Manny Rocha, 53, has run his vintage motorcycle restoration shop out of a cinder block building in East Austin for 17 years, and for 8 of those years, he’s avoided every neighborhood block party, potluck, and silly holiday parade like they were contagious. His ex-wife left him for a commercial real estate broker at a 2015 neighborhood Christmas party, and he’s never shaken the sour taste of forced small talk mixed with public humiliation. The only reason he’s here tonight is his 19-year-old niece, Lila, who set up a folding table by his shop’s rollup door selling homemade beef empanadas to raise money for her community college nursing degree. He’s got a cold Shiner Bock in one hand, the other tucked into the pocket of his oil-stained Carhartts, and he’s doing his level best not to look at the woman who moved into the bungalow right next to his shop six months prior.
The whole neighborhood gossips about Elara Voss. She’s 49, wears cutoff denim jackets over silk camisoles even when the temperature drops below 60, has a sparrow tattoo peeking out behind her left ear, and used to tour as a burlesque performer before she moved to Austin to care for her ailing grandmother. Older folks on the block tsk when she walks by, say she’s too loud, too quick to laugh too hard at bad jokes, too unapologetic about the past she doesn’t bother hiding. Manny’s told himself a hundred times messing with a neighbor is the stupidest possible move, that he’s got no business craving any kind of connection that isn’t with a rusted 1972 Triumph engine, that the gossip would be more trouble than it’s worth. He’s halfway through his second beer when she saunters over to Lila’s table, pulls a crumpled $20 out of her jacket pocket, and asks for three empanadas.
She’s closer than he expects when she reaches for the napkin holder he’s been holding for Lila, her bare shoulder brushing the raised, pink scar that runs the length of his left forearm, leftover from a 2019 engine fire that landed him in the ER for three days. He flinches hard, not from pain, but from the sharp, electric tingle that zips all the way up his arm to the base of his skull. She apologizes immediately, her warm brown eyes locking onto his, no awkward look-away, no over-the-top concern, just a quiet, steady gaze. “That looks like it hurt like hell,” she says, nodding at the scar, and when she runs the tip of her index finger lightly along the edge of it, just for half a second, he forgets how to breathe. She tells him she has a matching tiny, silvery scar on her right wrist, from a pyrotechnic mishap at a 2013 show in New Orleans that burned through her costume and left her with a permanent fear of cheap sparklers.
They end up sitting on the curb 10 feet away from Lila’s table, eating empanadas while the sun dips pink below the oak tree canopies, their knees brushing every time one of them shifts to take a sip of beer. She asks him about the bikes he’s working on, leans in so close he can smell jasmine perfume mixed with the charcoal smoke from the block’s communal grill when he tells her about the 1968 Harley he’s restoring for a client in Dallas, and he doesn’t even realize he’s rambling until she laughs, low and warm, and says she could listen to him talk about carburetors all night. He’s torn between the familiar, cold twist of disgust at the idea of everyone on the block watching them, talking about them tomorrow over their morning coffee, and the hot, tight pull of desire in his chest, the kind he hasn’t felt since before his divorce, the kind that makes him want to lean in and kiss the crinkle at the corner of her eye when she smiles.
A group of teens down the street set off a box of cheap, illegal fireworks right as the last sliver of sun disappears, and one dud sparks and skitters straight toward Elara’s scuffed white converse. Manny yanks her toward him before he even thinks about it, her chest pressing flush against his for two full seconds, her hands fisted in the front of his Carhartt jacket, and she doesn’t pull away. She tilts her chin up to look at him, her pupils blown wide in the dim light from the string bulbs strung between the oak trees, and he almost kisses her right there, in front of half the neighborhood, before Lila yells his name from the table, says she needs help carrying a heavy cooler of soda out of the shop. He steps back fast, his face hot, mumbles an excuse, and turns to help his niece.
He’s gone 10 minutes tops, and when he comes back, Elara’s still sitting on the curb, holding a cold Shiner Bock she picked up for him, her legs stretched out in front of her. He sits down next to her, takes the beer, and she tells him she’s got a beat-up 1971 Honda CB350 sitting in her garage, hasn’t run in 12 years, she’s been meaning to ask someone to look at it. He tells her he can come over tomorrow morning, 9 a.m., bring his toolkit, no charge if she’s got good coffee. She smirks, runs her finger along the rim of her beer bottle, says she’s got the good Cuban stuff her mom ships her from Miami every month, enough to keep him there all afternoon if the bike’s as busted as she thinks it is. The last firework bursts bright magenta over the rooftops down the street, painting the side of his shop pink for half a second, and she leans her shoulder against his, warm and solid, and he doesn’t pull away.
