town’s pizzeria. The smell combination of beer and decades-old cigarette smoke hits her nose at the same time as the scent of baking bread and cheese. It’s strange but not completely unpleasant.

The decor is more jarring than the warring scents. The bar is partially carpeted, a decorative trend that Eleanor previously thought had died in the mid-’90s. The tables and chairs are mismatched and purely functional. One table even has a plastic lawn chair for seating, and Eleanor can see that the wooden tabletops are scratched and carved with graffiti. The only part of the place that seems new is the bar top itself. It’s shiny and well-kept and tended by a scowling young woman whose white-blonde hair is streaked with neon blue.

Eleanor sweeps her eyes over the row of hunched backs huddled on the bar stools, most of them watching what looks to be a game of curling on the television hung above the shelvesof liquor, but none of them have Dani’s dark-blonde ponytail. In fact, none of the tables seem to hold the woman Eleanor is looking for.

She’s about to give up and head home after a mere fifteen seconds in the bar when the door to the women’s washroom swings open, and out walks the person who has been haunting Eleanor’s thoughts all week.

“All right, pal. Now that I don’t have to pee so bad I can’t think straight, let’s play,” Dani says, picking up a pool cue and heading toward the faded pool table in the bar’s back corner.

“Again?” A pale, wiry man with fluffy, brown hair sitting with one of the larger groups nearby groans, hanging his head. “How many times do you have to beat me before you get tired of it?”

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