Leo Rainer, 61, has spent the last eight years hiding in his workshop stacked floor to ceiling with rusted typewriters, grease under his fingernails and a standing order for the same meatloaf special from the diner down the street every Saturday night. He bailed on the weekly bar trivia nights he used to dominate, skipped every town festival, turned down every half-hearted set-up from the few friends he had left, still stinging from the day his wife packed a duffel and left him for a 28-year-old software salesman who’d brought his vintage typewriter in for a ribbon replacement. The only time he leaves the shop is for supply runs or client drop-offs, which is the only reason he’s dragging his feet through the late August farmers market at 10 a.m., sweat sticking the collar of his frayed canvas work coat to his neck, the smell of roasted corn and cut clover thick in the humid air.
He’s scanning the crowd for the teacher who paid him to restore a 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe for her classroom when he hears his name called, loud and warm, over the chatter of families haggling for peaches. He turns, and for half a second he doesn’t recognize the woman leaning over the counter of the artisanal hot sauce stand, auburn hair streaked with sun, a smudge of chili powder dusting her left cheek, a tiny fishing hook tattoo curling around her wrist. Then she grins, that same lopsided, gap-toothed grin she had when she was 10 and snuck into his workshop to type nonsense stories on his personal Royal, and he realizes it’s Lila, Jim’s daughter. Jim, his best friend since third grade, who died 12 years ago on a fishing trip Leo was supposed to join, bailed at the last minute to fix a rare typewriter for a client out of state. The guilt of that choice has sat heavy in his chest ever since, so heavy he avoided Jim’s family entirely after the funeral, too ashamed to look any of them in the eye.
She’s around the counter before he can think of an excuse to leave, wrapping her arms around his waist in a quick, firm hug, her shoulder brushing the smudge of typewriter ink on his coat sleeve. She smells like lime, smoked paprika, and coconut sunscreen, and he freezes for three full beats before he awkwardly pats her back, his face heating up when he realizes he’s hyper-aware of how soft her hair is against his jaw, how the cut-off flannel she’s wearing shows a constellation of freckles across her forearm. He tries to tell himself it’s wrong, to feel anything even close to attraction to the girl he used to buy cherry snow cones for after school, but the thought sticks in his throat like unswallowed whiskey when she pulls back and looks up at him, hazel eyes flecked with gold, no trace of the awkward teen he remembers left in her face.
She grabs his wrist to tug him over to the sample table, her fingers calloused from chopping peppers, warm against the cool metal of the old watch he wears on his left hand, and he feels a jolt run all the way up his arm to the base of his spine. She holds out a small plastic spoon loaded with mango habanero sauce, leaning in close enough that he can count the tiny freckles across her nose, her gaze not wavering when he catches her staring at the scar across his left eyebrow, the one he got when he and Jim crashed their dirt bikes behind the high school in 1987. He tastes the sauce, and the heat hits him so fast he coughs, his eyes watering, and she laughs, the same raspy, loud laugh he remembers from Jim’s annual cookouts, and hands him a cold can of pineapple seltzer, their fingers brushing again when he takes it from her.
She tells him she moved back to town six months prior, quit her marketing job in Chicago to scale up the hot sauce recipe Jim spent 20 years perfecting, and she found a box of Jim’s old typewriters in the attic of the cabin he left her. She says she’s been meaning to look him up for months, wants him to restore the beat-up 1970s Smith Corona Jim used to type all his recipe notes on, and she still remembers how he used to let her sit on his workbench for hours, typing silly stories about mermaids in Lake Michigan, told her she could be a writer if she ever wanted to be. The words hit him square in the chest, so sharp he has to look away for a second, staring at the jar of ghost pepper sauce on the counter so he doesn’t have to admit he’d forgotten that part of himself, the part that used to talk to kids about writing, that used to have friends, that didn’t spend every night alone watching old Westerns in his workshop.
A kid darting after a stray golden retriever slams into the side of the stand right then, and a full jar of habanero sauce teeters off the edge. Leo reaches for it at the same time Lila does, his arm wrapping tight around her waist for half a second to steady her when she lurches forward, and he can feel the heat of her body through her thin flannel shirt, the curve of her hip against his, before they both pull back, the jar safe in his other hand. They freeze for a beat, the noise of the market fading out for just a second, and she doesn’t look away, doesn’t step back, just smiles soft, like she knows exactly what’s running through his head, the mess of guilt and want and shame he’s been carrying for years.
He gives her his cell number scrawled on the back of his shop business card when he leaves, tells her to bring the typewriter by anytime, he’ll give her the family discount, even throw in a free black and red ribbon for the Smith Corona. She tucks the card into the front pocket of her high-waisted jeans, taps the pocket twice with her index finger, says she’ll be by Saturday at noon, she’ll bring a jar of the mango habanero as a down payment, and maybe some of the peach pie her grandma baked the night before.
He drops off the Royal for the teacher on his way out, barely listening when she gushes about how perfect the restoration is, the ghost of Lila’s waist under his arm still lingering, the taste of habanero and pineapple still sharp on his tongue. He stops at the gas station on the way back to his shop, buys a six pack of the cold lime beer Jim used to drink, and when he gets back to the workshop, he pulls up his weekly takeout order, cancels the meatloaf special he’s ordered every Saturday for eight years, and tosses the crumpled confirmation in the trash can by his workbench. He kicks a half-empty spool of typewriter ribbon under the bench before locking the front door, a half-smile tugging at the corner of his mouth he hasn’t felt in almost a decade.
