Ronan Hale, 59, made his living restoring vintage neon signs out of a converted Asheville River Arts District garage, and he’d spent the last six years intentionally walling himself off from neighborhood social events, convinced any small-town connection would curdle into messy gossip the second things went south. He’d only showed up to the late October block party because his biggest client, the woman who owned the downtown vintage theater, had promised him first dibs on a stack of 1950s marquee signs she’d pulled from a demolished Kentucky drive-in if he stuck around for at least an hour. He leaned against a weathered red brick wall, sipping spiked spiced cider from a compostable cup, his work boots still dusted with faint blue phosphor powder from the “DINER” sign he’d finished that morning, and pointedly avoided eye contact with every passing group that tried to wave him over for small talk.
The collision came out of nowhere. One second he was staring at the warm white string lights strung between the oak trees, the next a woman tripped over a toddler’s runaway stroller, sloshing half a cup of hot cocoa down the sleeve of his worn gray flannel. She yelped an apology, fumbling for the crumpled napkins in her jacket pocket, and Ronan’s first instinct was to brush her off, mumble that it was fine, and make a break for his truck before he got roped into a half hour conversation about his work. Then she laughed, a low, warm sound, and said, “For the record, I already owe the dive bar down the street a new wooden coaster I broke last week, so I’m running a very impressive tally of neighborhood property I’ve ruined since I moved here three months ago.” She was in her late 40s, with streaks of silver in her chestnut hair, silver hoop earrings that caught the string light glow, and she smelled like cinnamon and vanilla hand lotion, faint enough that he only picked it up when she leaned in to dab at the cocoa stain on his sleeve.
She was the new part-time librarian at the local branch, she said, had moved to Asheville from Portland after her kid left for college, and she’d been curious about his shop for weeks, ever since she’d walked past it during a rainstorm and seen a neon pink flamingo sign glowing in the front window. She stood close enough that her shoulder brushed his every time someone squeezed past on the crowded sidewalk, and when he told her about the process of bending glass tubes over an open flame and filling them with noble gasses, she held eye contact a beat longer than polite, no polite glaze of disinterest most people got when he rambled about his work. He found himself telling her about the divorce that had pushed him out of Chicago, how half his friend group had picked sides, how he’d moved south assuming keeping to himself would save him the hassle of messy, unresolved connections. The admission sat heavy in his chest for half a second, and he almost regretted it, until she nodded and said she’d done the same thing when she first moved, avoided the block parties until the library director had practically dragged her to this one, convinced she was turning into a hermit who only talked to her rescue beagle and tattered 1980s romance novels.
He laughed, a rough, rusty sound he didn’t make often enough, and realized he hadn’t felt this light, this unguarded, in almost eight years. When the song ended, they didn’t let go of each other’s hands. He asked her if she wanted to come by his shop, that he had a half-restored neon martini glass sign he’d been working on for a new cocktail bar, that he could plug it in, and he had a six pack of oat stout in his mini fridge he’d been meaning to crack open. She said yes, squeezed his hand, and told him she just had to drop her empty cocoa cups in the trash can first, and if he was okay with dogs, she could bring her beagle by the next day, he loved chasing the glow of flashlights and would probably lose his mind over the wall of glowing signs. He nodded, leaning back against the brick wall as she walked toward the trash can, the string lights gilding the silver streaks in her hair, and he realized he’d already forgotten he was supposed to leave an hour prior.
