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He waved for me to lead the way, but I stopped so fast on the sidewalk when I saw his truck that he almost ran into me.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“No, of course not,” I shot back quickly, trying to hide my true feelings about the dirty old pick-up truck.
I don’t know what I was expecting. Nothing in Silver Point was fast-paced or shiny or new, and there was nothing wrong with the truck as it was. It obviously ran well enough to bring Derek to work every day. But as I stepped up to the passenger’s door, which he opened for me like a true gentleman, the inside was exactly as I feared smudged with dirt and grease from his tools.
Derek finally seemed to pick up on my discomfort and quickly snatched up a newspaper from the floorboard to spread across the seat. “Sorry. Is that any better?”
“Sure,” I forced a polite smile and climbed in, trying not to cringe.
It’s not that I was too prissy to handle a little dirt, but I was too embarrassed to admit that my dress had cost three thousand dollars. Naturally, I didn’t want it to get stained. But I did my best to put it out of my mind. Derek was doing me a favor by taking me out for the evening. I didn’t want to ruin it, and I really did have a growing desperation to try and fit in while I was there. I would go crazy if I spent much more time locked up in the lake house alone, talking to the ducks.
Derek parked his old truck on a random corner downtown, in a perfect row of other old dirty trucks or cars who had seen better years. Once again, he came around to open the door for me.
As we started walking down the sidewalk towards all of the people, I quickly realized I would need to adapt my walking pace to match his along with the rest of the locals. He took long slow, steady steps in no hurry at all. I instinctively took off like a rocket as I would in New York, only there wasn’t a crowd to push through. I accidentally left him behind and had to start training myself to slow down so he could keep up.
I admired the adorable little awnings over the storefronts with their colorful welcome notes written across the windows in chalk paint. Derek told me everything he knew about the businesses and who owned them. He went to high school with the family who owned the deli, and I had already met Charles from the coffee shop and Daisy from the clothing boutique.
We came to a small antique shop that piqued my interest. Its oil paintings perched on wooden table-top canvases behind sparkling crystal pieces. Derek followed me inside, and I was instantly struck by the musty smell of old leather and wood.
“I’ve always loved antiques,” I told him as I drew a long breath in, sucking up as much of the scent as I could.
“It’s funny you should say that,” he replied. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the lake house. You know, it’s old enough to be listed on the historic registry. I know someone who could help us file the paperwork for it.”
“Huh. Really?” I trailed my fingers across the tassels of an old lampshade.
“It’d give you a nice tax break,” he added.
“But you know I’m not planning on keeping the house.”
“Still, I bet you could list it at a higher asking price if it's already approved for the registry. And it’d help protect the place after you leave.”
I continued walking through the tiny aisles of the shop as I considered it. I couldn’t stay in the house, but it did mean something to Mom. Protecting a place she cared about was important to me. “Sure, I’ll think about it,” I decided out loud.
As we left the shop and headed further down the sidewalk, I watched the pedestrians stroll by, stopping every so often to chat with someone they knew. It really was a charming town square with its old iron streetlights, each decorated with a hanging basket of flowers and little signs that proudly displayed the city’s logo.
The air was filled with the smell of buttery baked goods, sweet ice cream, and fresh coffee. I closed my eyes to take it in and stumbled a little on a crack in the sidewalk. Derek jumped forward to break my fall. I looked up to him slowly and blushed as our gaze lingered for too long.
“Sorry, everything just smells so delicious,” I laughed just as a whiff of something else caught my attention. “Mmm, like that! What is that?”
He sniffed the air and glanced over to the corner. “Oh, that? That would be our famous catfish.”
My lips pursed in a leery smile. “Catfish!? Okay, it smells better than it sounds.”
“You can’t knock it until you try it,” he insisted.
A few minutes later, I was eating fried fish from a stick, which was a first for me.
“What do you think?” Derek asked, studying my reaction.
I licked the crumbs of the fried breading away from my lips. “I have to admit, it has a certain appeal to it that the baked cod I last had in some fancy five-star restaurant didn’t quite possess. Maybe because it’s on a stick.”
He laughed and led me along to a street vendor serving wine. We enjoyed a few glasses as we strolled along under the twinkling lights strung up between the buildings, creating a canopy overhead. I knew it wasn’t a date, but it sure did feel like one.
We were a little tipsy by the time we were ready to go, so Derek offered to walk me home instead of driving. I was happy to go along with that. The boots Daisy talked me into buying may not have done much to help me fit in, but they sure were a hell of a lot more comfortable than the heels I was used to wearing.
I felt drunk on more than just the wine as Derek walked me up to the porch. The evening air was the perfect temperature like a warm swimming pool on a summer’s night, and everything had been so charming and almost magical.
