Rafe Mendez is 57, makes his living restoring antique firetrucks out of a cinder block shop 20 miles outside Boise, and hasn’t spoken to a single member of his late wife’s extended family since Thanksgiving 2021. He’d showed up to that dinner unvaccinated, red-faced and defensive, spouting talking points he’d pulled off a random Facebook forum, and when Elara’s cousin’s daughter Lila called him selfish for risking the health of her immunocompromised little brother, he’d stormed out and never looked back. He’d only agreed to enter his fully restored 1962 Mack pumper in the county fair’s vintage vehicle show because his 19-year-old apprentice had begged, said the 120 hours he’d spent polishing the chrome and reupholstering the bench seat would go to waste if no one saw it.
He’s leaned against the truck’s sun-warmed red fender, picking at a fleck of road dust stuck in the clear coat, when he hears his name. He looks up and it’s Lila, 42, wearing scuffed work boots, high-waisted denim, a linen button down rolled to the elbows, a judge’s lanyard slung around her neck, a smudge of cotton candy pink on the inside of her left wrist. She’s the last person he expected to see, and his shoulders hunch automatically, like he’s bracing for a fight. He half expects her to turn and walk away, but she just smirks, leaning in to run a finger along the brass hose nozzle he’d mounted on the running board the week prior. Her forearm brushes his bicep as she reaches, and he catches a whiff of jasmine and lemon Pledge, the latter from polishing the vintage John Deere entry she’d judged ten minutes earlier.
He mumbles a greeting, already planning an excuse to leave, but she’s already asking about the custom valve covers he’d milled himself, and he can’t help but answer. They talk for ten minutes before she brings up the Thanksgiving fight, and he flinches, admits he got the vaccine six months later, after a bout of pneumonia landed him in the ER and a nurse had told him he would’ve ended up intubated if he’d caught COVID at the same time. He says he was an idiot, grieving and angry at the world after Elara died, taking it out on anyone who tried to tell him what to do. Lila softens, sitting down on the running board next to him, her knee knocking against his when she shifts to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. She says she gets it, she worked 18-hour days running the county’s mobile vaccine clinics for eight straight months, lost three friends to COVID, was sharp with everyone back then, even people who didn’t deserve it.
The fair noise fades to background hum for a minute: the creak of the Ferris wheel, the twang of the country cover band playing by the grandstand, the distant scream of a kid on the Tilt-A-Whirl. Rafe pulls the door of the truck open to show her the custom dash plaque he’d had engraved, Elara’s name scrolled across the top, below it the line “In honor of 12 years of riding tailboard and burning toast for breakfast.” Lila leans in to read it, her hair falling over his shoulder, and he can feel the heat of her cheek inches from his, the soft ends of her hair brushing the side of his neck. When she looks up, their eyes lock for three full seconds, neither looking away, and Rafe doesn’t feel the sharp stab of guilt he expected, just a quiet, warm thrum in his chest, the first time he’s felt anything close to that since Elara died. She brushes a fleck of sawdust off the front of his faded flannel, her thumb brushing his collarbone as she pulls her hand back, and he doesn’t flinch.
She finishes filling out her scorecard a few minutes later, hands him a blue first place ribbon, and slips a folded scrap of paper under the edge of it before she stands up. She says she knows a taco place off Highway 21 that serves smoked brisket tacos and horchata on tap, asks if he wants to meet her there after the fair closes, says she’s always wanted to learn how to polish brass, could help him finish the small pumper he’s got in the shop next weekend. He tucks the note in the pocket of his work pants, the paper warm from her hand, and nods, too stunned to say anything clever. She grins, turning to walk toward the next entry, the sun gilding the edges of her hair as she goes. He twists the blue ribbon between his calloused fingers, already counting down the hours until the fair shuts down for the night.
