Rafe Ortega is 53, makes his living sanding dents out of vintage camper shells and reupholstering their faded, sun-bleached bench seats, runs his business out of a weathered red barn 12 miles outside Maryville, Tennessee. He’s avoided any kind of social entanglement since his wife left him for a traveling solar panel salesman in 2015, convinced small town gossip spreads faster than wildfire in dry July, and he’s got no patience for the drama that comes with dating anyone within a 20 mile radius. The only exception to his hermit routine is the weekly VFW fish fry every Friday night, where he can eat a plate of crispy catfish and savory hushpuppies without anyone bothering him, as long as he grabs his usual corner spot at the picnic table by the back door before the crowd rolls in.
This past Friday, every seat was taken by the time he got there, held down by little league parents and retired teachers and a group of Harley riders passing through on their way to ride the Tail of the Dragon. The only open spot was next to Clara Bennett, the new county library director who moved to town last year, ex-wife of the sheriff Rafe had fought for three months to get a zoning permit for his barn shop. Everyone in town knew you didn’t so much as make casual eye contact with Clara if you didn’t want the sheriff pulling you over for a broken taillight twice a week, even if their divorce had been finalized 14 months prior. She nodded at the empty spot next to her, wiping crumbs off her high-waisted jeans, and said the only other option was sitting on the ground with the 7-year-olds who were hoarding all the tartar sauce. He sat.
The plastic of the bench stuck to the back of his thighs through his grease-stained work jeans, the sharp smell of fried grease and fresh lemon cut with the cheap citrus perfume she was wearing, bright and zingy, not the cloying flowery stuff local women his age usually spritzed on for public events. When she leaned across him to grab the bottle of hot sauce off the far end of the table, her forearm brushed his, warm through the thin worn flannel he’d thrown on to cover the more embarrassing oil stains on his t-shirt, and she held eye contact with him for two full beats longer than polite, a little smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth like she knew exactly what she was doing.
They talked through his entire plate of catfish, through the bluegrass band tuning up by the stage, through the group of old men arguing over who’d won the 1998 bass fishing tournament on Douglas Lake. She told him she was trying to put together a mobile book drop for the hollow communities up in the mountains, where folks couldn’t drive 45 minutes into town to pick up new releases or return library books without missing half a day of work, and she’d been scouring Craigslist for a cheap, functional 1970s Airstream to retrofit. Rafe had one half-restored in his barn, the aluminum shell buffed to a mirror shine, the interior gutted and ready for new buildout, that he’d been planning to sell to a retired couple from Florida for a down payment on a new plasma cutter. He almost didn’t mention it. He knew if the sheriff saw her at his property, he’d find a petty code violation to shut his shop down before the end of the month. She teased him, nudging his scuffed work boot with her own under the table, that he looked a lot tougher than he was, scared of a guy whose only real claim to fame was winning the county pie contest three years running with his grandmother’s peach crumble recipe.
He told her he had the Airstream. Asked if she wanted to drive out to his place to look at it, no pressure, he’d even throw in a 20% discount if she could bring him a stack of the old Louis L’Amour western paperbacks he’d been trying to find for months. She said yes before he finished talking, finishing off her can of light beer and tossing it in the trash can by the table without breaking eye contact. When they stood up to leave, she brushed a stray crumb of hushpuppy breading off the front of his shirt, her fingers lingering on his sternum for half a second, warm even through two layers of fabric, and he felt that tight, giddy pull in his chest he’d forgotten existed, the fear of retaliation fading fast next to how badly he wanted to keep talking to her.
The drive out to his property took 15 minutes, the sun dipping below the ridge line of the Smokies, painting the sky streaks of pink and tangerine through the truck’s cracked windshield. She spotted the Airstream parked by the barn before he even pointed it out, leaning forward in her seat, grinning so wide the corners of her eyes crinkled. He put the truck in park, turned off the engine, and she squeezed his bicep once, soft and deliberate, through the sleeve of his flannel, before pushing the passenger door open to go get a closer look.
