It actually feels so good to tell another person about this shit, and shockingly, I feel lighter.
“Hey, Dave? Thanks for another to-die-for dinner.”
“My pleasure.”
We sit in silence for a while, until he finally asks the inevitable. “What in the hell were you doing, going out on the road tonight? You scared me, Diana.”
“Told you, I thought I’d be fine.” It’s not a good explanation, but it’s truthful.
“But why wouldn’t you let me help you?” Before I can give him some bullshit answer, he seems to get it. “Because from what I can tell, especially after hearing about your disastrous upbringing, you’re not used to anyone offering you help. You’re always kind of saving everyone else, yes?Doingfor everyone else. All the restaurants you champion, your friend who’s living on the streets. Maybe your parents? Trying to please people who are not really on your side? All that business stuff I heard in Puerto Rico sounded awful.”
He’s right.
I sip my drink and nod. “It just feels embarrassing. Like, tonight was mortifying.”
“Sitting in a ditch and waving away help? Asking for help is nothing to shy away from,” he suggests.
Fair point. In theory.
“I have a confession,” I start, intentionally switching subjects.
“Do tell,” he says softly.
“I love that your Wi-Fi here semi-sucks. It works just enough that I can share all my videos with my girl Megan Madonna, but I can pretend it’s bad enough that I can’t take calls or get emails.”
“To isolation?” Dave raises a glass, and his clinks against mine as we both smile in clear agreement.
“What about you?” I wonder aloud. “What is Dave’s story?”
He waves a hand. “Nothing big to tell.”
“Shit, you know my worst now. You could at least share something about yourself. Anj called you a curmudgeon, and I don’t see you like that, so spill.”
Dave scoots inside for a minute and finds himself a new glass and pours a good shot of bourbon. “Okay, fair is fair. I’ll share some random stuff.”
Maybe it’s the small kick of booze that gets him talking, but at least I’m not the only one to bare their soul.
“My family is in the lobster business, of course, as is per usual around here, and my parents are older than most people my age. My mom was forty-three when I was born. I assume I was unexpected.” He laughs.
“Um, what else? My uncle—my dad’s brother—died, leaving his wife, Anna. She’s Spanish, and they’d opened a restaurant just north of here, about thirty minutes away from Snowshoe. Amazing tapas. Like, you’d drool. Yeah, there are plenty of people in this town to watch over her, but they’re not family. And during winter months and all, people don’t drive up as much. I just want to make sure she is okay, so I stop in there a lot.”
His protectiveness over me is now more understandable. He maybe protects everyone?
Before I can react, he texts me a link to the restaurant.
“Oh, I definitely like this!” My eyes widen, and I know I’ll have to explore this menu more later.
“Yep,” he agrees.
“So sorry about your uncle, but it’s awesome how you watch over your aunt. So, you then started your food truck?” I prompt.
“Yeah, these lobster guys need to eat, as you saw tonight. I tried serving more healthy stuff, but they demand everything else.” He smiles and slams back the rest of his drink.
David can be very flexible with his schedule though. “In fact, I’m going to move to serving just lunch and dinner soon. Winters here? There’s no reason to kill myself with breakfasts.”
After his winters in Maine, he then travels up and down the East Coast during the spring and tries to hit areas that are less popular. He loves to visit small towns that wouldn’t expect a food truck, especially ones with all his seafood. He brings along produce that local farms have donated and hands out what he can.
“My little truck hasn’t really caught on outside of Snowshoe, but I’m hoping it will.”
