“Unloading’s a life skill. Takes practice. I’m not expecting an answer right away. But I have another question for you, and maybe this one will be easier.”
Mabel went quiet and stared at him for several long seconds. Daniel stared back, clearly unsure who was expected to speak next. Finally he said, “What’s your question?”
“Why haven’t you talked to the press?”
“Oh, you mean about my Christmas essay?”
“You know how reporters are, right?”
“I do know something about them, yes.”
“You know they hate not getting answers. Drives them nuts.”
“I get that.”
“By keeping quiet, you’re whipping them into a frenzy, turning them into a pack of wild animals.”
“Yes, but —”
“They’ll tear you apart if you don’t throw ’em a bone.”
“I hear you, but —”
“They don’t like being teased.”
“That’s not —”
“They know you know why you wrote that essay, and they know you could tell them why if you wanted to, but you won’t.”
Daniel shook his head. “Everything they need to know is in the essay.”
Mabel snorted. “Codswallop.”
His eyes widened. “I’m not sure I —”
“That essay of yours isn’t the answer to anything.”
At her words, something in him seemed to shift. His dark eyes flickered with interest. “Then what is it?”
“It’s….” She eyed him suspiciously, like she’d picked up on his mood change and was thrown by it.
She turned to Ike and Ed. “Help me out here. What is his essay?”
Ike looked at Daniel, considering. “An opening salvo.”
Ed nodded. “Reckon so.”
“Though his aim is….”
“Off.”
“Because he’s….”
Ed nodded sagely. “Yup.”
Penny watched, fascinated, as the two men used as few words as humanly possible to reach a conclusion that was crystal-clear to them but bafflingly opaque to everyone else.
Mabel, for her part, seemed to have no trouble following them. “Exactly,” she declared, then turned back to Daniel. “You seem like a smart, decent fellow, but you need to get your head on straight. What you think you’re here for isn’t what you’re actually here for. Use your time here to figure that out.”
