Elio Rizzo, 62, retired commercial abalone diver, trudges into Salty’s Taphouse at 6 p.m. on a sweltering July Tuesday. His window unit died at 2 that afternoon, he’d spent four hours trying to rewire it before admitting he was beat, knew the bar kept their AC cranked so low you could see your breath if you stood right under the vent. He’d skipped the last three neighborhood mixers his daughter begged him to go to, said the whole idea of meeting people to “make friends” at his age was garbage, he had his dive knives to sharpen, his heirloom tomato plants to water, that was more than enough. He slides onto the last empty stool at the bar, flags the bartender for a hazy IPA, doesn’t glance left or right.
The jukebox spits out Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” low enough that you can still hear the clink of beer mugs and the distant bark of sea lions from the wharf two blocks over. He’s just peeling the label off his second beer when a woman’s elbow brushes his sunburnt bicep as she reaches past him for the plastic napkin caddy. He turns to grumble, stops short. It’s Mara Hale, his daughter Lila’s 10th grade AP Lit teacher, the one who’d called him once in 2017 to say Lila’s poem about her mom’s terminal cancer was good enough to submit to a state contest. He hadn’t seen her since Lila graduated, always pictured her in the boxy blazers and floor-length skirts she wore to parent-teacher conferences, but tonight she’s in a faded blue linen shirt unbuttoned at the collar, cutoff jeans that show bare ankles dusted with freckles, white canvas sneakers caked in beach sand.
She grins when she recognizes him, says Lila’s name like it’s a good memory, not something heavy he carries around in his chest pocket. He tenses up at first, that old instinct to shut down when someone connects him to the parts of his life he doesn’t talk about much, but she doesn’t push. She says she moved back to Monterey six months prior, took a part-time gig at the public library after her divorce went final, got tired of grading essays at 2 a.m. for a district that didn’t pay her enough to fix her own rusted sedan. He finds himself leaning in without meaning to, their stools pushed so close their knees brush every time one of them shifts, the cold condensation from her sparkling lime seltzer can dripping onto his wrist when she sets it down between them. He smells lavender lotion mixed with salt air and the faint, sweet tang of the peach sour candy she’s popping into her mouth one at a time, from a crumpled bag next to her drink.
He teases her about the time Lila told him she’d made the whole class read Jack Kerouac even though the district banned it, she laughs so hard she snorts, claps a hand over her mouth, and he feels a jolt low in his gut he hasn’t felt since his wife was alive, the kind of jolt that makes you feel 22 again, like you’re about to do something stupid and perfect. He fights it at first, tells himself this is wrong, she’s Lila’s old teacher, he’s not supposed to look at the way her sun-streaked hair falls over her shoulder when she tilts her head to listen, he’s not supposed to notice the tiny dolphin tattoo peeking out from under her scuffed silver watch band, he’s not supposed to want to ask her what she’s doing tomorrow. The sharp, uncomfortable disgust at his own thoughts wars with the warmth spreading up his neck, and he sits back for a second, grabs his beer, takes a long, burning sip.
She doesn’t seem to notice his internal spiral, mentions she’s been wanting to kayak the sheltered cove at Point Lobos for weeks but her sister is terrified of the aggressive sea lions that hang out near the rock formations, doesn’t want to go alone. The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them: I’ve got two kayaks in the garage behind my house. High tide’s at 7 a.m. tomorrow. No crowds, no tourist boats zooming around scaring the otters. She blinks, then smiles, slow and bright, and he doesn’t even feel guilty anymore, doesn’t feel like he’s breaking some unspoken rule, just feels like he’s been holding his breath for 8 years and finally let it out.
They exchange numbers, she scribbles her address on a crumpled bar napkin with a ballpoint pen she pulls from her shirt pocket, leaves a smudge of blue library stamp ink on the corner. He walks her to her beat up sedan parked half a block away, the air still warm enough that he doesn’t need the frayed flannel tied around his waist, they don’t touch on the walk but their shoulders brush every three steps, and he can still hear her laugh when she says she’ll bring the coffee, black, no sugar, just how he likes it, like she’d paid attention when he mentioned it 20 minutes earlier.
He drives home, his AC still broken, the sweat beading on his forehead doesn’t even bother him. He pulls the framed copy of Lila’s old contest-winning poem off the workbench in his garage that night, runs a finger over the frayed edge of the paper, texts Lila a photo of it, says you’ll never guess who I ran into at the bar today. He checks the straps on both kayaks twice before he goes to bed, sets his alarm for 6 a.m., no snooze. He falls asleep with his phone on the nightstand, and when the notification ping for her goodnight text buzzes, he grins so wide his cheeks hurt.
