Rafe Mendez, 53, has restored 37 vintage RVs in the seven years since his wife left him for a cloud software sales rep who owned zero power tools and wore tailored slacks to backyard barbecues. His personality flaw, one he’ll never admit out loud, is that he won’t let anyone touch the tools lined up on his oak workbench, not even the part-time high school kid he hires to sand cabinetry in the summer. He’d driven straight to the small town chili cookoff from his shop that Saturday, jeans still smudged with grease and sawdust, because his buddy had talked him into entering, said the grand prize was a $500 gift card to the auto parts store he hit twice a week.
He was leaning against a splintered pine picnic table, sipping a cold Shiner Bock that left condensation dripping down his wrist, when he spotted her. Lena Voss, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, the one he’d only seen a handful of times at family reunions before the divorce, the one he’d spent three hours talking to about 1970s Winnebago floor plans at a Christmas gathering 12 years prior, when his ex had been too drunk on spiked eggnog to notice. She was carrying a paper plate of cornbread, silver roots peeking out of the braid slung over her shoulder, worn cowboy boots scuffed at the toes, and when she saw him, she smiled so wide the corners of her eyes crinkled.
She crossed the lawn in three long strides, and when she reached across him to grab a stack of napkins off the edge of the table, her shoulder brushed his, warm through the thin cotton of his work shirt. He could smell jasmine shampoo and smoked paprika on her, and for half a second he froze, half of him screaming that this was a line he shouldn’t cross, the other half already leaning in to say hello. She teased him first, pointing at the crockpot of brisket chili next to his feet, saying she remembered he made it so hot it made his ears turn bright red, that she’d watched him down three beers at that Christmas reunion just to cool his tongue after one bowl.
He laughed, a rough, rusty sound he didn’t recognize, and pulled out a paper bowl for her to taste it. They sat down on the bench next to each other, and when she crossed her legs, her knee pressed against his under the table, warm and steady, and he didn’t shift away. She told him she’d moved back to town three months prior to care for her mom, who was recovering from a stroke, that she’d been looking for a small vintage RV to take her mom to the Gulf Coast on weekends when she felt well enough to travel. She asked if he had anything in the shop that was almost finished, and he nodded before he even thought about it, even though he’d never let a stranger tour his shop unannounced, let alone someone tied to his old marriage.
The sun was dipping below the oak trees by the time they left the cookoff, painting the sky pink and tangerine, crickets chirping in the grass along the sidewalk. They stepped over a pothole half full of rainwater, and her hand brushed his, calloused at the fingertips from the garden she told him she kept behind her rental house. When they unlocked the door to his shop, the smell of WD-40, sawdust, and lemon Pledge hit them both, and she sighed, like she was walking somewhere familiar. She stepped past him to the 1972 Winnebago he’d been restoring for six months, running her hand along the polished walnut counter he’d spent three weeks sanding by hand, saying she loved how he paid attention to the tiny, quiet details no one else would notice.
He reached for his favorite flathead screwdriver on the workbench next to the RV, to show her how he’d adjusted the cabinet latches, and she reached for the same tool at the same time, their hands brushing. He didn’t pull away. She looked up at him, her brown eyes dark in the low light from the shop’s string lights, and said she’d always thought he was too good for his ex, that she’d wanted to say it for seven years, ever since she’d gotten the phone call that he’d been left alone in a house with half the furniture gone.
The part of him that had spent seven years clinging to stupid, useless loyalty to a marriage that had died long before his ex left melted away, and he leaned in, kissing her soft, slow, tasting the peach hard seltzer she’d been drinking and the hint of chili spice on her tongue. Her hand curled around the back of his neck, and the grease smudge on his wrist brushed her cheek when he cupped her face. They pulled back a minute later, and she laughed, wiping the smudge off her cheek with the heel of her hand, saying she wanted to come back next weekend to help him finish the Winnebago’s cabinet trim. He nodded, and when she picked up the flathead screwdriver off the workbench, twisting it between her fingers to test the weight, he didn’t say a word. He watched her twist the screwdriver between her fingers, and for the first time in seven years, he didn’t feel the urge to yank a tool out of someone else’s hands.
