Rafe Marquez, 57, has made a living for 22 years restoring vintage travel trailers out of his cinder block workshop on the edge of Fredericksburg, Texas. He’s stubborn to a fault, has held a grudge against fellow restorer Todd Hargrove for six years running after Todd poached a six-figure Airstream client by lying about Rafe’s wait time, and hasn’t so much as nodded at anyone in the Hargrove family since his divorce finalized eight years prior. His sister dragged him to the annual town chili cookoff against his will, saying he’d spent three straight weekends sanding trailer undercarriages and needed to interact with actual human beings instead of rusted bolts and peel-and-stick tile.
He’s leaned against the bed of his beat-up 2001 Ford F-150, sweating through the sleeves of his faded navy work flannel, nursing a lukewarm Lonestar, when Elara Hargrove steps into the shade next to him. He’s only seen her from a distance before, usually trailing two steps behind Todd at restoration conventions, carrying his tool bag and nodding along while he brags about his supposed award-winning builds. Today she’s wearing cutoff denim shorts that show the faint scar on her left calf from a hiking accident, a white linen shirt unbuttoned one notch lower than most churchgoing folks in town would approve of, and worn white leather sneakers caked with dust from the fairground parking lot. She smells like coconut sunscreen and smoked paprika, the latter probably seeped into her shirt from stirring Todd’s chili all morning.
She reaches for the stack of paper napkins on the tailgate next to his half-eaten bowl of chili at the same time he reaches for his bottle of habanero hot sauce. Their knuckles brush, and he notices the thick callus on her index finger, the same kind he has from holding a sanding block for hours on end. He’d always assumed Todd did all the work on his trailers. “Sorry,” she says, pulling her hand back, and her voice is lower than he expected, rougher, like she spends a lot of time yelling over power tools. She doesn’t move away, just leans her hip against the tailgate six inches from his, their knees almost touching when he shifts his weight.
He tenses up first, fully expecting her to make a dig about his chili, or ask him to stay away from the judge’s table so Todd can win the $500 grand prize like he did last year. Instead she nods at the chipped Airstream logo sticker on his work boot, and says she saw the 1962 Flying Cloud he posted to the local restoration group last month. “The wood paneling in the kitchen was perfect,” she says, and there’s real admiration in her tone, no snark, no agenda. “Todd would’ve cut corners, used cheap veneer, acted like it was custom milled. He doesn’t care about the details, just the check at the end.”
Rafe blinks, unsure how to respond. He’s spent six years writing off everyone associated with Todd as a shallow, lying opportunist, but he can’t look away from the flecks of gold in her brown eyes, or the way she tucks a strand of sun-bleached hair behind her ear with that same calloused finger. She teases him about the bright red oil stain on the knee of his jeans, says it matches the stain on the pair she wore last week when she stripped the sealant off a 1971 Scotty. He teases her back about the neon pink hair tie around her wrist, says it clashes with the silver vintage trailer necklace she’s wearing. She laughs, a loud, unselfconscious sound that cuts through the noise of the country band playing on the stage 50 feet away, and says she keeps it on hand for when she’s sanding, and Todd has never once commented on it.
The tension between them thickens, slow and warm, like the heat rising off the asphalt. They don’t talk about Todd for ten whole minutes, swapping stories about worst restoration mistakes, the time Rafe dropped a full can of paint on a client’s brand new patio, the time Elara accidentally drilled through a water line in a trailer and flooded Todd’s entire workshop. He keeps glancing down at her mouth when she talks, and he catches her glancing at his hands, crisscrossed with small scars from power tools and scrap metal, when he gestures with his beer bottle. Their shoulders brush when a group of kids runs past yelling, and neither of them moves away.
Todd yells her name from the cookoff tent, loud and sharp, and she rolls her eyes so hard Rafe can see the whites of them for half a second. She leans in closer, her shoulder pressing fully against his, and he can feel the heat of her skin through his flannel. “I’m filing for divorce next month,” she whispers, so quiet only he can hear it. “I found a 1958 Shasta for sale an hour outside of town, no rot, original fixtures. I don’t want Todd’s help with it. I want yours. No pay, just all the cold beer and carnitas tacos you can eat, whenever you want.”
Rafe’s first instinct is to say no, to tell her it’s too messy, that everyone in town will talk, that he doesn’t need the drama of getting tangled up with his worst rival’s almost ex-wife. But he looks at her, at the smudge of chili powder on her cheek, at the callus on her finger, at the way she’s looking at him like she already knows he’s the only person in town who gets how satisfying it is to bring something old and neglected back to life, and the knot of loneliness he’s carried in his chest for eight years loosens, just a little.
He pulls a beat up Sharpie out of his flannel pocket, scribbles his cell number on the back of his chili contest entry slip, and presses it into her palm, his fingers lingering against hers for three slow beats. She tucks the slip into the breast pocket of her linen shirt, taps it once with her finger, and winks before turning to walk back toward the tent. He takes a long sip of his now warm beer, watches Todd grab her arm roughly to yank her over to the judge’s table where his chili is laid out, and makes a mental note to clear his entire workshop schedule for next Saturday.
