Elias Voss, 61, has restored vintage neon signs out of his east Austin converted garage for 17 years. His hands are crisscrossed with thin silicone scars, his left knee clicks when he climbs ladders, and he’s avoided any romantic entanglement since his ex-wife Lila left him for a luxury condo realtor 12 years prior. His biggest flaw, if you ask the few friends he has left, is that he’s convinced every woman over 50 within a 10 mile radius only wants a free handyman or a plus-one to their grandkid’s soccer games, no actual chemistry required. He only leaves the shop twice a month for grocery runs and once a year for the neighborhood block party chili cookoff, which he’s won three years running.
The October air smells like smoked brisket and burnt sugar the day of the cookoff, a mariachi band blaring three booths down from his folding table, kids screaming as they bounce off the walls of an inflatable castle at the end of the street. He’s stirring a pot of brisket chili he started smoking at 4 a.m. when he hears a laugh that tugs at the back of his brain, soft and sharp at the same time. He looks up, and there she is, leaning against the edge of the adjacent taco booth, holding a plastic cup of spiked cider, constellation-patterned bandana holding her wavy auburn hair back from her face, jeans dotted with paint splotches, scuffed white sneakers. She meets his eye, grins, and pushes off the booth to walk over.
He’s frozen for half a second when she stops in front of him, because he recognizes her, even though the last time he saw her she was 24, crashing his and Lila’s Fourth of July cookoff, covered in popsicle stains, asking him to show her how he wired the neon Texas flag he hung above the back porch. “Elias?” she says, and her voice is lower than he remembers, warmer. “I’m Maren. Lila’s cousin. I just moved here last month to teach 10th grade biology at the high school down the street.” She reaches across the table for a paper sample spoon, and her knuckle brushes his wrist where he’s holding the chili ladle. Her skin is ice cold from the cider cup she’s been clutching, and he almost drops the ladle right into the pot, the jolt running all the way up his arm to the base of his skull.
He forces himself to be polite, distant at first. He hands her a sample of chili, mumbles something about it being smoked with mesquite, tries not to stare at the freckles across her nose, the tiny silver constellation earring studs glinting in the sun. She leans against the edge of his table, her hip pressing against his for half a second, the heat seeping through his thick work jeans, and he tenses up, but she doesn’t move away. She asks about his shop, remembers the old motel sign he was restoring in the garage when she visited all those years ago, asks if he ever finished the flickering neon flamingo he’d been tinkering with for a beach bar down in Corpus. He finds himself talking more than he has to anyone in months, telling her about the “Cold Beer” sign he installed last month that fell off the bar wall mid-grand opening, spilling glass all over a group of bachelor party guys in Hawaiian shirts. She snorts, laughs so hard cider sloshes out of her cup onto her jeans, and says she always thought Lila was too high strung for him anyway, that he always seemed like the only adult in that whole chaotic family who actually enjoyed being alive.
The comment hangs in the air between them for a second, thick with the smell of chili and wood smoke, and he doesn’t know what to say. He’s spent 12 years hating the reminder of Lila, hating the part of himself that wasn’t enough for her, and here Maren is, tossing that history aside like it’s nothing more than a crumpled napkin. He glances around the party, sees a couple of his neighbors staring, and feels that familiar twist of guilt in his gut. This is wrong, he tells himself. She’s 19 years younger than him, she’s his ex-wife’s cousin, people are going to talk, it’s going to blow up in his face, just like everything else. But then she tilts her head, bites her lower lip a little, and asks if he wants to walk down to the creek at the end of the block, get away from the noise for a minute.
He hesitates for three full seconds, wipes his hands on the thighs of his jeans, tells the 16 year old kid manning the booth next to him to watch his chili pot for 20 minutes, and follows her down the dirt path lined with oak trees. The noise of the party fades as they walk, the crunch of fallen amber leaves under their boots the only sound for a minute, their hands brushing every few steps, his fingers almost tangling with hers the first time, him pulling his hand away like he’s been burned, then letting it hang loose between them so it can happen again. They stop at the rickety wooden footbridge over the creek, water gurgling below them, and she leans against the rail, turning to face him.
“I thought about you a lot before I moved here,” she says, quiet, like she’s admitting something she’s embarrassed about. “I always remembered you, the way you talked about neon like it was alive, not just glass and gas. My family talks about you like you’re some kind of villain, but I never bought it.” She leans in, slow, so he has time to pull away if he wants, and her hand brushes the side of his face, her fingers calloused from grading papers and planting succulents on her apartment balcony. He doesn’t pull away. The kiss is slow, tastes like spiked cider and cinnamon, her other hand resting light on his chest, and he forgets all about Lila, all about the neighbors staring, all about the stupid rules he’s made for himself to keep from getting hurt again.
When they pull away, she grins, tucks a strand of hair that escaped her bandana behind her ear, and asks if he’ll show her his shop later, says she’s been wanting a neon Orion’s Belt sign for her classroom, something the kids will get a kick out of. He laughs, nods, pulls his beat up old flip phone out of his pocket to type in her number, his hands shaking a little more than they do when he’s working with thin fragile neon tubing. The distant sound of the mariachi band drifts down to them, soft, and a dry oak leaf falls from the tree above them, landing right on the shoulder of her faded green flannel shirt. He brushes the crumpled amber leaf off her shoulder, his thumb brushing the soft fabric of her shirt, and for the first time in 12 years, he doesn’t make a single excuse to leave early.
