Ronan O’Malley, 57, makes his living restoring antique typewriters out of a converted two-car garage in western Massachusetts, and he hates crowds. He’s got permanent ink under his fingernails, calluses across his thumb pads from prying rusted type bars free, and he still wears faded wool flannel even on 78-degree summer afternoons, cuffs frayed where he wipes excess lubricant off on them. He’d only agreed to come to the Hatfield town fair because 16-year-old Javi, the kid next door, begged him as repayment for fixing his custom gaming PC for free, and he’d caved faster than he wanted to admit. He’s standing by the beer tent nursing a cold Sam Adams, half-watching a group of kids chase each other with cotton candy sticks, when a blur of neon pink streaks past his left side. He twists to avoid getting sugar all over his shirt, and his elbow connects with soft, bare skin.
The woman he bumped into gasps, not from pain, but recognition. It’s Clara Voss, the 52-year-old town librarian, widow of the former county sheriff who passed three years prior, the woman everyone in town treats like a fragile, permanently grieving porcelain doll. She’s wearing a pale yellow linen sundress, cat-eye glasses perched on the end of her nose, a smudge of bright blue ink on her left wrist from stamping library cards that morning. She’d brought him a beat-up 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe to restore six months earlier, the machine her dad had taught her to type on, and he’d barely made eye contact the whole time she was in his shop, too used to avoiding small talk, too used to people looking at him like the reclusive weirdo who never left his garage. He mumbles an apology, already stepping back to leave, when she reaches out and touches his forearm, her fingers light as dandelion fluff.
She tells him the typewriter works perfectly, that she’s been writing poetry on it for the first time since college, that she’d been meaning to drop by his shop to thank him properly for months but was nervous he’d turn her away. He’s already mentally drafting an excuse to leave, telling himself this is a bad idea, that everyone in town watches her like hawks, that if anyone sees them talking for longer than 10 seconds the gossip mill will be churning by sunset, but then he catches a whiff of her perfume: lavender and lemon Pledge, the exact combination his late wife used to polish their kitchen table with, and the words die in his throat. They stand a foot apart at first, then a group of teen skateboarders roar past, and she shifts closer, her shoulder pressing solidly against his for three full seconds, heat seeping through the thin flannel of his shirt. She makes a dry joke about the fair’s deep-fried Oreos being a class B felony against public health, and he snorts, the first real, unforced laugh he’s had in at least two years.
The noise of the fair fades into background static as they talk. She tells him about the group of 10-year-olds who’ve been sneaking graphic novels into the picture book section to read after school, he tells her about the 1920s Underwood he’s restoring for a customer in Alaska that types in gold ink. He doesn’t notice when the sun dips below the treeline, when fireflies start blinking in the grass at their feet, until she tilts her head toward the tree line and asks if he wants to walk down to the creek behind the fairgrounds, get away from the noise for a little while. The part of him that’s spent eight years hiding from any kind of connection screams no, that this is reckless, that people will talk, that he’s going to get hurt again, but the other part of him, the part that’s been lonely for longer than he wants to admit, nods before he can think better of it.
The dirt path down to the creek is soft under his work boots, the distant twang of the fair’s country band getting quieter with every step. She stops next to a fallen white oak, its trunk covered in moss, and turns to face him, her cheeks pink from the humidity, glasses slipping down her nose. She says she liked that he didn’t treat her like a widow when she brought in the typewriter, that he didn’t ask about her husband, didn’t give her that sad, pitying look everyone else gives her, that he just talked to her about spring tension and key alignment like she was a regular person. He reaches out before he can stop himself, brushes the smudge of blue ink off her wrist with his thumb, his skin lingering on her pulse point long enough to feel it racing under his touch. She leans in first, her lips soft against his, tasting like peach iced tea and spearmint gum, and he doesn’t pull away. He wraps one arm around her waist, pulling her a little closer, the rough denim of his work pants brushing her bare calves, and for the first time in eight years, he doesn’t feel like he’s waiting for something bad to happen.
They stay there for 20 minutes, trading slow, easy kisses and quiet stories, no rush, no pressure. She scribbles her personal cell number on the back of a crumpled library hold slip, tells him she baked a peach pie that morning, and if he’s not busy tomorrow, she’d like to drop it off. He tucks the slip into the inner pocket of his flannel, patting it twice to make sure it doesn’t fall out. They agree to walk back to the fairgrounds 10 minutes apart, no need to give the town gossips more ammo than they already have. He drives home with the window rolled down, warm summer air blowing through his hair, and when he pulls into his driveway, he doesn’t head straight for the kitchen like he usually does. He walks into his shop, flips on the work light, and pulls the spare Royal typewriter shift key he’d set aside six months earlier, just in case she ever needed a replacement, out of his parts bin and sets it next to his coffee pot on the workbench.
