Rafe Marlow, 61, vintage camper restorer, leans against the dented aluminum side of his half-finished 1972 Airstream, cold Coors Banquet sweating through the paper coozie in his calloused hand. He only agreed to show up to the block party because his old fishing buddy Jesse had begged him to bring his famous peach cobbler, the one he bakes once a summer with fruit from the tree in his backyard. He’d planned to drop the pan and bolt 10 minutes later, but the sun is warm on his face, the smell of grilled brats and pine hangs thick in the mountain air, and Jesse’s already dragged a folding chair over for him, so he stays.
He’s half listening to Jesse rant about the town council’s new parking restrictions when he spots her. Elara Voss, 58, the woman who moved into the cottage next door three months prior, the one he’s only exchanged two-word waves with through the hedge separating their properties. She’s carrying a Tupperware stacked high with pickled okra, flip flops slapping the asphalt, when her foot catches on a kid’s discarded skateboard. She stumbles forward, arms windmilling, and Rafe pushes off the Airstream before he thinks, reaching out to wrap his hand around her bare elbow to steady her.
His palm is rough from 20 years of sanding aluminum and tightening camper frame bolts, and he feels the soft heat of her skin through the thin layer of coconut sunscreen she’s wearing. Part of him screams to pull away, to retreat back to his garage where the only things he has to fix are aluminum frames and broken water heaters, no messy feelings or risk of heartbreak to navigate. The other part, the part he’s buried for 12 years, wants to hold on longer. She laughs, a low, throaty sound, and doesn’t pull away when he holds on a beat longer than necessary to make sure she’s steady. “Swear I’m not usually this much of a disaster,” she says, hazel eyes locking onto his, a faint pink flush high on her cheekbones. She smells like jasmine and the salted caramel lollipop she’s got tucked behind her ear, and Rafe’s throat goes dry. He’s spent 12 years actively avoiding any situation that might lead to something more than a casual chat with a stranger, ever since his ex-wife left him for a luxury RV salesman who could give her the cross-country road trips Rafe kept saying they’d take “once he finished this next restoration.”
He finally lets go of her elbow, and she sets the Tupperware of okra on the folding table next to his cobbler, leaning against the Airstream beside him. Their shoulders brush when she shifts her weight, and Rafe tenses for half a second before he relaxes, letting the warmth of her arm seep through the faded cotton of his Carhartt work shirt. She tells him she runs the used record store downtown, the one with the neon Jimi Hendrix sign in the window, that she moved out here from Chicago after her ex-husband died, looking for somewhere quieter where she didn’t have to answer to anyone but herself. She asks him about the Airstream, and he finds himself rambling about the 1968 Shasta he’s restoring for a 17-year-old kid who’s been mowing lawns for two years to save up for it, planning to drive the west coast after he graduates high school.
The noise of the party fades into background static: a guy playing Johnny Cash on a beat up acoustic guitar three yards over, kids screaming as they chase a golden retriever with a popsicle stuck in its fur, the crackle of the grill. Their knees keep brushing when they reach for the paper plate of cobbler they’re sharing, and every time it happens, Rafe feels a jolt run up his spine, half fear, half something softer he hasn’t felt in years. He notices the thin scar across her left knuckle, and she tells him she got it when she was 12, crashing her bike into a barbed wire fence trying to outrun her older brother. She notices the faded tattoo of a wrench on his wrist, and he tells he got it the day he opened his restoration shop, back in 2003.
He’s halfway through telling her about the time a customer brought in a 1959 Scotty that had a family of raccoons living in the ceiling when she leans in closer, her shoulder pressing fully against his, and he stops talking mid-sentence. “I’ve been meaning to knock on your door for weeks,” she says, voice low enough that only he can hear it, “I tried to fix the screen door on my back porch last weekend and messed up the hinges so bad it won’t even close. Figured a guy who fixes whole campers for a living could probably handle a dumb screen door.”
Rafe’s first instinct is to make an excuse, say he’s swamped with work, say he doesn’t do side jobs, all the lines he’s used for 12 years to keep people at a distance. But he looks at her, at the way the sun is catching the turquoise stones in her silver necklace, at the faint smudge of okra brine on her lower lip, and the excuses die in his throat. “I can come over tomorrow around 2,” he says, “I’ve got all the hinge parts I need in my garage. We can grill steaks after, if you want. I’ve got a bottle of bourbon I’ve been saving for no good reason.”
She grins, reaches up to wipe a crumb of peach cobbler off his stubble with her thumb, the pad of her finger brushing his lip for half a second before she pulls her hand away. “I’ll have the porch swept and cold lemonade waiting,” she says. She picks up her now-empty Tupperware, waves at a group of kids calling her name, and walks back toward her cottage, the hem of her cut-off denim shirt fluttering in the light mountain breeze.
Rafe takes a long sip of his beer, watching her unlock her back gate and step inside. Jesse claps him on the back, muttering something about it being about damn time he talked to the neighbor, and Rafe doesn’t even bother to argue. He picks up the empty cobbler pan, wipes the condensation off his jeans, and starts walking toward his own garage to pull out the hinge parts he’ll need tomorrow.
