Rafe Marquez, 53, has restored 47 vintage campers in the eight years since his divorce, each one gutted, rewired, refinished to be exactly what the owner asked for, no surprises, no loose ends. It’s the only part of his life he feels he has a handle on, these dented aluminum shells and faded pastel fiberglass bodies that come to him beat up and unwanted and leave ready for cross-country road trips. He’s at the annual Asheville food truck rally on a humid July Thursday, leaning against a splintered pine picnic table, after dropping off a 1972 Shasta to a couple from Charlotte who plan to drive it to Alaska. The air smells like hickory-smoked brisket, fried green tomatoes dusted with cayenne, and the sweet sticky fumes of the cotton candy stand three rows over. Sweat beads at the edge of his graying buzzcut, and he wipes it away with the sleeve of his frayed Carhartt flannel, calluses catching on the stubble along his jaw.
He hears a laugh that tugs at the back of his memory, high and bright, and looks up to see Lila Alvarez walking toward him, a half-eaten pickle pop in one hand, a neon pink craft beer in the other. He hasn’t seen her since she graduated high school 16 years prior, back when he still worked construction with her dad Mike, back when he’d show up to her soccer games with a cooler of Gatorade for the team and help her change a flat tire on her beat-up Civic the week she got her license. She’s 34 now, a sunflower tattoo curling up her left forearm, cutoff denim shorts that show the faint scar on her knee from when she fell off her bike at 12, a faded 2003 Led Zeppelin tour tee that Rafe remembers buying for Mike for his 40th birthday. She lights up when she spots him, closing the distance fast, and leans in for a hug, her shoulder pressing firm against his chest, the coconut scent of her shampoo mixing with the briny tang of the pickle pop she’s holding. She says her dad mentioned Rafe was still in town flipping campers, that she just moved back to open a rare tropical plant shop in the River Arts District, that she’s been meaning to reach out to ask if he can build custom reclaimed wood shelves for the space.
She slides onto the bench next to him, and their knees brush when she shifts to point out the taco truck she co-owns with her roommate. She doesn’t move away after, her denim leg pressed warm against his work jeans, even when there’s plenty of space on the other side of the bench. Every time she laughs, she tilts her head toward him, her dark eyes holding his longer than a family friend’s should, crinkling at the corners when he makes a dry joke about the time she snuck out of her parents’ house to go to a show and he found her hiding in the bed of his truck at 2 a.m., too scared to go home and face Mike. Rafe feels a tight heat in his chest he hasn’t felt in years, and immediately shoves it down. This is Mike’s kid. He watched her blow out the candles on her 13th birthday cake. He’d be a monster for looking at her like that, he tells himself, shifting an inch away from her, crossing his arms over his chest to put more space between them.
She notices the shift, and her smile softens, not hurt, just knowing. She leans in closer, so her shoulder is pressed to his bicep, and says she always thought he got a raw deal when his ex-wife left, that even when she was a kid she could tell he was the kind of guy who showed up for people, who didn’t cut corners. He freezes, his throat going dry, when she reaches across the table to grab a napkin and her hand brushes his, her fingers lingering for three full seconds before she pulls back. “I had the most embarrassing crush on you back then, you know,” she says, picking at the paper wrapper of her pickle pop, not looking up at him at first, then meeting his gaze dead on, no hesitation. “Thought you were the coolest guy I’d ever met. Still do, honestly.”
The hum of the crowd, the clink of beer bottles, the crackle of the food truck fryers all fade for a second. Rafe doesn’t say anything for a long beat, then admits he’s felt off all night, like he’s breaking some unspoken rule just sitting next to her and wanting to be closer, that he kept telling himself he was being a creep for noticing how the string lights strung above the table catch the gold flecks in her eyes, how her lip is slightly parted like she’s waiting for him to say something that isn’t the safe, responsible uncle-type line he’s supposed to give. She laughs, soft, and squeezes his hand, her palm warm and calloused too, from hauling potted plants around, she says. “Rules are for people who’d rather be comfortable than happy,” she says, and he can feel her breath on his jaw when she leans in a little more.
They finish their beers as the sun dips below the tree line, fireflies blinking to life in the pine grove at the edge of the parking lot. He walks her to her beat-up 2008 Subaru, the back of it stuffed full of potted monstera cuttings and bags of potting soil. She stands on her tiptoes to kiss him, soft at first, just a press of her lips to his, then deeper when he curls his hand around her waist, careful not to knock the half-empty iced coffee she’s holding out of her hand. She hands him a crumpled slip of receipt paper with her cell number and the address of her shop scrawled on it in neon purple marker, tells him to come by tomorrow around 2 to look at the wall space for the shelves. He tucks the paper into the front pocket of his work jeans, watches her pull out of the lot, waving out the driver’s side window as she turns onto the main road. He pulls the slip of paper out of his pocket to look at it again, the ink smudged a little from the sweat on his fingers, already running through the stacks of reclaimed white oak he has stacked behind his garage that would match the exposed brick walls she described in her shop.
