Chapter 20 #2
Scottie’s laughter filled the car. “Remember who you’re talking to. Geeky is hot.” She paused. “Uh, I mean…”
The heat in Willow’s cheek increased to furnace level. “It’s fine. You’re practicing your complimenting skills for your future date.”
“Right. Like your sister said: Practice makes perfect.” Scottie cleared her throat. “So…you collect typewriters?”
“Not on purpose,” Willow said. “It all started a few years ago, when my parents gave me an old typewriter as a gag gift. It was battered but beautiful. I watched a lot of YouTube videos and taught myself how to restore it so I could sell it. But by the time it looked as good as new, I couldn’t bear to part with it. ”
Scottie chuckled. “Ah, a foster fail.”
“You could say that. The first of many.”
“How many do you have?” Scottie asked. There was no judgment in her voice.
“Twelve,” Willow said, again flushing a little. “Whenever I see one at a flea market or a yard sale, I can’t resist rescuing it. My bedroom looks like a typewriter museum.”
Scottie let out a whistle. “I’d love to see it sometime. Uh, the typewriter museum. Not your bedroom.”
“Of course.” By now, even the tips of Willow’s ears were burning. It’s just a practice date, she told herself for the thousandth time. There was no reason to blush at Scottie’s innocent slips of the tongue.
She had a feeling she would tell herself that a few thousand times more before this date was over.
~ ~ ~
They had been driving for forty-five minutes when Scottie turned left onto a narrow, curvy road that led uphill through the forest.
Now Willow understood why Scottie hadn’t wanted to take her car.
Behind a bend in the road, Scottie eased the Subaru into a small gravel pullout to the right. “We’re here.” She grabbed the bag of zip ties and got out.
Willow followed and looked around.
Not that there was much to see, other than trees, ferns that were still glistening with raindrops from the night before, and a rickety old train trestle.
“We’re deep in the woods, in the middle of nowhere, and you’re carrying a bag of zip ties. If that’s your idea of a date, you might need more help than even I as a highly qualified dating adviser can offer.” But despite her joking comment, she felt safe with Scottie, even in the middle of nowhere.
Scottie laughed. “Okay, I admit it’s starting to look like something out of a true crime podcast. But you’ll see in a second.”
They walked a few steps uphill to where the old, disused railroad bridge stretched across the narrow road.
Scottie stopped and spread her arms wide. “Welcome to the Troll Bridge.”
Willow furrowed her brow. “Toll bridge?”
“Troll,” Scottie repeated and gestured at the bridge.
Willow took a closer look.
Dozens of little trolls dangled from the weathered beams and poles, some of them thirty feet up. Even more were pinned to a wooden wall at the bottom of the structure.
Every kind of troll known to mankind seemed to be present: plastic trolls, stuffed trolls, a handmade felt troll, and even trolls painted directly onto the boards. There was a Santa Claus troll, a Dracula troll, an armed-to-the-teeth soldier troll, and a troll in a bikini.
Their big tufts of neon-pink, blue, yellow, and orange hair stood out against the brown and green of the forest.
It was the last thing Willow had expected. Not a place that she would have picked for a first date—and maybe that was the point. The less this felt like a real date, the better, so Willow was grateful for Scottie’s choice. She turned in a slow circle to take it all in. “What on earth is this?”
“One of Portland’s lovable oddities,” Scottie said with a proud grin. “No one knows for sure how it started, but legend has it that a family hung the first troll twenty years ago. They probably told their kids about trolls living under bridges and put one of the little guys there to surprise them.”
“Aww, that’s cute.”
Scottie nodded. “And then people kept adding their own trolls. The population goes up and down. The last time I went, most of them had gotten stolen, but people always replace them.”
Willow raised her brows. “People really steal them?”
“Yeah. Even though it’s bad luck to remove a troll.”
They stood side by side on the narrow road and admired the trolls.
“Which one is your favorite?” Scottie asked.
Willow scanned the colorful trolls on the wooden wall until one choice jumped out at her. “Ooh, this one!” She pointed at a plastic troll with a bass.
Scottie laughed. “It rocks.”
“Yours?” Willow asked.
“This one.” Scottie pointed without hesitation at a tiny yellow troll someone had placed in a knothole.
“Aww. Cute.”
A car rounded the bend and approached slowly. The road was barely wide enough for one vehicle, so they stepped closer to the wall of trolls to let the car pass behind them.
Their shoulders brushed, and Willow was hyperaware of how close they stood. The clean cedar scent of Scottie’s shampoo filled her senses.
When the car had passed, Scottie shifted so that their shoulders no longer touched.
Willow missed the contact immediately—just because it was cool beneath the bridge, where the sun couldn’t reach them.
Scottie pulled something from her pocket and held it out to her. “I brought two little friends so we can pay the troll toll.”
Willow glanced down.
On Scottie’s palm rested two little plastic trolls with shocks of rainbow-colored hair sticking up above their heads.
“So if removing a troll is considered back luck, does leaving one behind mean good luck?” Willow asked.
“I’d like to think so.”
“How do we fix them to the bridge?” Willow scanned the other trolls. Some had screws through their bellies, while others had been nailed to the boards. “We’re not going to drill a hole through our poor little rainbow trolls, are we?”
“No. That’s where these come in.” Triumphantly, Scottie held up her bag of zip ties.
“Ah. So that’s what they were for.”
“Yep. It’s a completely harmless non-murdery zip tie situation.”
“I can see that now, but as your dating adviser, I’ve got to advise you to instead bring flowers to your real first date.
” An image flashed through Willow’s mind—Scottie handing over a dozen long-stemmed red roses to a woman who buried her face in the bouquet to smell them, then looked up at Scottie with a smile.
“Got it. No zip ties on a first date.” Scottie nodded. “I hear you. No need to frown—I promise to heed your sage advice.”
Frown? She wasn’t frowning, was she? Willow made an effort to smooth out her brow…and chased away the image of the flower-receiving woman.
They fastened their trolls to a beam with the zip ties, then lingered for a few minutes longer, pointing out the oddest trolls to each other.
Scottie laughed at a giraffe troll. The sound of it echoed through the trees, making Willow smile.
Among the trolls, she spotted a small wooden sign that read: Love is the bridge that connects earth to heaven.
Maybe she had been wrong about the Troll Bridge not being a good place for a first date. There was a little romance here after all.
Finally, Scottie checked her wristwatch. “We should head back. I got us a table at Screen Door.”
“Screen Door?”
“One of the best brunch spots in Portland,” Scottie said. “They have the yummiest bananas Foster French toast, and their buttermilk-battered fried chicken and waffles are to die for. Does that sound okay?”
Willow’s stomach rumbled an enthusiastic reply.
Scottie chuckled. “Guess that’s a yes.”