Manny Rocha, 61, retired high school welding instructor, stands at the edge of the west Kennewick block party, lukewarm IPA in a crinkly plastic cup in one hand, the other stuffed in the pocket of his worn work jeans. He’d only agreed to come because his next door neighbor, a 72-year-old retired nurse named Margot, had showed up on his porch that morning holding a jar of pickled okra and begging him to bring his famous smoked baked beans, saying the last three potlucks had been nothing but store-bought potato salad and sad veggie trays. He’d planned to stay 10 minutes max, drop off the beans, grab a beer, and head back to his garage where he was restoring a 1972 Ford F-150 he’d picked up at an auction in June. He’s already running through the list of parts he needs to order when someone slams into his elbow hard enough that half his beer sloshes onto the parched brown grass at his feet.
He looks down, ready to snap, and finds himself staring at a woman holding a chipped ceramic bowl piled high with peach cobbler, freckles flaring across her nose as she flusters out an apology. She’s 58, he later learns, widowed two years prior, moved into the old Henderson house three months back, runs a small succulent and native plant shop downtown. Her gray hair is streaked with honey blonde, pulled back in a messy braid threaded with a piece of blue twine, and her overalls have a sunflower embroidered on the left breast pocket, work boots caked with dark potting soil. She dabs at the wet spot on his faded welding department ball cap and the front of his gray cotton t-shirt with a crumpled paper napkin, her knuckles brushing the soft hair on his chest through the thin fabric, and he catches the scent of lavender hand salve and peppermint gum on her, the warm sweet cinnamon of the cobbler drifting up from the bowl in her other hand.
He grumbles about wasting a perfectly good IPA, and she snorts, the sound bright and unapologetic, and shoves a plastic fork into the cobbler, holding a heaping bite out to him as reparation. He hesitates. For 18 years, ever since his ex-wife left him for a real estate agent from Spokane, he’s kept everyone but his two grown kids at arm’s length, no dates, no side jobs that require talking to people for more than 10 minutes, no unnecessary interactions that could end up with him getting played for a fool. But the cobbler smells too good, and she’s leaning in just enough that her shoulder brushes his bicep, her hazel eyes flecked with gold not looking away like most people do when he’s in one of his gruffer moods, so he takes the bite. The peaches are ripe, still warm from the oven, the crust crumbly and buttery, and he can’t stop the small grunt of approval that escapes him.
They talk for 20 minutes straight, the noise of the party fading into background static. She tells him she’s been bugging every neighbor for weeks looking for someone who can weld a new frame for the raised herb beds behind her shop, says her late husband used to handle all the handy work before he passed from pancreatic cancer, and she’d tried to weld it herself last month and burned a hole through the side of her shed. She holds up her left wrist to show him the faint, silvery burn scar curling around her bone, and he finds himself leaning in to get a better look, his calloused finger brushing the edge of the scar before he thinks better of it. He tenses, waiting for her to pull away, but she just smiles, soft, and doesn’t move.
He’s halfway through making an excuse about being too busy with his truck to take on side work when a kid on a scooter zooms past, followed by a water balloon that hits her square in the shoulder, soaking through the shoulder of her overalls. She yelps, tipping the cobbler bowl forward, and he grabs her arm with his free hand to steady her, their faces suddenly six inches apart, the heat from her skin seeping through the wet denim of her sleeve. He can see the faint laugh lines around her eyes, the smudge of potting soil on her right cheek, and she doesn’t pull away, just smirks and says it looks like they’re both a mess today.
He blinks, the excuse he’d been rehearsing dying on his tongue. He tells her he can be at her shop at 2 p.m. Thursday, if she has the steel cut to size already, no charge as long as she saves him the entire next cobbler she bakes, no handing out slices to nosy neighbors. She grins so wide the corners of her eyes crinkle, scribbles her address and cell number on a napkin she pulls from the pocket of her overalls, and presses it into his palm, her fingers lingering on his for three full seconds before she turns to wave at a group of women calling her name from across the street.
He stands there holding the crumpled napkin, the last of his beer warm in his other hand, the taste of cinnamon and peach still thick on his tongue, and when Margot walks over a minute later to tease him about not bailing early like he planned, he doesn’t even argue. He pulls a folding chair out from under the table, sits down, and asks where the rest of that cobbler went.
