Chapter 7 : Mark and Daniella
Daniella. That was a nice name. In fact, it was a very pretty name. Mark smiled at her, forgetting that he was still holding on to her hand.
Daniella grinned at him good-naturedly. "You planning to hold on to me for eternity?" she joked, shaking his hand again.
Mark shook himself and dropped her hand. "Oops, I'm so sorry…" he started to say again, embarrassed.
Daniella started to laugh. "That's fine, it's nice to have a fan," she said. "Well, I should be going now, so maybe I'll see you again." With a wave, she began to walk away.
Mark stared after her for a moment, a thought coming to his mind. It would be a bold move, he knew, but his brain told him that it was something he wanted to do, or he would spend his days regretting it. You don't know where you're going, anyway, he said to himself. It's not going to hurt anyone. Why not? Finally obeying his mind, he began to follow Daniella, half-jogging to catch up with her.
He fell into step with her and flashed her a grin. "I have no idea where I was planning to go, so I thought that maybe I'd accompany you and make sure that no one bowls you over," he said. Outside he looked calm and confident, as if he did things like that every single day, but inside he was a mess. This was the first time he had ever tried something like that with a woman he had just met. A frown crossed his face for a moment. "You don't mind, do you? I mean, if you do… I could just… I could…"
She laughed again, and shook her head. "No, I don't mind. In fact, it's very kind of you to. I wouldn't like to be knocked down again. You could be my buffer zone."
Mark agreed with a laugh, and they walked down the street side by side.
They ended up at a pub, where Daniella was meeting a friend. Daniella was early, so they sat down at the counter. "So… Daniella… that's a pretty name," Mark said. After the words were out of his mouth, he mentally kicked himself. Oh yes, what great conversation.
"Hardly anyone calls me Daniella. It is a pretty name, but after awhile it just gets too pretty, you know? Call me Dani," she said. "So, Mark, you know what I do, but what do you do?"
"I run an art gallery," he told her. Great, how boring can I possibly get
Evidently she didn't think it was boring. Her eyes widened. "That's cool. I always thought that it would be interesting to have an art gallery. I mean, all those very artistic and abstract things all stuffed into one big space." She winced. "That doesn't sound very smart, does it?"
Mark laughed. "Nope, it doesn't sound very smart, but trust me, it's not the dumbest thing ever either. I've heard much worse." Mostly coming from my own mouth. He shook his head. "It's not that cool to run an art gallery, actually. It gets boring after awhile, just sitting around and staring at the art piece. I mean, I love art, of course, but after awhile you just want…"
"…Something more to do," Dani finished for him.
He gave her another smile. "Exactly. Something more to do."
Dani nodded. "So why don't you?"
"Excuse me?"
"Why don't you find something more to do?" Dani explained. "I'm sure you could always find something that would satisfy you. I mean, you seem like a smart, decent guy to me. What's the problem?"
Mark shook his head. "I don't know. I say that I want something more, but I'm not sure what more I want. I have a stable job, yeah, and it's all great and everything, but something's missing and I don't know what. So how can I do something about it when I don't even know what 'it' is?"
Dani shrugged. "You should just go out there and try something. Before performing at the restaurant I was a secretary for a year, if you can believe it. It was a good job too, with a good boss and everything, but I thought that I wanted something new, and so I left. Now I've found something I'm happy with for now, and I'll just stick with it until I want to start looking for something new again. You could do that too. I mean, you only have one life."
"Wow… that's very brave," Mark marvelled. "Unfortunately for me, I'm not so gutsy. Takes me a long time to decide to do something out of the ordinary."
"What, like walking a stranger to a pub and then sitting down to a drink with her?" Dani's eyes twinkled as she took at sip of her drink.
Mark laughed despite himself. "Well, this is something very out of the ordinary, I suppose. But I don't know if this courage will last for very long. By the time I get home, I'll probably be back to thinking about a million ways to keep from dying of boredom at the job I will end up keeping for the rest of my life."
Dani shook her head confidently. "Nope, you won't keep the job for the rest of you life," she said with a great amount of certainty. "One day you're going to wake up and know that I'm right, and you'll make a change."
"Maybe."
Mark swung open his door and shut it behind him. Glancing up at the clock, he noted that it was eleven-thirty. He'd be out longer than he had thought.
After Dani's friend had turned up, he had bid her goodbye and went on his way. He had wandered about, looking at the shop windows and stopping to buy himself a late-night snack: ice cream. It didn't matter that it was still cold out, and the ice cream had him positively frozen.
Taking off his jacket, he tossed it onto the couch and sat down, leaning his head back. Today was a nice day. And it was the first time he had spoken to a single woman (Sarah before getting together with Karl excluded) in a very long time. And Dani was a nice person, easy-going and fun. She seemed to have no worries about life, a free spirit wandering about. He wished he could be like her, never worrying about her job, or what life had in store for her. He was always wondering what was round the corner, always thinking about what would happen in the future, when the answer was simply a big, fat NOTHING.
He sighed. Oh well. Dani had promised to stop by the gallery someday, so maybe he would see her again soon.
