Moe Sorrentino, 67, retired antique typewriter restorer who ran a Bay Ridge shop for 42 years before moving to coastal Oregon two years prior, leaned against the neighborhood taco truck and stared at his scuffed work boots. He’d been badgered into the summer block party by the retired teacher next door, who’d left chocolate chip cookies on his porch three days prior and wouldn’t take no for an answer. His biggest flaw? He’d walled himself off from all casual connection after his wife Elaine died eight years ago, convinced any effort to know new people betrayed their 38 years together. A cold Pacifico sweated in his grip, and he was mentally mapping the fastest route back to his cottage when a shoulder brushed his chest, hard enough to slosh a drop of beer onto his faded 1998 Pearl Jam tour shirt.
He looked up, ready to grumble, and froze. It was Clara Bennett, the 52-year-old who ran the used bookshop three blocks over, the same woman who’d dropped off a box of mint 1960s typewriter ribbons on his porch three months prior, who he’d hidden from behind his workshop door rather than answer, too flustered by the way she’d smiled and waved at him at the grocery store the week before. She wore a sunflower-print linen sundress, bare feet in strappy leather sandals, a smudge of charcoal on the pulse point of her left wrist from sketching in the margins of beat-up poetry books she sold for a dollar apiece by the register. She smelled like lavender laundry soap and old paper, the scent wrapping around him so soft he almost forgot how to speak.
“Sorry about that,” she said, grinning, the corner of her mouth tugging up the same way Elaine’s used to when she was about to tease him. “You’re the hermit typewriter guy, right? I left those ribbons for you a while back. Figured you either hated me or were hiding a body in your basement.”
He flushed, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand. “Was elbow deep in cleaning a 1952 Royal platen. Didn’t hear the knock. Sorry.” The apology came out rougher than he intended, but she didn’t mind. She leaned against the truck next to him, close enough that their elbows brushed every time she shifted, her bare knee grazing his denim-clad thigh when a group of kids ran past chasing a golden retriever. He could feel the heat of her skin through his jeans, his pulse spiking in a way it hadn’t since he was a kid sneaking into drive-in movies with Elaine.
They talked for 40 minutes, him rambling about mid-century typewriter quirks, her leaning in every time he spoke, eye contact steady, no polite glances away for more interesting company. She told him she collected old typewritten poetry chapbooks, had 39 stacked on her back office shelf, half with broken spines or missing pages she didn’t know how to fix. The entire time, a war waged in his head: part of him screamed he was being disrespectful, too old for this, that the whole neighborhood was watching them lean closer and closer, that Elaine would be furious. The other part, the part that had spent two years eating frozen dinners alone and talking only to the stray cat on his porch, ached to keep talking to her, to find out if her laugh was as warm as it sounded, if the charcoal smudge on her wrist came off easy with a thumb swipe.
“I brought peach pie to the party,” she said, when the sun dipped low over the ocean, painting the sky pink and orange. “Got half left back at the shop, plus cold brew on tap. Wanna come look at the chapbooks? I’ll even let you take first dibs on the ribbons I have stashed in the back.”
He hesitated for two full seconds, then nodded. He’d already spent eight years hiding. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life doing the same.
They walked the three blocks to the shop in comfortable silence, her hand brushing his every time their steps synced up. She unlocked the door, the little bell above the frame jingling softly, and locked it again behind them. The air inside smelled like leather binding, cold coffee, and ripe peaches, late afternoon sun slanting through the stained glass window above the front counter, gilding the edges of her hair. She took his empty beer bottle to throw in the trash, her fingers brushing his when she took it, and he didn’t pull away.
“I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to talk to you for months,” she said, leaning against the counter, her voice soft, no teasing this time. “Thought you’d never give me the time of day.”
He stepped closer, close enough to smell the coconut lip balm she wore, and lifted his hand to brush the charcoal smudge off her wrist with his thumb. Her skin was warm, soft, her pulse jumping under his touch. “I was just scared,” he said, quiet, honest.
She smiled, lacing her fingers through his, and tugged him toward the back office, where a stack of beat-up chapbooks sat on a wooden table next to a ceramic pie plate and two forks. She pulled out a chair for him, sat across the table, and pushed the pie toward him, picking up a chapbook marked with a pressed sunflower between the pages. He sat, picked up the fork, and took a bite of pie, sweet, tart, perfect, and for the first time in eight years, he didn’t feel a single flicker of guilt for enjoying it.
