Elias Voss, 62, spent the last three decades restoring antique typewriters out of his Asheville garage, and the last eight years turning down every invitation that didn’t involve a screwdriver, a bottle of small-batch bourbon, and a quiet night alone. His flaw? He’d convinced himself any attempt at connection after his wife’s death from ovarian cancer was a betrayal, not just of her memory, but of the quiet, predictable routine he’d built to avoid feeling anything at all. He only showed up to the county fire department’s annual fish fry because his 78-year-old next door neighbor had banged on his door at 4 PM, holding a paper plate of homemade pickles, and told him if he didn’t get out of the house she’d start leaving her cat’s litter box on his porch.
He was leaning against the side of his dented 1998 Ford F150, picking at a piece of fried catfish that was a little too burnt around the edges, when she stepped back to avoid a kid darting past with a cherry popsicle dripping down his wrist. Her shoulder collided with his bicep, iced tea sloshing over the rim of her plastic cup to dot the cuff of his gray flannel shirt. She froze for half a second, then tilted her head up to look at him, hazel eyes flecked with gold, no hurry to look away. “Sorry about that,” she said, grinning, the corner of her mouth pulling up higher on one side. “I’ve had a lifelong problem with not paying attention to what’s directly behind me.”
Elias grunted, wiping the tea off his sleeve with the back of his hand, ready to nod and turn away before the small talk started. Then he spotted the tiny enamel pin of a 1950s Royal typewriter pinned to the lapel of her frayed denim jacket, and the half-dozen dog-eared western pulp novels tucked under her free arm. He’d seen her twice before, at the hardware store buying paint thinner, but he’d never gotten close enough to smell the lavender hand lotion and lemon polish clinging to her clothes, close enough to see the faint smudge of ink on her left thumb. She told him her name was Clara, 58, the town’s new part-time librarian, moved to the area six months prior after her husband died in a motorcycle crash outside Chicago.
He felt that familiar, sharp twist of guilt in his chest the second he realized he wanted to keep talking to her. He’d spent so long shutting everyone out, the idea of letting a stranger in felt like sneaking around, like he was doing something wrong. She leaned in a little when he mentioned he restored typewriters, her elbow brushing his as she pointed to the pin on her jacket, and said she had her dad’s old Royal Quiet De Luxe stuck mid-keystroke in her closet, every local shop had called it too old to fix. He was halfway through his standard “no new clients” line when her hand brushed his wrist to get his attention over the bluegrass band’s roar. Her skin was warm, calloused at the fingertips from turning book pages, and the words died in his throat.
They sat on his truck’s tailgate for an hour, talking over the crackle of charcoal grills and shouts of kids playing cornhole. He teased her about the pulp novels, said he’d always thought librarians only read plotless literary fiction, and she teased him back about the grease permanently crusted under his fingernails, said she could spot someone who worked with their hands from a mile away. Their knees knocked together every time one of them shifted, neither moving to create space. When the first fundraiser firework burst overhead, bright red against the dark sky, she jumped a little, her hand landing flat on his jeans-clad thigh. She didn’t move it for three full seconds, heat seeping through the fabric, and Elias didn’t say a word.
He dug the old fountain pen he carried in his shirt pocket out, scribbled his cell number on a crumpled napkin he found in his cupholder, and told her he wasn’t taking new clients, but he’d make an exception. She folded the napkin twice, tucked it into the inner pocket of her jacket, and leaned in to press a quick, soft kiss to his stubbled cheek. She smelled like lavender and sweet tea when she was that close. “I’ll text you first thing tomorrow,” she said, grabbing her books off the tailgate.
He watched her walk to her beat-up Subaru, wave when she pulled out of the gravel parking lot, and took a long sip of his now-warm beer. He didn’t feel guilty, not anymore. He reached into the bed of his truck, grabbed the spare bottle of bourbon he kept stashed under the seat, and twisted the cap off.
