Miko Voss, 52, has spent the last seven years restoring vintage campers out of a drafty barn outside Marshall, North Carolina, and avoiding small town gossip like it’s the flu. His divorce back in Detroit got messy, ex-wife spreading lies about him skipping child support (he paid every dime, even put his oldest through trade school) to make herself look better, so he bailed for the mountains, kept his social circle to three people max, and only showed up to the annual fall harvest festival because he’d donated a fully restored 1972 Airstream as the grand raffle prize, and his buddy who ran the feed store threatened to stop letting him buy discounted lumber if he bailed.
He’s leaned against the Airstream’s cold aluminum siding, the chill seeping through his thin flannel, sipping spiked spiced cider laced with clove that burns going down nice, when she walks up. Lena Hale, 39, the mayor’s wife, or ex-wife soon, everyone knows she filed last week after the county announced they were indicting him for embezzling festival funds to pay for his girlfriend’s apartment. Miko’s only spoken to her twice: once when she dropped off a tattered 1960s cross-country travel guide she found at the library where she works part time, left it on his shop porch with a sticky note that said “Thought you’d like the photos of old campers”, and once at the post office, where he held the door for her and she laughed when he dropped a stack of sandpaper sheets all over the sidewalk.
She stops six inches from him, close enough he can smell sandalwood perfume mixing with the cinnamon on her breath, close enough he can see the chipped cherry red nail polish on her fingers, same shade as the stripe he painted down the Airstream’s side last month. She’s wearing worn work boots caked in mud and apple cider donut crumbs, a faded Fleetwood Mac t-shirt, flannel tied around her waist, half her blonde hair falling out of a fuzzy green scrunchie. “Nice job on this thing,” she says, nodding at the camper, and her elbow brushes his when she leans back against the siding next to him. He doesn’t move away.
Half the town has been staring at her all week, calling her a gold digger when she walks into the grocery store, muttering about how she must have known about the embezzlement, even though everyone with half a brain knows the mayor has been cheating on her for three years, and she’s been working 60 hour weeks at the library and the local coffee shop to pay for her kid’s soccer fees. Miko’s thought about her more than he’d admit to anyone, replayed the sound of her laugh when he dropped that sandpaper more times than he can count, but he’s avoided running into her on purpose. Drama sticks to her right now like pine sap, and he’s spent years scraping that kind of mess off his own life.
They talk for 20 minutes, no one bothering them because everyone’s crowded around the pie eating contest at the other end of the field, the smell of fried Oreos drifting over from the nearest food truck. She teases him about the tiny disco ball he installed in the Airstream’s ceiling, says she’d blast Stevie Nicks the whole way to Yellowstone if she had that thing. He makes a joke about how the camper’s toilet works better than the mayor’s old rusted campaign van, and she snorts so loud cider comes out of her nose, wipes it off with the back of her hand, grinning like she doesn’t care who sees. Her knee brushes his when she shifts her weight, and her hand rests on his wrist for two full seconds when she points out a kid chasing a goose past the food trucks. His skin is calloused from 30 years of sanding wood and patching aluminum, and her palm is soft, a little chapped from the sharp October wind. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away, doesn’t overthink it for the first time in years.
The emcee gets on the mic to announce the raffle winners, and Lena holds up ten crumpled tickets she pulled out of her jeans pocket, wiggling them at him. “I blew 50 bucks on these,” she says. “Worth it if I get to ditch this town for a month.” He finds himself hoping she wins, even though he knows the feed store guy’s 19 year old kid has been begging for the Airstream to live in while he goes to community college. The emcee calls the number, and it’s not hers, that same teen with a skateboard and a neon hoodie comes sprinting up screaming, and Lena laughs, not even mad.
She shoves the tickets back in her pocket, leans in so close her hair brushes his cheek, and the sandalwood smell hits him again, warm and sweet. “Guess that means I have to come by your shop next week, right?” she says. “You said you have a beat-up old 1968 Scotty in the back you’ve been meaning to fix up. I’ll pay you, obviously, but I’ll bring you those salted chocolate chip cookies you like, the ones I sell at the coffee shop. Deal?” He nods, already thinking about the Scotty parked behind his barn, perfect for cross-country trips, needs a new coat of paint and a little plumbing work, nothing he can’t knock out in two weeks if he skips his usual weekend fishing trips.
She waves and walks off, heading toward the library booth where her 12 year old daughter is selling homemade bookmarks, boots kicking up little puffs of dust on the grass. Miko takes another sip of cider, watches her lift her daughter up and spin her around, laughing so loud he can hear it from 30 feet away. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, deletes the dating app he downloaded on a drunk night three months ago that he never used.
