Ronan O’Malley, 57, vintage neon sign restorer, leans against a scruffy white pine at the county fire department’s annual chili cook-off, half-wishing he’d lied to his apprentice for a third time to get out of coming. His work boots are caked with dried silicone and neon tube phosphor dust, his flannel shirt has a hole at the elbow from where he burned himself on a glass bender two weeks prior, and the IPA in his plastic cup is already warm enough to taste like old cardboard. He hasn’t spoken to anyone for longer than three minutes in the last hour, dodging small talk about his latest restoration projects and the new apartment complex going up on the edge of town by pretending to take calls on his beat-up flip phone. He’d lost his wife Mia to ovarian cancer 12 years prior, and had hidden away in his converted gas station shop ever since, convinced any joy that didn’t tie back to her memory was a betrayal.
A solid bump to his shoulder spills half his beer down his front, and he bites back a curse before he looks up. The woman in front of him is holding an empty chili bowl, flannel shirt rolled up to her elbows, curly auburn hair tied back with a bandana printed with old library card graphics, and he recognizes her immediately: Clara Bennett, Mia’s younger cousin, the one who’d flown in from Portland for the funeral and then vanished off his radar entirely. She’s 49 now, laugh lines crinkling at the corners of her hazel eyes— the same shade as Mia’s— and she’s already grabbing a handful of napkins off the nearest picnic table, apologizing so fast the words run together. She dabs at the wet spot on his shirt first, her knuckles brushing his chest through the fabric, and he catches a whiff of cedar shampoo and vanilla lip balm before he takes the napkins from her, their fingers brushing when they pass the crumpled paper between them.
He’s torn immediately, a low twist of guilt in his gut warring with the stupid, giddy spark he hasn’t felt in over a decade. He steps back half a foot, putting space between them, and mumbles that it’s fine, the shirt was already ruined anyway. She doesn’t take the hint, leaning in instead, nodding at the neon fire department sign glowing red and white above the station door, the one he’d restored for them last spring after a tree branch fell on it. She says she’s been driving past his shop for three months, ever since she moved to town to care for her mom who’s in early stages of dementia, and she’s been dying to ask about the old 1950s motel sign he’s got propped against the side of the building. She works part time at the tiny town library, runs a vintage kitsch swap meet once a month in the basement, and she’s been collecting photos of old local neon for a zine she’s putting together.
They end up sitting at a picnic table tucked far away from the crowd, the bluegrass band playing off in the distance, the air thick with the smell of smoked pork and chili powder and pine. She tells him about the time Mia snuck her into a dive bar in Asheville when she was 17, how Mia had dared her to eat a whole jar of pickled eggs and then bought her her first beer when she did it. He tells her about the time Mia convinced him to drag a 12 foot tall diner sign 6 hours back to their shop in the bed of his old pickup, how it had rained the whole drive and they’d had to stop at a motel halfway and eat cold pizza off the hood of the truck. For the first time in years, he doesn’t feel like he’s forcing himself to talk, doesn’t feel like the ghost of Mia is hanging over his shoulder judging him. When the band switches to a slow waltz, couples drifting onto the patch of mowed grass in front of the stage, she nudges his work boot with her scuffed white sneaker, asks if he’s too much of a reclusive grump to dance with her.
He hesitates for three full beats, guilt flaring again, until she tilts her head and says, quiet enough only he can hear, “Mia always said you were the only person who ever got her obsession with all this weird old stuff. She’d kick your ass so hard if she saw you hiding away from everything that makes you smile.” He stands, takes her outstretched hand, her palm soft but with a hard callus on her index finger from turning thousands of book pages, and they step onto the grass. They don’t really dance, just sway a little to the music, her shoulder pressed to his chest, her curly hair tickling his chin, and he can hear her quiet laugh when he steps on her toe by accident.
By the time the cook-off wraps up, the sky is dark, the firemen are packing up coolers and turning off the string lights strung between the pine trees. She asks if he’s free tomorrow afternoon, if he’d be willing to show her the motel sign and the rest of his shop. He nods, takes her phone from her, types his number in, his thumb brushing hers when he hands it back. He stands in the parking lot long after she pulls out in her beat up Subaru, waving when she honks the horn as she turns onto the main road, the neon fire sign glowing warm on his face. For the first time in 12 years, he doesn’t cross his arms and turn away from the light.
