Chapter 23
DARCY
I enjoyed watchingmen’s eyes grow wide when they found out I knew more about cars than just how to drive them. It was especially sweet when they tried to pretend they had any idea what was going on. In Penn’s case, it wasn’t the oil or the alternator but transmission fluid in a puddle under his car, coupled with the burnt smell flooding the air, that gave me a pretty good indication we were looking at something far worse.
“But my car is only five years old. How could it be the transmission?” Penn asked.
I shrugged. “Bad luck? Do you have a warranty?”
“No. The manufacturer’s warranty expired and...well, I vetoed any other warranties just to save a couple bucks,” he replied, a defeated look filling his face.
I chortled and covered my mouth as he raised an eyebrow.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
I pulled my lips in and shook my head. “Nothing. I’m sorry. I’ve just never heard of anyone doing that. You’re driving a seventy-thousand-dollar car. How much could you have possibly saved?”
He looked down, and I felt bad laughing at him. His face was so...pathetic.
I sighed. “Listen, Tandy is a stand-up guy, and he won’t charge you any more than he has to. He’s not like some of those other places that charge an arm and a leg for labor. You might have to listen to a story or two, but he does really good work.”
Penn sighed heavily and nodded. He looked down at his phone. I began walking away, back to the clinic, when his voice stopped me.
“Hey,” he said.
I turned around, suddenly aware of the fact that he was going to be stuck in Aveline for longer than anticipated. I hoped he didn’t come up with any other brilliant ideas to swoop in and wreck our town.
“Yeah?”
He ran his hands through his dark hair. “Seems kind of like fate, don’t you think?”
I rolled my eyes, feeling that this was the opposite of fate.
This was more a cruel prank played by the universe. My torture must have been its amusement.
“I’ve never believed in fate,” I said, matter of fact.
“Really?” he asked. “Even though you read all those romance books?”
I shook my head. “No, this is just a shitty transmission on your fancy car. I can call you an Uber, though. One to get you back to wherever it was you came from,” I replied.
His eyebrows narrowed. “You guys have Uber here?”
“Not really, but Peter Penske does just about everything. I know I could pay him to get you out of here.”
I watched his shoulders move slightly with his chuckle. “And why would I do that when I could just stay and annoy you for even longer?”
I felt like Penn was up to something. Not that he purposely blew out the transmission in his vehicle, but I didn’t believe for a second that he was letting go of his idea that the hardware store should be a restaurant. Therefore, when I got home that night, I decided Operation AA was underway. The AA stood for Andi Anderson, Kate Hudson’s character in the movie we were basing the plan from. Peyton and I had named it that because “Operation How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days: The Remix” seemed like a mouthful. It wasn’t the best name, but considering it was only going to be seen by me in a notebook I kept hidden away, it would work well enough.
“Don’t you think it sounds like Operation Alcoholics Anonymous?” I said when she suggested the name.
“Maybe, but it’s fine. It doesn’t matter,” she replied.
She was right; the moral of the story was that I had a plan. A plan I had hashed out to the very last detail and written in said notebook next to my current grocery list and a couple of flower doodles I made while we brainstormed. I sat on the couch, Bernie doing his normal evening laps in his ball, and I stuck the pen in my mouth, reviewing my newest list.
Operation AA
Be nice
Get Penn to like you
Be overly weird and clingy
Make Penn run from Aveline
Okay, so maybe it wasn’t as detailed as I had hoped, but there were ideas, nonetheless. I felt like I would do a good job at numbers three and four, but being nice and getting Penn to like me seemed challenging. I needed to find a way to feign a friendship with him, and I thought that stopping by Green Gables and offering to buy him dinner might be a good place to start.