Manny Rios, 61, makes his living restoring antique typewriters out of a creaky brick storefront in northeast Portland, and his biggest flaw is that he’d rather spend three weeks fixing a stuck shift key on a 1927 Underwood than make small talk with a stranger. He’s been that way since his wife left him 12 years back, complaining he cared more about the serial numbers on old Remingtons than their anniversary dates, and he’s mostly fine with it. The only times he leaves his shop after hours are for weekly trivia at the corner beer garden, and the annual summer block party he can’t avoid without looking like a total hermit.
He’s leaning against the side of the taco truck, holding an IPA so cold the condensation is dripping down his wrist, when he spots her. Jules Marlow, 47, the kid who used to live next door to him when he first moved in, the one who’d sneak over to borrow his lawn darts and lie about where she was going to punk shows on school nights. She moved to New Mexico to teach art 25 years ago, he’d heard, and now she’s back to settle her mom’s estate after the old lady passed last spring. He’d been avoiding running into her, because the last memory he had of her was her 16th birthday, covered in cake frosting, begging him to let her use his workshop to make a birdhouse for her mom. The idea of looking at her as anything other than that loud, messy teen felt wrong, like he was breaking some unspoken rule.
She sees him before he can duck behind the taco truck, and waves, walking over fast, bare feet slapping against the warm asphalt. She’s wearing a faded linen dress, silver streaks laced through her dark wavy hair, paint smudges on her forearms and the side of her jaw. She smells like sandalwood and citrus when she pulls him in for a hug, her chest pressing against his for half a second too long, and he freezes, his hands hovering awkwardly over her back before he pats her once, unsure.
“Manny, I swear you haven’t aged a day,” she says, leaning back, holding eye contact for a beat longer than casual friends do. Her knee brushes his when she steps closer to avoid a group of kids running past with popsicles, and he can feel the heat of her skin through the thin fabric of his jeans. “I found my mom’s old Royal typewriter in the attic last week. It’s all jammed up. I was gonna ask if you could take a look at it for me. I’ll pay, obviously.”
He blinks, trying to shake the weird mix of guilt and interest swirling in his chest. This is wrong, he tells himself. You knew her when she was skipping class to smoke cigarettes behind the grocery store. But he can’t stop staring at the freckles across her nose, the way her lip tucks between her teeth when she’s waiting for an answer, the calluses on her fingers from holding paintbrushes that match the ink stains on his own hands from typewriter ribbons.
The mariachi band down the block strikes up a loud, brassy song, and she leans in closer so he can hear her, her breath warm against his ear. “I always had a crush on you, back then, you know?” she says, quiet enough only he can pick it up over the music. “Used to make up dumb excuses to knock on your door. Thought you were so cool, all covered in machine oil, fixing those old machines.”
He feels his face heat up, and he huffs a laugh, shaking his head. “I wondered why you kept asking to borrow my screwdriver set when you never fixed a damn thing,” he says, and she laughs, loud and bright, her hand landing on his forearm, her palm warm and heavy against his skin. She doesn’t move it for a full 10 seconds, while they watch a guy in a cowboy hat stumble past carrying three plates of grilled corn.
They sit on the curb for an hour after that, eating al pastor tacos and arguing about whether the taco truck guy puts too much cilantro on everything (he does, they both agree) and she tells him about teaching art to kids on tribal lands in New Mexico, and he tells her about the rare 1930s Corona he just finished restoring for a collector in Tokyo. She leans against his shoulder once when she laughs so hard she snorts, and he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away, doesn’t overthink it like he usually does. The guilt he felt earlier fades, replaced by a light, giddy feeling he hasn’t had since he was a kid himself, sneaking into drive-in movies with his high school girlfriend.
When the sun starts to set, she stands up, brushing crumbs off her dress, and tells him she’ll bring the typewriter over to his shop tomorrow at 10. “Don’t make me show up to an empty shop, Rios,” she teases, and he smirks, telling her he’ll be there, he’ll even make the good dark roast he keeps for his favorite customers. She winks, and turns to walk back to her mom’s old house, her dress swaying with every step.
He stays on the curb for a few more minutes, finishing his beer, watching the neighbors light paper lanterns strung between the oak trees. His phone buzzes in his pocket, and he pulls it out, it’s a text from her, a photo of the dented Royal typewriter sitting on her kitchen counter, next to a half-empty glass of iced tea and a tube of red paint. He types back a reply, telling her it looks like a straightforward fix, nothing he can’t handle. He shoves his phone back in his pocket, stands up, and starts walking back to his shop, the faint smell of grilled corn and diesel fumes hanging in the warm summer air. He unlocks the front door, steps inside, and doesn’t even glance at the half-finished Underwood on his workbench, because for the first time in 12 years, he’s not looking forward to spending the next day alone.
