After a new floor and a very generous read of a “rustic cabin experience,” Lainey and Elliot had one serviceable cabin in addition to Forest’s Bridge, but the percent she was taking from the Forest’s Bridge bookings was barely enough to make a dent in her grandmother’s Home Shopping Network addiction, let alone Lainey’s medical debt. For that, she needed a car. A car that was currently smoking in the parking lot of the candy and cheese store.
Engines were a DIY blind spot for Lainey, and despite jumping Isaac’s clunker more times than she could count, she was at a loss when her own car had conked out that June morning.
“It was completely out of the blue,” Lainey explained defensively. Her car’s integrity was on the line.
“Was it really out of the blue? It feels like there might’ve been a ramp-up,” Isaac offered unhelpfully from under her hood after she’d repeated to him the identical spiel she’d relayed to Elliot.
“Why is he here?” Lainey faced Elliot, who was leaningagainst the busted passenger door in his running attire, knuckle deep in a bag of squeaky-fresh cheese curds.
He shrugged. “His dad owns a VW dealership.”
“Butheworks at a beanbag outlet, and this is a Mercedes that was designed before the fall of the Berlin Wall.” She snatched the bag from his hands. She had a catastrophic problem, and cheese was an immediate solution to her stress. “No offense, Isaac. I’m sure working retail has its own challenges,” she shouted over her shoulder to the man rooting around under the hood of her car.
“Absolutely no offense taken,” Isaac said cheerily. “But it doesn’t take an expert to know that you need a new radiator and probably a new engine.”
In seconds, she was beside him. “What do you mean?”
“Well, there’s a crack in the radiator, which is what’s causing the coolant leak, which is overheating your engine, which I’m guessing—”
“Okay,” she cut him off, suddenly overwhelmed that her most reliable form of income was smoking in a parking lot during peak season. “That sounds…expensive.”
“It won’t be cheap,” Isaac agreed, wiping his hand on his shirt and taking a cheese curd from the bag. “And this is, like, a crazy old car—”
“Vintage,” she corrected.
“Technically, itis, and that’s sort of your problem. Your car’s old but also kind of ‘fancy,’ so the parts are going to be more expensive and difficult to come by.”
This was what happened when you were raised by a woman who had champagne tastes but sold plasma for cash. You inherited a car that was too shitty to run and too expensive to fix.Defeated, she lifted the support rod and gently lowered the hood with a feeble thud.
“We just need to hunt around some scrapyards. Make some calls. We’ll do it during one of our ‘gentleman’s lunches.’ ” Isaac saidgentleman’s luncheslike a WWE announcer. Like it was a “thing.” Like it had a meaning to him and at least one other person in the conversation.
“ ‘Gentleman’s lunches’?” Lainey’s head swiveled to Elliot, whose neck was turning pink.
“It’s not—it’s just lunch.”
“Uh-huh.” She turned the focus of her questions back to Isaac. “When do you get this ‘gentleman’s lunch’?” she asked, bright and innocent.
“Every Friday,” he answered without hesitation.
“Now that it’s the high season, you’re always picking up rides,” Elliot explained, oddly sweaty for someone who’d stopped running forty minutes ago. “And I have summer Fridays. And Isaac’s shift at the outlet doesn’t start until three, so we get…lunch.”
“I think you mean, you get agentleman’slunch. At the outlet mall.” She set her bag on top of the car. She wanted her hands free for wherever this conversation was headed. “What restaurants are at the outlet mall besides Benihana?”
“Buca di Beppo,” Elliot answered quietly. “We like the Pope’s Room.”
She stroked her chin, really parsing this out. “You boys go to lunch every week—just the two of you—in the Pope’s Room of Buca di Beppo, and this is the first I’m hearing of it?”
“He didn’t tell you about gentlemen’s lunches?” Isaac’s eyes darted between Lainey and Elliot, seeming to misread the situation entirely. “Now, I don’t want to get in the middle of yourmarriage, but Lainey, I need you to know, my relationship with Elliot is completely platonic.” Isaac placed a supportive hand on her shoulder. “And after lunch, we might play Xbox in the back room, but that’s it. I won’t say there’s no chemistry, but we’ve never taken it farther than that.”
She gave his hand a pat. “Thank you for sharing that with me, Isaac.”
Her insides shook. After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, Isaac nodded solemnly and lowered his hand.
“I’m going to go and let you work this out, because I’m rooting for you two. The way our guy talks about you, I think you have something very special.” He walked backward, pointing at the two of them with fully outstretched arms, then disappeared into the depths of the cheese store.
They were quiet for a beat. Then Lainey exploded into a fit of laughter.
Elliot stared ahead at the mostly empty parking lot, dumbfounded. “I don’t know what chemistry he’s talking about.”
