Hugo Rios, 52, makes his living bringing dead neon signs back to life. He spends 10 hours a day in his converted garage workshop, bending glass tubes over a 1200-degree flame, patching leaks in old transformers, listening to 90s Tejano cassettes so scratchy most people would toss them. He’s lived in his east Austin bungalow for seven years, and for seven years he’s kept to himself—no block parties, no casual chats over the fence, no dates, not even the blind dates his cousin badgers him about. His ex-wife left for a cruise ship singer 8 years back, and he’d decided somewhere in the messy aftermath that letting anyone new close was just asking for another sharp, unexpected kick to the ribs.
He’d wandered down to the neighborhood food truck rally last Thursday purely for brisket tacos, no other agenda. The sun was low, golden, thick with the smell of smoked meat and cut grass, kids chasing each other with water guns. He was third in line at the taco truck when he felt a light tap on his bicep, smelled coconut sunscreen and cherry Kool-Aid. He turned, and there was his new next-door neighbor, the one who’d moved in three weeks prior, who he’d only ever waved at from across the driveway when she carried armfuls of textbooks into her house. Her name was Mara, she’d yelled over the mariachi band playing at the far end of the park, she taught high school chemistry. Her elbow brushed his again when she reached past him for a stack of napkins, her skin warm even through the thin cotton of his work shirt. He grunted a greeting, already half-planning to make an excuse to eat his taco alone in his truck, but when she asked about the neon cactus decal on the back of his work van, he found himself talking before he could stop himself.
They sat at a splintered pine picnic table after they got their food, their knees knocking under the surface when a group of kids sprinted past chasing a runaway beach ball. She didn’t yank her knee away. He noticed the small, faded acid burns on her knuckles, same as the thin, silvery neon gas burns that crisscrossed his own fingers. She laughed loud when he told her about the old Broken Spoke sign he’d restored last year, how he’d gotten zapped by a faulty transformer and had a static frizzy perm for three days afterwards. He’d forgotten what it felt like to have someone look at him like he was saying something interesting, not just waiting for their turn to talk. The sky had turned dark, heavy with storm clouds, before he even noticed.
The first crack of thunder made everyone jump. Rain came down hard, cold, drenching them in 10 seconds flat. He grabbed her half-eaten taco off the table before it turned to mush, grabbed her wrist to yank her out of the path of a golf cart rushing for cover, and ran for his truck, parked two blocks away. His hand stayed on the small of her back the whole run, her shirt soaked through, sticking to her shoulders. They tumbled into the front seat, laughing so hard they could barely catch their breath, rain hammering the roof so loud they could barely hear each other. She leaned across the center console to grab the old beach towel he kept behind the driver’s seat, her face inches from his, water dripping off the ends of her hair onto his forearm. He could smell rain on her skin, that coconut sunscreen, the faint sweet tang of cherry Kool-Aid on her breath.
She told him she’d bought a beat-up vintage neon “SCIENCE LAB” sign at a flea market the week before, had been trying to work up the nerve to knock on his door and ask him to help her fix it and hang it in her kitchen. He told her he could come over tomorrow after he finished the sign he was working on for the new bar down on 6th street. She leaned in, kissed him soft, her lips a little cold from the rain, and he kissed her back, his hand coming up to cup the side of her face, the rain streaking the windows so no one walking past could see them.
The storm passed 15 minutes later, the sky turning soft pink and orange as the sun came back out. He drove her the three blocks to her house, carried her taco and her bag up to her porch, and she told him 7 pm tomorrow, to bring his tools and an appetite, she was making enchiladas. He nodded, walked back to his truck, drove the short distance to his own driveway, and sat there for five minutes, his fingers brushing his lip where hers had been. He reached under the dashboard, flipped the switch for the tiny neon cactus he’d built as a prototype, and watched it glow bright green against the wet windshield.
