Russell Pritchard, 62, makes his living restoring antique typewriters out of the cinder block garage behind his bungalow in west Asheville. He’s got a scar slicing across his left thumb from a 1970s Royal he dropped while moving it to a customer’s car, and a rule he’s stuck to for 11 years: no dating, no flirting, no letting anyone get close enough to leave again. The rule came down the day his wife loaded her SUV with their good silver and a guy who sold residential solar panels, and he hasn’t questioned it once. Until the October block party.
The air smells like charcoal smoke, cinnamon spiced cider, and the faint vinegar tang of pulled pork cooking low in a smoker at the end of the street. A bluegrass trio plucks a slow, twangy rendition of a Johnny Cash song from the back of a pickup truck, and kids zip past on bikes, their jackets flapping like bat wings. Russell’s manning a folding table stacked with restored portables, a Pabst Blue Ribbon in a faded Carolina Panthers koozie tucked between a 1950s Smith Corona and a jar of black typewriter ink, when he sees her.
Marisol Torres is 48, ex-wife of his former best friend Joe, who he’d played Little League with back in 1972. Joe left her two years prior for a 26-year-old paralegal from his law firm, and the last thing he’d said to Russell before he moved to Charlotte was “don’t you dare so much as look at her.” Russell had nodded, because that’s what you do for guys you’ve known 50 years, even when they’re being selfish pricks. He’s avoided her for two full years, crossing the street when he sees her coming, leaving his trash cans out an hour later on pickup day so they don’t run into each other at the curb.
She’s holding a paper plate stacked high with pork, a smudge of barbecue sauce on the corner of her mouth, the silver streak running through her dark curly hair glowing in the unseasonably warm afternoon sun. She’s wearing a cutoff denim jacket, and he can see the sunflower tattoo on her forearm, the one she got when the three of them took a trip to Wilmington back in 2019, before Joe’s affair came out. She spots him before he can duck behind the table, and her face lights up in that crinkly-eyed smile he’s tried so hard to forget.
She leans against the edge of his table, close enough that he can smell coconut shampoo and the sugar from the apple cider donut she must have eaten earlier, and says she’s been meaning to track him down for months. Her mom left her a 1960s Royal Quiet De Luxe in the attic when she passed last spring, and she can’t get the keys to stop sticking. Russell’s throat goes dry. He nods, mumbles something about being busy, and stares at the scuffed toes of his work boots so he doesn’t have to meet her eyes.
She laughs, soft, and leans in a little closer, her shoulder brushing his bicep through the thin flannel of his shirt. “You’re still avoiding me because of Joe, right?” She doesn’t sound mad. She sounds amused. He looks up, and her eyes are dark, warm, no trace of the awkwardness he’s been carrying for two years. Before he can answer, a group of kids swerves around the end of the table, one of their handlebars clipping the edge of the ink jar. It teeters, and they both reach for it at the same time.
His calloused hand, rough from sanding metal frames and adjusting tiny typewriter springs, lands directly on top of hers. Her skin is soft, with a faint scar across her index knuckle from the time she fell off a horse on a camping trip when they were all in their 30s. The jar clatters to the table unbroken, but neither of them pulls their hand away for three full seconds. He can feel the heat of her skin through his, the faint thrum of her pulse under his fingertips, and the guilt he’s been carrying for two years melts like ice in the sun.
“I don’t care what Joe told you,” she says, quiet enough that only he can hear her over the music and the chatter of the crowd. “He lost the right to tell anyone what to do when he left me with a mortgage and a dead golden retriever and zero explanation.”
Russell nods, and for the first time in 11 years, he doesn’t overthink it. He tells her he can swing by her house tomorrow afternoon, after he drops off a restored Hermes 3000 to a professor at UNC Asheville. She grins, grabs a receipt from the pocket of her jeans, scribbles her cell number on it in neon pink gel pen, and tucks it into the breast pocket of his flannel, her fingers brushing the fabric against his chest for half a second.
“Bring your tiny screwdrivers,” she says, stepping back from the table, adjusting the strap of her canvas bag over her shoulder. “And don’t bother bringing beer. I’ve got that bottle of Bulleit you hid at my house during Joe’s last Super Bowl party. I never gave it back.”
She winks, turns, and walks back toward her group of friends, glancing over her shoulder once halfway there to wave. Russell pulls the receipt from his pocket, runs his thumb over the smudge of pink ink at the edge of the number, and takes a long sip of his beer. The bluegrass band switches to a faster song, a kid drops a cotton candy cone on the sidewalk ten feet away, and for the first time in over a decade, he doesn’t feel like running.
