Javi Mendez is 52, makes his living restoring vintage camper vans out of a cinder block shop on the edge of New Braunfels, Texas. He’s been divorced for eight years, his only steady companion a three-legged heeler named Rusty, and his biggest personality flaw is that he bails on any social interaction that feels like it might require him to show up more than once. He blames that on his ex-wife leaving him for his business partner, the guy he’d taught how to lay fiberglass and rebuild Westfalia engines back when they were 20-something punks drinking cheap beer out of the cooler in the back of the shop.
He’s at the town’s annual fall festival beer garden on a crisp October Saturday, fresh off closing a $32,000 sale on a fully restored 1972 VW Bus, so he’s splurged on a cold Shiner Bock and a basket of fried cheese curds. He’s leaning against a rough cedar post, work boots caked in hay, the knuckle of his left hand still smudged with bondo he missed washing off after he finished sanding a dented Airstream panel that morning. He’s half listening to a group of old high school friends argue about 1990s football playoff scores when he spots her across the tent.
Lila. His ex-wife’s younger sister. He hasn’t seen her in six years, not since the final divorce papers were signed and she’d slipped him a Tupperware of her famous pork tamales in the courthouse parking lot, told him her sister was an idiot and he deserved better. She’s leaning against the bar now, wearing a faded Willie Nelson t-shirt under a worn leather jacket, jeans tucked into scuffed cowgirl boots, a silver hoop earring glinting in her left ear that she didn’t have the last time he saw her. She’s laughing at something the bartender said, head tilted back, and Javi’s throat goes dry before he can stop it.
She spots him a minute later, her smile freezing for half a second before it widens, and she pushes off the bar to walk over. She stands close enough when she stops that he can smell the vanilla lotion she wears, mixed with the powdered sugar from the funnel cake she’s clearly eaten earlier, a faint dust of it on the cuff of her jacket. Her arm brushes his when she reaches for the bowl of salted peanuts sitting on the post next to him, her skin warm even through the flannel of his shirt, and he doesn’t move away.
They make small talk first. She says she moved back to town three months ago, got a job managing the local animal shelter, finalized her own divorce back in June. He tells her about the bus sale, about Rusty knocking over a can of bright orange paint in the shop the week before, the whole back of his work shirt still stained with it. She holds eye contact the whole time, doesn’t look away when he catches her staring at the scar across his right eyebrow he got when a van roof collapsed on him two years back, and the knot in his chest that he’s carried around since his divorce tugs loose just a little.
He knows this is a terrible idea. Hooking up with his ex-wife’s sister is the kind of small town gossip that would get him disinvited from every family cookout for the next decade, that his ex would scream about on Facebook for months, that would blow up the quiet, uncomplicated life he’s spent eight years building. But when she asks if he wants to walk down to the creek to get away from the noise of the festival, he says yes before he can overthink it.
He admits he’s avoided every family event for six years because he was scared he’d run into her and do something stupid. She steps closer, her chest brushing his, and tilts her chin up, and when he kisses her she tastes like Shiner Bock and salted peanuts, her hand coming up to rest on the back of his neck, her fingers tangling in the curly gray hair at his nape. The cold wind off the creek nips at his cheeks, but he doesn’t feel it, not even a little.
They pull back a minute later, both grinning like dumb teenagers. He asks if she wants to come back to his shop, see the 1969 Airstream he’s restoring for a client out in California, says he’s got a cooler of cold beer in the back and Rusty will be thrilled to have someone new to give him scratches. She nods, laces her fingers through his, calloused from walking rescue dogs all day, and squeezes. They walk back up the path toward the festival, not letting go, not ducking when they pass a group of his ex-wife’s friends who are staring, mouths open. Javi’s beat-up work truck is parked by the entrance, the tailgate down, and he squeezes her hand once before he lets go to open the passenger door for her.
