Manny Ruiz, 58, has restored close to 400 vintage typewriters in the seven years since his wife Lydia died of breast cancer. He runs his shop out of the two-car garage attached to his West Asheville bungalow, sets up a folding table at the downtown farmers market every Saturday, rain or shine. Most weekends he sells two or three portables, talks to a handful of collectors, ignores the well-meaning regulars who keep trying to set him up with their widowed sisters or divorced book club friends. He’s got a rule: no new complications. That includes any woman who makes his chest feel tight like he’s 16 again, fumbling with his first car’s door handle on a date.
The mezcal pop-up showed up two spots down from his table three weeks prior. Elara Voss ran it, dark hair streaked with silver pulled back in a braid, cowboy boots scuffed at the toes, a tiny silver nose ring that glinted when she laughed too hard. He’d recognized her the second she walked past his table the first weekend, his throat going dry. She’d been Jake’s 10th grade art teacher, back when Jake was 15 and drawing typewriters in the margins of every worksheet he brought home. That was 12 years ago, but the memory stuck, sharp enough that he’d ducked his head over a 1960s Smith Corona when she glanced his way, convinced he was being ridiculous for even noticing how her jeans fit her hips.
She finally approached his table on the fourth Saturday, when the air smelled like roasted pecans from the nut stand next to him and the bluegrass buskers at the end of the row were playing a wobbly cover of *Folsom Prison Blues*. She leaned in over the table, the sleeve of her unbuttoned flannel brushing his wrist where he was wiping down a Royal Quiet De Luxe, and he caught the scent of cedar and smoked agave on her shirt. “I was wondering if you had one that works well enough for custom drink labels,” she said, nodding at the Royal, and her eye contact held a beat longer than polite, like she knew exactly who he was, too.
He almost said no. Almost told her he had a backlog of repairs, that he didn’t rent machines out, that he didn’t have time for any extra work. But then she smiled, and he remembered Jake coming home from art class that year, gushing about how his teacher had let him do a whole final project on typewriter illustration, had even hung his best drawing in the school hallway for a month. He found himself saying he’d bring one by her stand the next weekend, no rental fee, as long as she let him try whatever that smoky drink was she kept serving.
She brought him a small glass of ensamble mezcal an hour later, on the house, served in a tiny hand-thrown clay cup. He sipped it while he sorted through typewriter ribbons, and he could feel her looking at him every few minutes, heat creeping up his neck even when he didn’t look up. When he dropped the typewriter off at her stand the following Saturday, their fingers brushed when he passed her the carrying case, and he flinched like he’d touched a hot stove. The guilt hit him fast, sharp enough that he mumbled a quick goodbye and walked back to his table without another word, angry at himself for the jolt he’d felt up his arm, like Lydia was watching him, disappointed.
The sky opened up halfway through the market that same day, cold April rain pouring so hard the organizers called an early close. Manny packed up his table fast, shoving typewriters into waterproof cases, but by the time he was done, the rain was coming down too hard to walk to his truck parked three blocks over. He huddled under the awning of the used bookstore next to the market row, and two minutes later Elara ran over, soaking wet, laughing so hard she could barely catch her breath, her braid coming undone, rain dripping off the end of her nose.
He handed her the extra flannel he kept in his tote without thinking, and she wrapped it around her shoulders, her arm pressing against his as they stood shoulder to shoulder, watching rain flood the gutter at their feet. “I recognized you the first day I set up,” she said, after a minute of quiet, the only sound the drumming of rain on the awning and the distant honk of a car horn. “Jake’s typewriter drawings were my favorite student work I ever got. I still have a photo of that one he did of the old Royal your wife brought to his parent-teacher conference, remember?”
He did remember. Lydia had dragged the Royal to the conference that year, just to show Elara the machine Jake had been obsessing over. The guilt softened a little, the edge worn off by the memory of Lydia laughing about how Jake had drawn more typewriters than people that semester. “I thought I was being crazy for wanting to talk to you,” she said, turning to face him, so close he could count the freckles across her nose. “Figured you’d think it was weird, the old teacher thing, or that you were still hung up on your wife. My friends told me I was being an idiot for waiting three weeks to say hi.”
He didn’t say anything for a second, processing. The thing he’d been so afraid of, the thing he’d been running from for seven years, didn’t feel like a betrayal right then. It felt like something Lydia would have teased him for, would have pushed him to stop overthinking. “I was avoiding you,” he admitted, and she smiled, soft, not offended. “Thought it was wrong, on both counts.”
She laughed, a low warm sound, and bumped her shoulder against his. “Jake’s 27 now, for Christ’s sake. He sells those typewriter illustrations online, I follow him on Instagram. And if your wife was half as cool as she seemed that day at the conference, she’d yell at you for hiding out in your garage for seven years and ignoring anyone nice who tried to talk to you.”
The rain slowed to a drizzle ten minutes later, but neither of them moved to leave. He asked her if she wanted to get tacos at the dive place two blocks over, the one with the green chile carnitas he ate alone every Saturday after the market, and she said yes before he finished the question. They walked slow, the sidewalk still slick, his hand brushing hers every few steps, and this time he didn’t pull away. When they sat down in the back booth of the taco shop, she reached across the table and brushed a crumb of dried cilantro off his jaw, her thumb warm against his skin, and he didn’t flinch. He flagged down the waiter to order them both a beer, and when the waiter walked away, she leaned in a little, that silver nose ring glinting under the neon beer sign behind the bar, and asked him to tell her about the weirdest typewriter he’d ever restored.
