Page 21 of The Maine Event

He turns the engine on, and I’m hit by a blast of loud music. Dan fumbles with the buttons on the dash and turns it down. “Sorry, Chloe’s been practicing her song non-stop. I think I know it so well I could perform it myself.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Gotta give the next generation a chance. As much as I would love to.”

“Would you,” I push, genuinely intrigued. “Love to, I mean. Do you miss it?”

“Acting?” Dan’s eyes flick across to me before he looks back at the road. “No. Those days are gone. Different life. I have Chloe to look after. The house.”

“Those sound like excuses.”

“They are excuses. Well… they’re reasons.” Dan looks over again, “Acting is more than just your time on set in front of the camera. When you’re filming a series, it’s relentless. Ten months of fourteen, sometimes sixteen-hour days. New scenes come in from the writers and you’ve got like three hours to learn it. Scene after scene after scene. And then there’s being so far from home,stuck in a motel room or a trailer. After the fourth week of food delivery from the same restaurant, you’ve tasted everything off the menu twice. No. Not for me. Not anymore.”

I don’t know if I’ve hit a nerve or just sent Dan on a little nostalgia trip back in time, but he drives in silence the rest of the way, and I’m not sure how to segue into another topic.

We pull up in the drive, and as I step out of the car, I get to really see the house properly in the light of day. Dan’s property sits gracefully at the edge of a rocky shoreline. Its weathered gray shingles and white trim glow softly under the late afternoon sun. A wide, wrap-around porch offers a perfect view of the Saco River, with the outdoor chairs we sat on last night neatly arranged on the decking. The house itself is timeless, blending coastal charm with rustic elegance. Large picture windows capture the view of the pine forest on the opposite bank, the scent of salt air from the ocean wafts right up to my nose like a welcome embrace.

What I hadn’t noticed when we sat outside last night was the gravel path that winds down through the backyard to the boathouse, perched just above the waterline, its faded barn-red paint worn by decades of salt-laced sea breezes. Beyond it, I spot a small wooden dock that stretches out to meet the lapping water. But there’s no boat.

The yard itself looks like a work in progress, wild beach grasses sway in the breeze, and clusters of lupines bloom near the house, their vibrant purples contrasting with the rugged landscape. The rhythmic sound of waves breaking on the shore completes the scene, giving the property an air of serene isolation, yet it feels warm and lived in, as though I’ve known this place all my life.What the hell is this? I’m nostalgic for a place I hadn’t set eyes on twenty-four hours ago?

“You alright?” Dan asks.

I can’t quite believe I agreed to this. Dinner? At his place? Again. I’m here for work, not to socialize. But the promise of a functional printer is too tempting to resist.

“Sorry, yeah, I’m good. You have a beautiful home.”

“Thanks.” Dan points up to the front door. “Shall we?”

We slip off our shoes in the front hall and head through to the living area. He gestures for me to take a seat at the kitchen island.

“I’ll just fire up the printer and get those copies started for you,” he says, taking the flash drive.

I sit down and pick up one of Chloe’s math textbooks, flipping through the pages. Part of me doesn’t want to even attempt any of the questions in case I don’t know the answers. If there was one subject that made me nervous in school, it was math. Of course, I use mental arithmetic every day at work. Whether it’s budget planning or market research on total addressable markets, I know my way around numbers, but there’s something about algebra and quadratic equations that still makes me shiver.

“Three copies of each enough?” Dan shouts down the stairs.

“Yes, that would be great.”

Dan skips down the stairs with the printouts in a neat plastic sheet-sized envelope. He places it on the table.

“At a dime a page, you’re in nearly two dollars. I don’t usually offer credit to new customers.”

“Oh. Right, of course. Sorry, let me Venmo you now.” Embarrassed that I didn’t even think to offer, I pull out my phone and start searching for the payment app.

“I’m kidding, Rachel.” Dan laughs.

“I don’t want you to be out of pocket.”

“I’m not. It’s there to be used.”

“Thank you.”

Dan heads over to the kitchen and immediately starts to fill a pan with water and begins chopping some cured sausage into tiny chunks.

“I hope you’re hungry,” he says over his shoulder as he starts finely chopping a clove of garlic. “I tend to meal prep on the weekend, so I only seem to be able to cook huge portions now.”

“I’m pretty hungry, actually. It smells amazing,” I admit. And it does.

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