Chapter 6
“When you asked if I was free, I wasn’t expecting something quite so, um. True crime?”
Eleanor’s voice is shaky not due to nerves but because the two-wheel dirt path through the woods they’re driving on is absurdly bumpy. If anyone else had told Eleanor to meet at the edge of town and then instructed her to park her car and drive into the forest in a strange truck, she would have pointed her taser at them. With Dani she didn’t even think twice.
“And yet you got in the truck,” Dani points out.
“I did. My survival instincts are weaker than I thought.”
“It’ll be worth it, trust me,” Dani assures her with complete confidence. She’s leaned back comfortably in the driver’s seat, one hand on the wheel and the other on the gearshift, and the bumps in the road don’t seem to phase her at all—her ponytail bounces cheerfully with each one. She catches Eleanor’s eye and flashes her a grin, and Eleanor quickly looks out the window.
It’s mostly deciduous trees here, rather than pines or cedars. The soil seems soft, not rocky, and the trees aren’t too dense—it has potential for building. Eleanor almost wishes she had her notes with her, to mark it for investigation later. It’s doubtful she’ll remember how to find this place again otherwise.
“I hope you don’t mind the music,” Dani says, breaking Eleanor out of her thoughts. “I know not everyone likes country.”
Eleanor hums noncommittally. “Do people here listen to anything else? It seems a little excessive.”
“I like classic rock, too,” Dani says. She turns the volume down. “And I had a brief pop-punk phase when I went to university.”
Eleanor frowns, looking over at Dani again. “You went to university?”
“You sound surprised.”
“Well, I—I mean, yes?” Eleanor says, her mind still trying to wrap around that little tidbit. “You’re a mechanic. It doesn’t require a university degree. Where did you go? What did you study?”
“English, at Queens. And a master’s in journalism from Western.”
Eleanor blinks silently for a moment. She’d assumed that Dani had trained on the job, maybe even had grown up in the shop. A college diploma at most.
“You have a master’s degree ?” Eleanor finally asks, but before Dani can take offense to the incredulity in Eleanor’s question, the truck emerges from the shaded woods and into the late-day sunlight.
“We’re here!” Dani says.
“Here” turns out to be a grassy field with a lone towering tree in the centre and the clear imprint of two tire tracks leading to the base. Some kind of wood structure is built into the branches.
Dani backs the truck in directly underneath it, grinning as she cuts the engine.
“Welcome to the Cooper Clubhouse.”
Eleanor opens the passenger side door. The tree is huge, an ancient-looking maple with a dense trunk and thick branches holding up the so-called clubhouse. The bark is scarred in places, and many of the branches have no leaves at all.
“Sarah and I built this when we were kids,” Dani explains, climbing out of the truck and pointing at the platform and shack-like walls above them. “We all used to dirt bike here. It’s always been my favourite place in town. Not many other people know where it is, so I still come here if I need time to myself.”
“It’s beautiful,” Eleanor says, jumping down from the tall truck seat onto the grass. Not the structure of the tree house itself, necessarily, which has a child’s earnest artistic vision about it, but the surrounding vista is stunning. The hill starts to slope down just past the tree, opening up to the sprawling, hilly landscape beyond. It’s green as far as the eye can see, all grass and then forest, as the hills meet the blue sky and the early evening sun goes down directly in front of them.
“Yeah. Sarah and I used to sleep here,” Dani says, looking up at the tree fondly. She fishes around behind the trunk and emerges holding a large stick. “It’s the best place in town to relax.”
Dani determinedly uses the stick to hook a weathered-looking rope ladder and swing it down.
“Come on! Let me show you,” Dani says, holding out a hand with a bright, expectant look on her face. After only a moment of hesitation, Eleanor takes it.
Climbing the swinging, rickety rope ladder is a harrowing experience, and for the first time, Eleanor is grateful that Mila nudged her into buying flat-soled boots. When she finally reaches the top with Dani’s help, the tree house itself isn’t much better. It creaks worryingly every time Eleanor takes a step. Dani doesn’t seem to notice, too wrapped up in childlike excitement.
“Owen made us that table out of milk crates in the fifth grade,” Dani is saying, pointing at a plastic contraption in the corner. “We’d bring backpacks full of food out here and pretend we were stuck in the wilderness. Or we’d pile blankets into a nest, and Ryan would read to us. He loves to read out loud.”
Eleanor smiles, imagining a young Ryan reading Robinson Crusoe in a tiny and authoritative voice to his captive audience. He does seem to have a flair for the dramatic.
Dani leans against the trunk, crossing her legs at the ankle, and the movement reveals something behind her on the opposite side of the tree house that Eleanor hadn’t noticed before.
“Why are some of the branches gone?”
Dani twists around to see what Eleanor is pointing at. When she sees the broken branches in question, she waves Eleanor’s question off easily. “Oh, we used to have a swing on that branch before it broke. And that one was our old ladder, but it broke, too.”
“Maybe that should have been a warning sign,” Eleanor mutters. The wood beneath her moves with every step, but Dani just pulls her by the hand toward the edge of the platform.
“You worry too much. Come on, sit.”
The view is even better from up here, with the shade of the thick top leaves keeping them out of the sun. Eleanor can see names carved deeply into the tree trunk nearby, where the bark has been pulled away— Dani and Sarah , scratched in close together, alongside a blocky Owen and a looping, whimsical Ryan . Beside it is a neat, angular Naomi .
There’s also a spot where a name has clearly been scratched out. It’s rough and imprecise, as if several hands were hacking at it at once. But above it—in large, clear letters and surrounded by a deeply carved heart—is Mila .
A gentle breeze blows through the field, rustling the long grass and the trees beyond and making the whole structure shift underneath them.
“What exactly is the load capacity of this thing?” Eleanor asks tightly, gripping the edge of the platform even though she knows it won’t help if the whole thing crumbles.
“Not sure.” Dani raps on the platform with her knuckles. “It’s always been sturdy, though.”
The knocking does nothing to quell Eleanor’s anxiety. She slaps her own hand over Dani’s, pinning it to the wood. “It doesn’t feel very structurally sound.”
“You’re not very trusting, are you?” Dani’s smile is searching, and Eleanor ducks away.
“I got in the truck, didn’t I?”
“Regretting it yet?”
“I will be if this thing collapses,” Eleanor says. “As an engineer, I really don’t think it’s up to code.”
“You’re an engineer?”
“Chemical engineer,” Eleanor clarifies. “But math is math.”
Dani laughs. It’s as bright and sweet as the summer sunshine. “We can get down. The view is almost as good from the truck.”
The sun is starting to set when Dani opens the tailgate and hops up, patting the space next to her until Eleanor hauls herself up to fill it.
“I’ve always loved watching the sunset from here,” Dani says. Her dangling legs swing to a rhythm Eleanor can’t follow. “It’s so quiet that it feels like I’m the only person on earth.”
“Except me,” Eleanor says absently, busy watching the way Dani chews at her full lips. It’s strangely mesmerizing.
“Except you. I thought you might like it here.”
“I do,” Eleanor says quietly.
And she does. The whole horizon is bathed in an orange glow, the sun sinking behind the trees as they make idle conversation, and slowly leaving in its wake a sky full of the brightest stars Eleanor has ever seen. They almost seem to shimmer, and the Milky Way is visible to the naked eye in a way Eleanor has rarely seen.
“Wow,” Eleanor breathes quietly, gazing up while Dani lights a citronella candle to keep the worst of the bugs away. “I’ve never seen stars like this. And I studied astrophysics.”
“They come out real bright when there’s no light pollution. I thought you studied engineering?” Dani asks, frowning. The candle has a sweet, lemony smell.
Eleanor nods, still looking up at the stars. “I have four degrees.”
There’s a pause, and Eleanor finally pulls her gaze away from the constellations to see that Dani is staring at her like she has as many heads as she does degrees.
“In what?”
Eleanor clears her throat. “Chemical engineering, computer science, astrophysics, and an MBA.”
Dani stares at her again. Eleanor bites the inside of her cheek, tearing nervously at the skin around her thumbnail.
In her experience, this is the point where people usually get uncomfortable. Every date she’s ever been on has had this moment, where the person across the dinner table realizes that Eleanor has them outmatched in education and usually in job prestige. The reaction is typically either a sudden lack of interest or an onslaught of bragging. It’s one of the many reasons she’s steered away from anything serious.
Dani just shakes her head, the wheels clearly turning in her brain. “How old are you?”
Eleanor barks out a laugh. “How old do you think I am?”
“I assumed you were around my age, but with that much education plus a corporate job, you must be, like…a vampire or something,” Dani says.
Eleanor shakes her head, unsuccessfully fighting the heat in her cheeks from rising. “I just turned thirty-one.”
“You’re a year younger than me and you have four degrees? And a career?” Dani says, whistling long and low. “That is seriously impressive. How did you manage that?”
Eleanor lets out a relieved breath. Dani doesn’t seem intimidated, nor does she start bringing up her own achievements in a self-conscious word vomit. She just seems impressed and interested. It’s entirely disarming.
“My father thought astrophysics was a waste of time, so I did it simultaneously with computer science. And I finished all my degrees early,” Eleanor says. “I like to learn. I worked in R&D for a few years, and then…”
Eleanor has come to trust Dani more quickly than probably anyone else she’s ever met, but, even so, she hesitates. Would Dani not care what company Eleanor heads, or would revealing it torpedo this tiny bright spot she’s nestled herself into? Even if it’s only going to last until the end of the summer, Eleanor wants to preserve this bubble of normalcy. Even if it means avoiding the truth a little.
“And then I went into business,” Eleanor finishes vaguely.
Dani doesn’t pry for more. “So you’re a scientist at heart.”
Eleanor chuckles, staring down at her hands. She’s been picking at her nail beds throughout the conversation, and one of them is starting to bleed. “I was, once. Now I’m just…tired.”
“I don’t blame you. Your life sounds exhausting.”
Dani says it with genuine concern, and Eleanor accepts it despite her usual instincts. “Nobody’s ever put it that bluntly before. But yes, frankly. It is.”
“I couldn’t do what you do,” Dani says. She’s leaned back to look up at the sky, her hands braced behind her. “I tried the city life for a while, after I graduated. Interned at a newspaper in Toronto for a few years. I was on the fast track to getting my own beat. Worked my butt off, had a shoebox apartment, the whole thing. But it all felt kinda empty. Isolated. I didn’t realize how miserable I was until I came back here for the holidays one year. Eventually I decided not to go back.”
They sit in silence for a few moments, just taking in the view. Crickets are singing. Branches rustle in the wind. The occasional firefly floats over the long grass. The smell of citronella and fresh night air is more revitalizing than a cup of morning coffee.
It’s lovely, but Eleanor’s mind can’t stop spinning around on Dani’s words.
“I understand needing time to recharge,” Eleanor finally says. “But why stay here permanently when you could do so much more?”
Dani shrugs. She seems to have been anticipating the question. “Sarah asks me that, too sometimes. Always tells me I could do bigger and better things. My brother stayed down south and put in his dues, and he’s a big shot journalist now. He’s part of why I got the degree, I think. I wanted to live up.”
Eleanor blinks, her brain stuttering over the new piece of information Dani so casually dropped.
“You have a brother?”
Dani nods. “Yeah. He’s 12 years older. Garreth. We don’t really talk.”
There’s something in the way Dani says it that gives Eleanor pause. She can hear complication in every syllable. Even though her curiosity burns, Eleanor doesn’t push. “So why hold yourself back?”
Dani seems relieved that Eleanor hasn’t pursued the subject of her brother—the tense line of her shoulders relaxes. “Life isn’t always about bigger things. The next big step in your career, climbing the ladder. Sometimes it’s just about being happy. And this place…it makes me happy.”
While Eleanor technically hears what Dani is saying, she’s struggling to comprehend it. Putting happiness, genuine happiness, above ambition or responsibility has never been an option in her own life. Her father drilled a sense of duty into her from the day she could understand what it meant. He valued ambition. Purpose. Since his death, she’s taken it all on as he expected her to.
“I love it here. I love my friends, my family. I have pretty much everything I need,” Dani continues. She’s found a small rock somewhere in the truck bed, and she rolls it between her fingers. “I totally respect people who can be happy living the life I left, but it just isn’t for me.”
Eleanor frowns. The remoteness, the aging infrastructure, the lack of amenities and opportunities, none of it is enough to compel Dani to leave Riverwalk. Something here outweighs it all.
“Is there no newspaper in town?”
“Nah, not anymore.” Dani throws the stone into the field, and it disappears into a sea of green. “I’ve thought about going part-time at the shop and giving freelance writing a shot, but there never seems to be a good time. Besides, Sarah needs the help. She took over just before I left for school.”
Eleanor nods, though she’s far from understanding. None of it makes sense. Dani abandoning a promising career, an upward trajectory, to disappear into an auto shop in the middle of nowhere? If Dani had continued with journalism, they might have met each other under completely different circumstances. Dani simply chose not to. And she seems completely at peace with that decision.
“It’s just hard to believe you’d waste a journalism degree on being a mechanic,” Eleanor says without thinking.
The regret is instantaneous. Dani hardly reacts, but Eleanor can hear the condescension in her own words even as she says them. The emphasis on mechanic , on waste . It’s the kind of thing her father would say. It leaves a bitter aftertaste.
“I’m so sorry,” Eleanor says immediately. “I didn’t mean—you’re not wasting anything. I didn’t mean for it to come out that way.”
“It’s okay,” Dani reassures her, putting a hand on Eleanor’s thigh. Eleanor notices the warmth of Dani’s palm briefly, but her guilt supersedes it.
“No, I sounded like—” Eleanor sighs, wincing. “You’ve been very kind to me, and you don’t deserve me acting like a stuck-up…”
Eleanor trails off, searching for the right word.
“ Citiot ?” Dani says.
Eleanor blinks slowly, turning toward Dani.
“Like an idiot, but from the city,” Dani elaborates, grinning. “ Citi-ot . It’s what we call vacationers who make asses of themselves.”
“I… Yes,” Eleanor says, chuckling as the tension breaks. “Yes. I was acting like a stuck-up… citiot .”
Eleanor is fully ready to wallow in self-deprecation, but Dani doesn’t let her. She moves her hand to Eleanor’s shoulder and shakes it gently until Eleanor makes eye contact.
“Honestly, it’s okay. I know my choices seem unconventional,” Dani says. “I get it. And I wish I could do more writing, sure—but for now, I’m happy. That’s enough for me.”
In lieu of saying something even more stupid, Eleanor nods.
“Come on,” Dani says, “I’ve got some blankets in the truck. We can lay them out, and you can teach me about celestial mechanics.”
Dani shoves her hand through a tiny hatch in the truck’s back window and pulls out a pile of fabric from behind the seats, laying the mismatched squares out over the hard plastic of the truck bed. Eleanor’s surprise must show on her face because Dani laughs as she settles on her back.
“I took an astronomy elective. You should challenge your misconceptions.”
Once Eleanor has settled beside her—with an appropriate space between them, of course—Dani pulls another blanket up over their legs, and together they look at the sky.
“Where should we start?” Eleanor asks.
Dani makes a thoughtful face, pointing upward at the moon shining brightly down. “Well, I know that one.”
Eleanor laughs. The movement brings her closer to Dani, tucking her almost into Dani’s side, and when she moves away again, the distance between them seems to have shrunk.
“You know, I realize it’s scientifically impossible, but it actually looks bigger here. Brighter,” Eleanor says, looking up at the moon’s distant surface.
“That’s why we make the best moonshine.” Dani’s arms are folded behind her head, which has left a sliver of exposed skin just above the waistline of her jeans.
“In a legal distillery, or…?”
“The legality is surprisingly flexible. If someone offers it to you, it’s best not to ask where it came from,” Dani says airily.
“Noted.”
Dani points out more constellations, telling the myths and stories to match each one. Most of them Eleanor knows, but Dani tells them differently than any book she’s ever read. In return, Eleanor relays the scientific names and designations of the brightest ones, peppering Dani with interesting facts and taking full advantage of being able to see them all.
Her father had considered her astrophysics degree a waste of time and money since it couldn’t be applied to anything at CromTech, which is why she’d moved on to something more practical in grad school, but she’s always loved learning about the stars. The night sky was just about the only consistent thing in her inconsistent childhood.
Eleanor falls asleep staring up at the moon, listening to Dani’s low, soothing voice telling her the story of Perseus and Andromeda.
Unfortunately Eleanor wakes up in a less pleasant way—stiff, damp, and itchy. The sky is light when she opens her eyes, the moon hanging low and dim, but the sun hasn’t quite risen yet. A light mist is hovering over the long grass around the truck, clinging to the blades and making them glisten. It also clings to Eleanor’s clothes and skin, and she shivers absently as she stretches her numb arm out and flexes her cold fingers.
Beside her, Dani stirs. There’s a confused, endearing little frown on her face when she opens her eyes.
“Shit,” Dani says, blinking rapidly and sitting up. “Oh, man, I didn’t mean to fall asleep. You must be freezing!”
“I’m fine,” Eleanor says through chattering teeth. Dani bundles the blankets up around Eleanor’s shoulders, hopping down from the truck bed to help her toward the passenger door.
“I’m so sorry, seriously. Come on, I’ll drive you home.”
Dani drops Eleanor off at her front door with a cheerful wave in the small hours of the morning. Eleanor fixes herself a cup of tea and a hot water bottle once she’s changed into dry clothes, scratching at one of what feels like two dozen bug bites on every exposed part of her body. But even that doesn’t dampen her mood.
Despite the discomfort, the night was worth it.
* * *
Three days later, when Eleanor is curled up in bed with the worst cold she’s had since she was a teenager, she re-evaluates her initial assessment.
“Stupid outdoors,” she grumbles, blowing her nose for the thousandth time. She’s so congested that she’s sure she’ll never regain the full use of her nostrils. “Stupid tree house, stupid cold.” She’s tired and sore and unbelievably grumpy, but, even so, Eleanor would probably do it all again.
She’s interrupted from her misery by something vibrating under her pillow. Fishing around for the source, Eleanor pulls out her phone, where Ash’s contact photo is flashing with an incoming call.
Eleanor flops back against the pillows as she answers.
“ What? ” Eleanor groans.
Ash laughs on the other end of the call. “Good lord. You sound like you went on a cigar binge. Are you alive?”
“I’m sick,” Eleanor mutters, sniffling miserably. “Leave me alone.”
“You’re sick?” Kayla’s voice echoes in the distance. Eleanor sighs. Never one without the other. “You never get sick. How did you get sick?”
“Fell asleep outside,” Eleanor mumbles into her pillow. The sun is percolating through the closed curtains, making her yellow bedroom walls glow. It might be soothing if it weren’t for her blaring headache.
“How the hell did you manage that?” Kayla asks.
Eleanor loses herself in a coughing fit before she can answer. “Stargazing. With Dani.”
“Who the fuck is Dani?” Ash asks.
Eleanor sincerely wishes he were here, specifically so that she could punch him.
“The mechanic!” Kayla says.
“Oh! Wait. Did you—?!” Ash exclaims. Eleanor can hear Kayla gasp.
“Eleanor!” Kayla yells, but before they can build up a head of steam Eleanor cuts them off.
“We didn’t have sex!”
What follows is a moment of silence so profound that Eleanor is surprised crickets haven’t manifested inside her house just to drive it home.
“You’ve lost me,” Kayla finally says.
“We went stargazing. We fell asleep in the bed of her truck,” Eleanor wheezes. With the addition of a fever, her patience is wearing thinner than ever.
“Let me get this straight,” Ash says slowly. Eleanor struggles not to cough again. “You slept together without sleeping together? Outside? And you ended up sick? I think you’re doing this wrong.”
“You must really be hung up on this girl,” Kayla says, sounding a little too suspicious for Eleanor’s liking.
“Please talk quieter.” Eleanor’s headache is building ever higher with each word spoken.
“She must be insanely hot. Send me a picture,” Kayla insists. In her mind’s eye, Eleanor can see Kayla pulling out her phone in anticipation.
“I don’t have a picture.”
“Okay, link her Instagram or something.”
“She doesn’t have one.”
Ash makes an indignant noise.
“ What ?”
“If people have social media here, it’s all photos of their trucks.”
Ash’s horror only seems to grow. “What kind of hellish town did you move to?”
“I actually like it. They lie to your face instead of through curated photographs. It’s refreshing.” Eleanor sits up to take a sip of her lukewarm tea. She swings her legs over the side of the bed and tucks the phone against her ear, dragging herself downstairs to make another cup.
Kayla snorts. “Are you okay, Eleanor? Did you join the hoser cult up there?”
“I didn’t join anything,” Eleanor insists as she fills the kettle. “It’s just a nice vacation. This was your idea.”
“As long as you don’t get all redneck indoctrinated and abandon us,” Ash says.
“Never. I’ll be back soon.”
“With your survey in hand, right?” Kayla says. “How’s that going, by the way?”
“It’s fine,” Eleanor says, studiously ignoring the pang of guilt that accompanies the white lie. She’s barely touched the survey in over a week. “Should be done soon.”
She hangs up soon after. She’s never been one to take a sick day, but rather than dragging herself to her laptop to continue her assessment of the local infrastructure needs, Eleanor makes a selfish decision. She crawls back into bed.