Elias Voss is 61, a vintage camper restorer who runs his one-man operation out of a converted hay barn 12 miles outside Asheville, North Carolina. He’s a stubborn son of a bitch, has refused to hire help even when his knees ache so bad he can barely climb into the shell of a 1970s Airstream, and he’s avoided anything resembling casual connection since his wife packed her bags and moved to Portland eight years prior, claiming he cared more about rotting aluminum and peeling linoleum than he ever cared about her. He only leaves the barn three times a week: for groceries, to drop off finished builds, and for the weekly vintage vehicle meetup at the downtown beer garden on Saturday afternoons, where he can drink frosty IPAs and talk shop with guys who don’t nag him about “opening up” or “dating again.”
The air smells like pine, citronella candles, and burnt pretzels the first Saturday Clara shows up. Elias is kneeling by the chrome bumper of the Airstream he’s finishing for a retired couple from Florida, buffing out a scratch with a microfiber cloth, when he sees her step around a jacked-up 1987 F150, boots crunching peanut shells scattered across the asphalt. He knows who she is immediately. She’s Clara Hale, the ex-wife of the town’s new mayor, the one everyone’s been gossiping about for three months, ever since she served him divorce papers mid-term and leaked proof he’d been cheating on her with his 28-year-old chief of staff. The mayor’s been telling every local who’ll listen that she’s unstable, vindictive, not to be trusted, and all the regulars at the meetup have made a point of ignoring her, scared the mayor’ll sic the county permit office on their small businesses if they’re caught fraternizing.
She heads straight for his Airstream, no hesitation, and leans against the open door frame, close enough he can smell coconut shampoo and the sharp mint of her spearmint gum over the hops in the air. “That terracotta tile in the kitchen backsplash,” she says, nodding toward the interior, not bothering with small talk. He tenses first, glancing over at the picnic table where the other meetup regulars are staring, eyes wide, waiting to see what he’ll do. He almost tells her to beat it, almost makes up an excuse about being busy, but then she locks eyes with him, dark brown crinkling at the corners like she already knows he’s not enough of an asshole to turn her away, and his throat goes dry.
“Old pottery studio up in Mars Hill,” he says, wiping his greasy hands on the front of his worn denim overalls, standing so he’s eye level with her. “Shut down back in 2019, I bought the last of their stock for pennies on the dollar.” She leans in a little more to get a better look at the tile, and when she reaches out to run her index finger along the glazed edge, her knuckle brushes his, warm and calloused, and he doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t apologize, just smirks, and says she bought a beat up 1968 Scotty camper last week, wants it gutted and redone so she can live in it half the year, travel the Blue Ridge Parkway without having to pay for overpriced motel rooms.
He’s halfway to saying no before he even thinks about it. He knows the mayor will throw a fit if he takes her job, knows the guy could make his life a living hell, show up at his barn for “random inspections” every other week, fine him for stupid shit like the cracked step leading into his workshop, make it impossible for him to get permits to haul builds across state lines. But then she tilts her head, and he can see the faint scar above her left eyebrow, the freckles scattered across her nose from spending too much time outside, and he realizes he’s been bored out of his mind for eight years, just going through the motions, polishing chrome and laying tile and drinking alone in his barn every night, too scared of what people might say to do anything that even resembles fun.
He’s about to open his mouth to give her his card when the mayor walks up, slicked back hair and too-tight polo, fake smile plastered across his face. “Clara,” he says, voice too loud, drawing stares from the whole beer garden, “what are you doing bothering this hardworking man? You know you don’t know the first thing about campers.” Elias tenses, and before he can think better of it, he shifts his weight, stepping so his shoulder is pressed firm against hers, close enough he can feel the heat of her arm through her faded Fleetwood Mac tee. “She’s not bothering me,” he says, voice steady, no trace of the hesitation he felt five minutes prior. “We’re talking about a job. She’s got a Scotty she wants redone.” The mayor’s face goes bright red, mutters something about people making stupid choices they’ll regret, and storms off.
Clara laughs, soft and low, and leans into his shoulder a little more. “You didn’t have to do that,” she says. “He’s petty as hell, he’ll make your life miserable for a few months.” Elias snorts, pulling his business card out of his overalls pocket, scribbling his personal cell number on the back in blue ballpoint. “Good,” he says. “I’ve been looking for an excuse to stop kissing his ass ever since he denied my request to pave the dirt road leading to my barn last year. Bring the Scotty by the shop Tuesday morning, 9 a.m. I’ll give you a quote, we’ll drink that terrible gas station coffee you can smell three blocks from the front door.”
She tucks the card in the back pocket of her cutoffs, and when she brushes a strand of windblown hair off her forehead, her fingertips graze his jaw for half a second, warm and deliberate, before she turns to walk back to her beat up olive green Subaru. She calls over her shoulder that she’ll be there, don’t be late, and he nods, leaning back against the Airstream bumper, picking up his half-drunk IPA that’s gone warm in the sun. He watches her pull out of the parking lot, tires kicking up a little gravel, and realizes he hasn’t looked forward to a Tuesday in almost a decade.
