Ep 6: Couples Night

Hello, it's Tod. Before we get started this week, I wanted to let you know there are now Mirror Falls shirts and hoodies in men's and women's in all sorts of colors. They're the kind of things that you would find folks in Mirror Falls wearing, handmade by local Vancouver Island people who care deeply about their craft. They are sewn in, printed in, and shipped from Canada by a 100% Canadian-owned small family-run business in Parksville. You can see the lineup at shop.mirrorfalls.com. There are also stickers. Okay, Enough with that, on with the episode. Funny thing about mirrors, said Pete Tomkinson, mirrors can hide something you expect to see Or reveal something you never knew existed. He pulled a key out of his pocket and shoved it in his wife's face.

Ta-da!

The storage room key. It was behind the mirror at the bar. Pete Tomkinson and his wife Shannon own the Dockside Pub. It's right on the water, but even in a town of 400, it's hard to keep afloat. Weekends are occasionally loud, but always unreliable. Weekdays are a ghost town. The last karaoke night ended with a man from Ashford Bay crying into a fog machine while singing Hallelujah in a way that suggested unresolved psychological issues. It's why Pete had started looking at spreadsheets in the mornings. It's also how his staff— and by that I mean Craig— knew that things were serious. Pete didn't want to lose the place. The pub was his second marriage. And like his first, he put everything into it. The building was mortgaged. Craig would sometimes loan Pete money to make ends meet. Sharon had suggested more than a few times that they look at what she charitably called backup plans. All Pete heard was failure. Pete Tomkinson is 56. Moved to Mirror Falls in 2007 after his friends Guy and Kim told him all about this tiny forest town they'd just moved to. They'd bought the Chinese restaurant from the son of the original owner, a nice but odd fellow. A month after buying the place, they found dozens of aprons, each with a bad pun about walks printed on them. Walk this way, walk and roll, and the one Guy started wearing Underpay. Overwalk. Pete grew up in Ladner, a small commuter village south of Vancouver. It was a little bit of everything in the '70s. Historic charm. Leafy streets. The sort of community that ran on routine. Paper routes before class. Dinner at the same time every night. Back then, Ladner was farmland, fishing, and the Fraser. Still felt separate from the big city. Close enough to Vancouver to feel its pulse, far enough to keep its own rhythm. But like a lot of small BC towns in that era, it was changing without even realizing it. The commuters came first, looking for cheaper houses and a slower pace. With them came more traffic, louder construction, and higher prices. Pete stayed in the area and worked construction. He married Sharon in 2003. They had 2 kids, and they tried to build something they could both be proud of. Life was manageable. Routine, even. Work. The kids' soccer practice. Paying bills. But eventually they both wished they could start over. Maybe in a town like Haladna used to be. Pete learned two important things in his first week after buying the Dockside Pub. The first is that there are regulars. The second is that the regulars have habits that do not bend. The choice of music, the brand of ketchup, hell, they even have their own parking spots. Not that they're labeled or anything, everyone just knows. The pub is right on the water, so the occasional cool breeze drifts in. Pete once raised the room temperature 2 degrees to account for this, and a man in a hoodie stood up, announced, "Well, it's gone soft," and 6 people walked out on principle. They only came back when Pete promised to never touch the temperature again. "Honestly," he told Sharon one night, "it's like trying to appease a room full of 8-year-olds." Jokes aside, he's tried everything to make it work. And now the bank wants to have a call about this month. If he can't make the numbers work, well, he needs to make the numbers work. About a year after he bought the place, Father Marcel walked in. By then Marcel had been in Mirror Falls about 4 years, long enough to become part of the fabric of a town with a few frayed edges. People had a pattern with Marcel. Get gas, say hello, receive a few gentle words that felt like forgiveness, and leave lighter than they arrived. Marcel was good at that. He listened in a way that made people keep talking. He remembered things. Sometimes even wrote them down. Folks told him things they hadn't said out loud before. And afterwards, Couldn't quite explain why. That morning, though, something seemed off when Marcel walked in and plunked himself down at the bar. Pete dragged over a chair. "Such a great little town," Marcel said. "I loved it here." "Loved?" Pete said. "Are you getting transferred to a different parish?" "No, no, no," stammered Marcel. "I just mean—" "Y-you've got something good here. You all do. You should know that." "You alright, Father?" Pete asked. He reached for a bottle. "I could pour you one." Marcel shook his head. "I can't. On duty, you know." Father Marcel went missing the next week. Pete would replay that conversation for years, the past tense. The pause. The way Marcel looked past him, as if only seeing the town's reflection in a mirror. Craig Elton is the assistant manager at the Dockside. He once took a semester of marketing at VIU before switching to hospitality for the tips, so he pitched a solution for the low revenues: a fancy night. The kind where people dress up and order dishes that come with a reduction. We could do it on Valentine's Day, invite couples, get the menus printed on thicker paper, maybe hang a painting on the wall. Craig's husband was in a jazz trio, so the music was taken care of. They had candles from Christmas still. Pete agreed reluctantly. Trying new things was not his comfort zone. But it was more comfortable than foreclosure. Craig wrote the promo copy himself. An evening for couples seeking something a little different, read the headline. An intimate atmosphere, carefully curated pairings. Come discover something unexpected together. It sounded classy. Mysterious, even. Mayor Hans was all on board. More tourist dollars? Hell yeah! The town even paid for half the ad. It's a nice town, Mirror Falls, their half of it read. Sits on the north end of Vancouver Island. About 400 people live here. It has what you expect: a coffee shop called Dark Side of the Moon, a gas station called The Gas 'n' God, and a faulty electrical system. Hans was convinced using that same copy everywhere would help somehow. The power outages? That's just small town charm. The first couple to arrive, Rob and Shannon, were dressed to the nines, which was shocking for a town that usually peaks around the threes. Another couple followed, then another, almost all from out of town. Some down island, a few even from the mainland. One couple and their friends pulled up to the dock in a sailboat named the Upside Down Pineapple. By 7:30, the pub was full. The biggest crowd ever. The jazz trio leaned into something slow and smooth, and the room settled into a low hum of voices and oddly sustained eye contact. Pete watched from behind the bar, equal parts nervous and proud. Proud, thinking about Sharon, about how he could tell her it actually worked. Maybe things will be okay. Maybe they should do this every weekend. Maybe he's not a failure. The first sign things were amiss came when Pete started to do his "Is everything okay? Thanks for coming" rounds. "It's really great to see this kind of event in a small town," said one fellow, wearing a dinner jacket over a t-shirt so tight You could see the temperature in the room. He pointed at the candles. "So how do we signal? Green candle? Red candle? Like, I'm assuming there's some kind of system here?" "For refills?" asked Pete. The man laughed. "I mean, sure, if that's what you folks call it up here." Across the room another couple waved him over and asked if there would be a structured introduction period or if they should just mingle. Someone asked if the blue napkins meant curious or committed. Another couple asked whether sitting at the bar was a statement. Pete said, "No, it's just seating." And the man replied, "Interesting," like Pete had revealed a loophole. Another asked if there was a private area upstairs. Pete explained that the upstairs was just some old padlocks and road chains for the snow. The woman giggled. Oh, that kind of party. By the time a third guest had asked what time the exchange portion of the evening would begin, Pete realized that he might have accidentally advertised something far more interactive than the basil-encrusted ratatouille. He was about to start asking questions when the power went out again. The room's only light were the candles and the tiny power lights on the security cameras that never go off. Maureen walked over to say she'd heard a semi-truck took out one of the power lines down the highway. The truck had flipped on its side smack dab in the middle of the road. It'd be morning before BC Hydro or the big tow truck shows up. And that meant nobody was leaving. The highway was blocked, and BC Hydro's recorded voice had a tone that suggested they had given up emotionally. Pete remembered the plot from Come From Away, which the high schoolers had recently staged, a musical about how the small community of Gander, Newfoundland housed thousands of people on 9/11 when their flights were ordered to the ground. If the Newfies can do it, Pete thought, So can we. Maureen was dispatched to get volunteer billeters. Pete stood on a chair and announced, if you're from out of town, we will make sure that you are paired off properly. Comfortable beds, attentive hosts. We will not let anyone spend the night alone. The crowd murmured enthusiastically. Wait, Pete said. I mean, we, "We will put you up and you can sleep overnight here. Sleep and then leave, please." Within minutes, visiting couples were being assigned to hosts like mismatched socks. Dale and Trish Lambert from Machosen, who describe themselves online as ethically adventurous, ended up in the home of Norm and Bev Calkins. Norm and Bev have been married 42 years and have separate recliners labeled with masking tape. "You two can squeeze in over there if you like," said Bev, pointing at the couch. "Would you mind if we watched a little tonight?" Dale and Trish squeezed each other's hands in anticipation. Norm turned on Jeopardy! We usually watch before dinner, if that's okay. The couples who'd arrived by sailboat were sent to stay with Marlene and Rick Dupont, who own 2 standard poodles and a hot tub that hasn't been chemically balanced since 2017. The blue-haired woman and her husband and their wife were sent to stay with Trevor and Denise McKenzie, who have a chicken named Bob and a rooster named Doug. Brad and Simone were billeted with Harold Bixby. Harold is prickly at best and caustic at worst. He's fond of early bedtimes and quiet. He once filed a noise complaint against Maureen for her loud keyboard typing. Maureen lives 2 blocks away. He made up the sofa bed in the living room at 9 PM and said good night. Brad and Simone quickly set up a ring light, a video camera, and clip-on microphones. What they didn't know was that Harold's hearing aids are Bluetooth-enabled and automatically connected to Simone's microphone. He was jolted awake by a softly-spoken tutorial about activating your partner's core. Brad and Simone, it turns out, are fitness influencers. They run a popular YouTube channel. A perfectly harmless one, but you know. You won't convince Harold of that. Not now. Suffice to say, it was an entertaining and bewildering evening in Mirror Falls. By morning, the highway reopened, and Mirror Falls' most memorable guests ever began to drift out of town. There were quiet goodbyes and awkward hugs. By 9, Mirror Falls was, mercifully, back to normal. Pete unlocked the pub and counted the money in the till. Then counted it again, just to be sure. He smiled. For the first time in years, the numbers didn't argue back. He would have that call with the bank, a short call, which, for once, would end in well wishes. Craig was already busy coming up with other theme night ideas. The plan was a new theme every Friday night. Board game night, local history tellings, screenings of bad B-movies, speed dating— uh, actually, yeah, maybe scratch that one. Shannon showed up with two coffees and leaned against the railing beside Pete as they watched the last taillights fade into the fog. Think they'll come back? she asked. Pete shook his head. Doubt it. But we will.

I am strolling along, just minding my business, humming a song. I'm happy by myself, not a care in the world.

This is the life, just me, myself, and I. Mirror Falls is produced with gratitude on the table on the territory of the Coast Salish people. Story and sound design by Tod Maffin. Join other Mirror Falls fans and chat about this episode at chat.mirrorfalls.com. Check out Mirror Falls merchandise at shop.mirrorfalls.com. You can subscribe to Tod's free newsletter about Canada at farandwide.news. Music licensing by Epidemic Sound. "Come Around," theme song by Nicholas Gabrielson with the Martin Landstrom Orchestra.

I am out and about, painting the town red. I'm coming around, there ain't no doubt about it. I'm no longer blue, so glad we are through. Just me, myself, and I.