Moe Sorrentino, 62, retired Cleveland public high school woodshop teacher, leans against the white vinyl fence separating his yard from the street, sweating through his faded Browns tee, twisting a worn brown leather cigarette case in his front jeans pocket. It’s late July, 82 degrees, the block party air thick with the smell of grilled brats, cilantro from the taco truck at the end of the block, and citronella candles keeping the mosquitos at bay. He’s avoided three separate attempts by neighbors to drag him into group karaoke, and half listens to a pair of retirees next to him complain about rising property taxes, his gaze drifting to the woman waiting for her taco order 20 feet away.
She’s Lila, his next door neighbor who moved in two months prior, runs a vintage vinyl shop in Lakewood. They’d waved at each other over the fence a handful of times, but never talked longer than 30 seconds. Today she’s wearing a cutoff Fleetwood Mac tee, frayed denim shorts, scuffed white cowgirl boots, and silver hoop earrings that catch the golden hour sun. She holds a mason jar of pink lemonade, and when she catches him staring, she grins and walks over, gravel crunching under her boots.
“You been hiding over here all afternoon?” she asks, leaning against the fence a foot away from him, close enough he can smell lavender shampoo in her wavy auburn hair and the faint sugar of lemonade on her breath. He shrugs, twisting the leather case tighter between his fingers. The case was a joke gift from his late wife Ellie, bought on their first wedding anniversary 40 years prior; neither of them ever smoked, he just tucked a faded polaroid of their wedding day inside and carried it every day since she died three years ago. He’d fended off half a dozen setups from well-meaning neighbors by hiding in his garage when they dropped by, terrified moving on would feel like a betrayal. “Not big on watching guys in Hawaiian shirts butcher Johnny Cash,” he says, nodding at the folding stage where a middle-aged man slurs through “Folsom Prison Blues.”
She snorts, takes a sip of lemonade. They chat for 20 minutes: she got divorced last year after 31 years of marriage, moved to Cleveland to be closer to her sister, her shop mostly deals in 70s rock reissues. She mentions she found a beat-up 1972 Thorens turntable at a garage sale the weekend prior, the wooden plinth cracked down the side, and asks if he’d be able to fix it, offering payment in rare records and craft beer. He’s about to say yes when she reaches into her back pocket for a scrap of receipt with her number scrawled on it, her elbow knocking his hand hard enough the leather case flies out, hits the gravel, and pops open. The polaroid of Ellie flutters out, landing face down in a patch of clover.
Moe’s face goes hot, his stomach twisting. He hates when anyone sees the case, hates the pity looks, hates that he still carries it like a kid’s security blanket, weak and stuck. He bends down fast, but she gets there first, picks up the polaroid and turns it over, her expression soft, no pity, just quiet recognition. She hands it to him, her calloused fingers (from flipping thousands of records a week) brushing his palm for half a second, warm. “I carry a photo of my grandma in my wallet that’s so faded you can barely see her face,” she says, when he tucks the photo back into the case and shoves it in his pocket. “My ex kept telling me to throw it away, said it was junk. Some stuff’s just too good to toss, right?”
He stares at her for a second, surprised she doesn’t push for details, doesn’t give him that sad little head tilt everyone else does. “Yeah,” he says, before he can overthink it. “Come by my garage after the party, around 9. I’ve got wood glue that’ll fix that plinth good as new.”
She shows up at 9 on the dot, carrying the turntable in one hand and a six pack of hazy IPA in the other. His garage is cool, smells like cedar and sawdust, the only light a yellow clamp lamp hanging over his workbench. They huddle over the cracked plinth, she leans in to point at a tiny hairline fracture along the bottom edge, her shoulder pressing flush against his, the vanilla of her lip balm drifting up when she talks. He doesn’t pull away. He spends 45 minutes gluing, clamping, sanding the plinth smooth, while she sits on the edge of the workbench telling him stories: the time a guy tried to trade a live chicken for a first pressing of *Dark Side of the Moon*, the time a teen came in and bought every Stevie Nicks record she had for his mom’s birthday.
When he’s done, they plug the turntable into his old garage speakers, slide a copy of *Rumours* she brought along onto the plinth. “Dreams” comes on, soft, crackling a little at the edges. She hops off the workbench, holds out a hand to him. He hesitates for half a second, then takes it, pulls her close, one hand on her waist, the other holding hers, slow dancing in the middle of the garage, sawdust sticking to the soles of their shoes, the hum of crickets outside mixing with the music. He doesn’t reach for the leather case in his pocket once, doesn’t feel that twist of guilt he expected, just the warm weight of her against his chest, the sound of her laughing when he steps on her boot by accident.
The song fades out, she tilts her head up to look at him, her eyes dark in the low lamp light, her thumb brushing the back of his hand where he’s holding hers. He leans down, kisses her slow, her lips soft, tasting like lemon and IPA, her free hand tangling in the gray hair at the nape of his neck, her back pressed against the edge of the workbench, a half-finished birdhouse he was making for his granddaughter tilting a little behind her. When they pull apart a minute later, she grins, taps the pocket of his jeans where the leather case is tucked. “You wanna show me the rest of your woodworking projects tomorrow? I’ll bring breakfast tacos from that truck.” He nods, his hand resting on her hip, not moving to pull away. A cricket hops across the concrete floor at their feet, chirping loud enough to cut through the next track playing on the turntable.
