Manny Ruiz, 51, makes his living patching cracked neon tubes and rewiring rusted 1950s sign housings out of a converted 1960s gas station on the edge of Newport, Oregon. His hands are perpetually smudged with faint blue phosphor, his curly dark hair streaked with enough gray that neighborhood kids call him “the silver wizard of lights” when he hangs finished signs in his shop window. He hasn’t attended a local community event in seven years, not since his ex-wife packed her bags and drove to Portland with a 28-year-old windsurfing instructor, leaving nothing but a note saying he cared more about glowing glass than he did about her. He only showed up to the annual downtown block party that night because the brewery owner owed him a case of hazy IPA for a last-minute repair to their neon “OPEN” sign, and he planned to grab the beer and bail before anyone could corner him into small talk.
He was leaning against the cinder block wall bordering the beer tent, half-empty pilsner in one hand, keys to his shop in the other, when Lila Marlow bumped into his arm. He flinched hard, like he’d touched a live wire, the beer sloshing over the rim onto his faded Carhartt sleeve. He’d seen her a dozen times before, the new 38-year-old county librarian, always in frumpy oversized cardigans and wire-rimmed glasses, showing up at his shop every other week to beg him to restore the dented 1952 neon “PUBLIC LIBRARY” sign that had been gathering dust in the library basement for 20 years. He’d brushed her off every time, making up excuses about backlogged work, not wanting to deal with the red tape of county government contracts, anything to get her out of his shop fast before he noticed how bright her smile was when she talked about the sign.
This time, she wasn’t wearing a cardigan. She had on a butter-yellow sundress dotted with sunflowers, her bare legs dusted with fine sand from the beach a few blocks over, a frozen margarita in a plastic cup in her hand, lime salt crusted on the rim. She smelled like coconut sunscreen and fresh lime, her shoulder still pressed to his bicep where she’d stumbled, and she laughed when she saw the beer stain on his sleeve. “Guess you’re not as quick on your feet as you are with a soldering iron,” she said, leaning in just enough that he could see the faint smattering of freckles across her nose, the little chip in her front tooth she got falling off a bike as a kid, a detail she’d mentioned offhand on her third visit to his shop that he’d never admitted he remembered.
He mumbled an apology, shifting his weight to put a few inches between them, his throat tight. He’d spent seven years training himself to avoid exactly this: pretty women who smiled like they meant it, who knew exactly what he did for work and didn’t think it was a weird, useless hobby. The voice in the back of his head screamed that she only wanted to talk to him for the stupid library sign, that everyone in this gossiping little town would side-eye them for the 13-year age gap, that he was just setting himself up to get left again. He opened his mouth to make an excuse about needing to get back to his shop, but she held up a hand before he could speak, her expression softening. “I’m not here to ask about the sign tonight,” she said, and when her finger brushed the streak of blue phosphor on his wrist, he almost dropped his beer. “I’ve been asking the brewery owner to invite you for three weeks. I wanted to see if you ever take that Carhartt off when you’re not welding.”
They stood a polite distance apart at first, his hand hovering just above her waist, hers resting light on his shoulder, neither of them moving too close. Then a group of drunk teens carrying giant snow cones stumbled past, one slamming into Manny’s back, and Lila stumbled forward into his chest. His hand closed around her waist automatically to steady her, her cheek pressing to his shoulder for half a second, and he could feel the warmth of her skin through the thin fabric of her dress, hear her quiet hum along to the song, the faint clink of her margarita cup against his beer bottle when she relaxed into his hold. He didn’t move away.
When the song ended, he didn’t let go of her waist for a full ten seconds, not until the band switched to a faster, louder rock track and the crowd around them started cheering. He looked down at her, her glasses slipping down her nose, a faint pink flush high on her cheeks, and he found himself talking before he could think better of it. “I’ll fix the library sign,” he said, and her face lit up so bright he thought it could outglow any of the neon signs in his shop. “Free of charge. But you owe me two carnitas tacos from the taco truck at the end of the block, and you have to stop showing up to my shop before 9 a.m. I don’t function before my second coffee.”
She laughed, loud and bright, and reached up to wipe a streak of beer foam off his upper lip with her thumb, her skin soft against his mouth. He didn’t flinch this time. She grabbed his free hand, her fingers lacing through his calloused ones, and tugged him toward the taco truck, the case of IPA he’d come for forgotten against the cinder block wall by the beer tent.
