Manny Ruiz, 59, makes his living restoring antique typewriters out of a converted cinder block garage behind his cottage in the Blue Ridge foothills. He’s lived there eight years, ever since his wife died of breast cancer, and his only consistent social interaction is yelling at college football games on his TV and answering customer emails from collectors across the country. His biggest flaw is that he’s turned “recluse” into a personality trait: he skips town barbecues, ignores neighborly invitations to go fishing, and turns down any local repair requests outright, convinced anyone who seeks him out in person is just angling to snoop through his personal collection of rare midcentury Royals and Underwoods. He only agreed to set up a brisket stand at the annual town peach festival because his 78-year-old next door neighbor, a retired schoolteacher who brings him homemade peach pie every Sunday, begged him until he caved.
The afternoon is sticky, the air thick with the smell of ripe fruit, charcoal, and cotton candy, and Manny is already counting down the minutes until he can pack up and go home when a woman leans across the folding table next to his to grab a peach that rolled off his cutting board. She’s the new county librarian, he thinks, the one people have been chattering about for the past three months, the one who moved here from Portland and turned the old library basement into a free record swap. Her shoulder brushes his forearm as she straightens up, and he catches a whiff of jasmine hand lotion and old paper, sharp and warm, under the sweet peach fumes in the air. She holds the peach out to him, her fingers smudged with blue ink from stamping library books, and holds eye contact for a beat too long, a half-smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Figured you didn’t want this squashed under a kid’s flip flop,” she says. Her voice is low, rough around the edges, like she smokes a pack a day or spends half her time yelling at rowdy teens for stealing graphic novels.
The sky darkens fast around 4 PM, and suddenly it’s pouring, fat raindrops slamming into the tin roof of the food tent so loud you can barely hear yourself talk. Everyone scrambles to pack up their booths, and Manny is struggling to heft his 40-pound cooler into the bed of his pickup when Lena runs over to help, her linen shirt already soaked through at the shoulders. They drag the cooler and the last of his folding tables under the awning of the old general store down the street, huddled close together to stay out of the rain that’s now coming sideways. He can feel the heat of her arm pressed against his, can hear her breathing fast from running, and for a second he panics, wants to make an excuse to leave, wants to run back to his quiet house where he doesn’t have to feel anything close to this fluttery, stupid nervousness he hasn’t felt since he was a teenager asking his wife to prom.
Instead he says it out loud, before he can stop himself: he hasn’t talked to anyone this much in years, hasn’t wanted to, because he thought dating again would be betraying his wife. Lena nods, doesn’t look surprised, says she gets it. She left an abusive marriage six years ago, moved across the country to start over, spent the first two years here turning down every date offer from the local single guys because she thought she’d never want to be close to anyone ever again. The rain slows to a drizzle, and the sun peeks out through the clouds, painting the hills pink and orange behind them.
He asks her if she wants to bring the typewriter by his shop tomorrow. He’ll fix it for free, he says, and if she’s not busy after, they can drive into the next town for tacos, the place with the homemade horchata he swears is the best east of the Rio Grande. She grins, reaches up to tuck a strand of wet hair behind her ear, and says yes, that sounds perfect. She leans in quick, presses a soft kiss to his cheek, and he feels his face heat up so fast he’s sure he’s bright red. She walks to her beat up Subaru, waves out the window as she pulls out of the parking lot, and he stands there holding the copy of *The Big Sleep* in one hand, staring after her.
He opens the book when he gets back to his truck, and a crumpled receipt for peach ice cream falls out, her phone number scrawled on the back in that same blue ink he noticed on her fingers earlier. He tucks the receipt into the pocket of his flannel shirt, already mentally rearranging his work schedule for the next day to clear time for more than just typewriter repairs.
