Rudy Galvan, 62, spent 31 years yelling over radar static and troubleshooting mid-air near misses, so the roar of the Port Aransas Seafood Festival zydeco band feels like static he can’t tune out. He leans against a splintered wooden post at the beer tent, plastic cup of Shiner Bock sweating in his calloused hand, scanning for an exit route. He’d only showed up because his neighbor begged him to man the oyster shucking booth for an hour, and he’d lost a bet on the Texans game last week so he couldn’t say no. He’s just about to slip off down the boardwalk back to his dock when a stack of paper plates topples off the cake walk table ten feet away, scattering across sawdust-covered ground.
Elara Mendez, who runs the bait shop two slips down from his, drops to her knees to grab them, her silver hoop earrings catching string lights strung between oak trees. He’s avoided her for 11 months straight, ever since he moved to town. She’d brought him a batch of chocolate chip cookies his first week, laughed when he stood in his doorway frozen like he’d caught a red snapper with legs, and he’s been half terrified, half drawn to her ever since. His throat tightens when he thinks about Linda, how 8 years of sleeping alone in a cold bed has him staring at Elara’s sun-kissed arms when she hauls bait buckets up the dock, and he hates that part of himself, thinks it’s a betrayal. But he’s got two working legs, so he walks over and kneels down to help.
Their hands brush when they both reach for a stack of neon pink plates. Her palm is rough, calloused from 20 years of tying fishing knots and hauling nets, and he feels a jolt run up his arm like he’s touched a live wire. “Was wondering if you were gonna hide in your boat forever, Galvan,” she says, grinning, dark eyes crinkling at the corners. She’s wearing a faded 1977 Led Zeppelin tour shirt, cut off at the sleeves, frayed denim cutoffs, and he can see a small pelican tattoo peeking out from her left wrist. Linda had that exact same tour shirt, he remembers, wore it to their first date at a 1983 drive-in. The thought doesn’t make him feel guilty, for the first time in 8 years. It makes him feel warm.
A group of kids running with cotton candy barrel past them, and she leans into him to avoid getting knocked over, her shoulder pressing firm against his chest. He can smell coconut sunscreen and fried catfish on her, has to resist the urge to tuck a strand of her gray-streaked dark hair behind her ear. He mumbles something about working on the boat, being busy, and she snorts, standing up and brushing sawdust off her knees. “Busy avoiding everyone, you mean. My husband used to do the same thing when his mom died, spent 6 months living in his fishing boat, wouldn’t answer a single call. I know what that grief looks like.” Her husband died in a fishing accident 7 years prior, he’d heard bar regulars talk about it.
He doesn’t have an excuse, so he just shrugs, and she asks if he wants to walk down to the docks once the festival wraps up. He almost says no, almost makes up a lie about needing to fix the boat’s bilge pump, but then she tilts her head at him, and he nods before he can think better of it. They stay for the last set of the zydeco band, standing close enough that their arms brush every time someone walks past, he shares his bag of fried alligator bites with her, she laughs when he makes a face at the spicy remoulade. When the band plays their last song, the crowd disperses, string lights dimming one by one, and they walk down the boardwalk to her dock, waves lapping at pylons soft under their shoes.
She pulls two cold Modelos out of a cooler on her dock, and they sit on the edge, feet dangling six inches above dark water. She points out Orion’s belt over the Gulf, he tells her he used to stargaze with Linda on West Texas camping trips, that she’d been the one who taught him all the constellations. “Linda was my cousin’s best friend in high school, you know,” she says, quiet, like she’s scared to say it out loud. “She talked about you all the time. Said you were the only guy who’d ever put up with her obsession with terrible 70s rock.” He blinks, surprised, then laughs, a loud, rough laugh he hasn’t heard come out of his own mouth in years.
The internal tug of war he’s carried for 11 months snaps, then. The guilt he’s clung to about feeling anything for anyone who isn’t Linda doesn’t feel like a weight anymore, it feels like something she’d have teased him for, like something she’d have told him to let go of. He reaches over, brushes his thumb over the pelican tattoo on her wrist, and she doesn’t pull away. She laces her fingers through his, her hand rough and warm in his, and they sit there for an hour, watching bioluminescence in the water glow bright blue every time a mullet jumps out of the waves. A cool October wind blows off the Gulf, she leans into his side, shoulder pressing against his chest, and he doesn’t feel the need to run.
He pulls the folded up ticket for the cake walk he’d stuffed in his pocket earlier out, holds it up to the moonlight, and sees he won the caramel apple cake Elara had baked for the raffle.
