Rafe Mendez, 53, has restored over 400 vintage outboard motors in the 12 years he’s run his shop on the edge of Michigan’s Gun Lake, and he’s got grease under his fingernails that even a week of heavy scrubbing won’t lift. He’s spent the last eight years avoiding anything that feels like unnecessary social interaction, ever since his ex-wife left him for a guy who sold 200-horsepower speedboats and thought Rafe’s obsession with 1960s Evinrudes was “cute but unprofitable.” He’d planned to skip the town’s annual summer street fair entirely, until the fair board begged him to donate a refurbished motor for the raffle, and he caved more out of nostalgia for the fair he’d loved as a kid than any desire to be around crowds.
He hesitates before walking over to the parks department booth, where she’s selling homemade peach cobbler slices to raise money for the kids’ summer fishing program. A group of teens jostles past him, and he stumbles forward a little, his palm brushing the soft curve of her waist above the waistband of her cutoff jeans when he catches himself on the edge of the booth. He flinches back like he’s been burned, but she just smirks, wiping a smudge of peach filling off her wrist with the back of her hand. “Thought you said you were boycotting all town events this year until the development vote was over,” she says, leaning her elbows on the booth edge so she’s closer to him, her tank top slipping a little off one shoulder.
He grunts, nodding at the stack of cobbler tins behind her. “Donated the raffle motor. Was just leaving.” He can hear the strain in his own voice, can feel his face heating up like he’s 16 again talking to a girl at the fair midway. She tilts her head, her grin softening a little, and she reaches behind her to grab a paper plate with a thick slice of cobbler, still oozing warm syrup. “Don’t leave yet. This is for you. I brought extra, just in case you showed up.” She holds it across the booth to him, and their fingers brush when he takes it, the shock of the contact zipping up his arm so fast he almost drops the plate.
He’s halfway through a mumbled thank you when she leans in even closer, her voice low enough that only he can hear it over the crowd noise. “For the record, I filed for divorce last Tuesday. Haven’t spoken to my husband in six weeks, and I think his development plan is a garbage fire that’s gonna ruin the lake for every kid who grew up here like we did.” She pauses, her knee brushing his through the slats of the booth, her eyes steady on his, no hint of the professional parks director detachment she uses at county meetings. “Also? I’ve been stopping by your shop way more than I needed to check on that Johnson. I just liked listening to you talk about motors. You don’t treat me like someone’s wife, or like the person who’s supposed to approve park permits. You just talk to me like I know what a spark plug is.”
Rafe stares at her for a second, the cobbler sweet and warm on his tongue, the faint coconut scent of her sunscreen mixing with the smell of fried dough from the booth next door. He’d spent three months dragging his feet on restoring her dad’s motor, just so she’d keep coming by, but he’d never thought she’d admit she was doing the same. He laughs, a rough, rusty sound he hasn’t made in years, and wipes a crumb of cobbler crust off his chin. “I’ve been taking my time on that motor for the exact same reason. Didn’t want you to stop showing up.”
She laughs, bright and loud, and grabs a napkin from the stack next to her, scribbling a phone number on it in blue ballpoint before tucking it into the breast pocket of his grease-stained Carhartt shirt. Her fingers brush his chest through the fabric, and he doesn’t flinch this time. “Bring the motor out to my rental cabin on the north shore Saturday. We can test it on my dad’s old boat, drink cheap beer, no talk of development votes or exes or county committees. Deal?”
He nods, tucking the napkin deeper into his pocket so it doesn’t blow away, and takes another bite of cobbler. The band starts playing “Folsom Prison Blues” louder down the block, and a group of kids runs past, chasing each other with cotton candy. He walks back to his beat-up Ford F-150 a few minutes later, crumpling the empty paper plate in his hand, already running through a mental list of extra spark plugs and fuel line parts to throw in the truck bed Saturday morning.
