Mrs. Roy thanked Jimmy and paid him for his trouble with a five-dollar bill and a bag of chocolate chip cookies—which Jimmy graciously accepted. (He had a pay-what-you-can policy for senior citizens—and anyone—on fixed incomes.) And, as he was about to leave, she asked him what he was doing with his Friday night.

And Jimmy said not much.

And Mrs. Roy asked him if he going out on a date or anything.

And Jimmy said he wasn’t.

And Mrs. Roy said that she didn’t mean to be all up in his business, but he needed to get himself out there again and move on from Sandrine, his old girlfriend, and start dating again. Because he was a catch, she said. Because he ran his own business. And he was a good guy. And he still had some looks.

Jimmy thanked Mrs. Roy for the confidence boost.

And told her that he just might head on over to the Moose Paddy. And get himself out there again. And move on.

And so he did.

He sat in his Pelletier’s Heating and Cooling van for a moment after he pulled into the establishment’s parking lot.

And promptly lost his confidence. Because Sandrine had done a real number on him.

But then he reminded himself what Mrs. Roy had said—that he was a catch. Because he ran his own business. And he was a good guy. And he still had some looks.

So he got out of his van and made his way toward the Moose Paddy’s entrance. And as he did, the lack of confidence he was feeling faded away. And he felt a strange lightness fill up his insides. It made him feel like he had the glow of a fired-up pellet stove inside him. And like he had the butterflies. And it made him feel like things were going to go his way. And that wasn’t something that he felt very often. Most of the time he felt like things were not going to go his way. At all.

His confidence restored, Jimmy pulled the worn, chunky oak Moose Paddy door open and left the cold, quiet northern Maine night behind him. And he eased into the warm, piney, buzzy, and dimly lit Moose Paddy. The place smelled like old and new beer. And old and new fried food.

He passed the coatroom—an actual room for coats and snowmobile suits and paraphernalia for those who arrived by snowmobile—and looked around at the knotty pine walls and up at the knotty pine ceiling and down at the knotty pine floors and remembered some of the crazy things he and his buddies had done inside those walls and under that ceiling and on those floors many years ago.

He approached the bar, which dominated the establishment and had seats all the way around it. A giant chalkboard above the bar listed the beers that were on tap. It also announced the night’s special: “Drink free if you’re sad. Just tell us you’re sad, and you’ll drink free. Honor code applies.”