Rafe Ortega, 52, vintage pickup restorer, only showed up to the Ada County Fire Department annual chili cook-off because his 19-year-old apprentice Javi threatened to hide all his 10mm sockets if he didn’t get out of the barn for once. He’d spent the last 8 years holed up there after his ex-wife moved to Boise, leaving a note that said his trucks would never leave him, so he should stop wasting time on people. He’s leaning against the bed of his half-restored 1967 F-100, paper bowl of three-alarm chili sweating through his grease-stained Carhartt pocket, boots caked with the red mud that sticks to everything this time of year, ignoring the neighbors who wave him over to their picnic tables. The air smells like burnt chili, charcoal, and the sharp pine drifting down from the foothills behind the fairgrounds.
He’s just wiping a dribble of chili off his chin with the back of his hand when he hears her voice, low and warm, right next to his shoulder. “You’re the guy who fixes old pickups, right? The one who lives two houses down from me on Cedar Lane.” He turns, and it’s Clara, the woman who moved into the old white farmhouse three months prior, the one he’s only waved at through his truck window when he’s coming home at 8PM, grease under his nails and a half-empty energy drink in the cupholder. She’s wearing a faded green flannel, cuffed jeans, and work boots dusted with potting soil, holding a crumbly cornbread muffin in one hand, her dark hair pulled back in a loose braid that’s falling out at the temples. She holds eye contact like she’s not scared of his permanent scowl, which most people in town are.
She says she’s got a rusted 1965 Chevy C10 sitting in her side yard, inherited from her uncle when he passed last winter, and everyone in town told her he’s the only guy who won’t overcharge her to tell her if it’s worth saving. He starts to give her his usual “I’m booked six months out” line, but she holds up the muffin, says it’s homemade, laced with wild honey she harvested from the hives behind her house, and she’ll trade him the whole batch for a 15 minute walkthrough later that day. When he reaches for the muffin, their knuckles brush. He feels the rough callus on her index finger, which she laughs off, telling him she’s the new part-time librarian at the town branch, has turned tens of thousands of pages over the last 25 years. She smells like lavender hand lotion and the pine cleaner she uses on her kitchen counters, and for a second he forgets what he was going to say.
They stand there for 20 minutes, talking about truck parts, about the way the old Chevy’s frame is probably still solid because her uncle kept it under a tarp half the year, about the time she dropped a transmission on her foot when she was 16 and couldn’t walk for a week. Every time she gestures with her hands, her elbow brushes his bicep, warm through the thin cotton of his work shirt under the Carhartt. He catches a few people glancing over from the nearby picnic tables, the same people who’ve been gossiping for months that Clara’s too stuck up to date any of the local guys, that Rafe’s a hermit who’ll die alone surrounded by rusted truck frames. The old, stubborn part of him wants to step back, make an excuse, leave before anyone starts running their mouths more, but the other part, the part he thought died 8 years ago when his ex left, wants to lean in closer, breathe in that lavender again.
The fire department siren blares suddenly, loud enough to make his teeth rattle, announcing the chili contest winner. A group of drunk teens in football jerseys pushes past, and Clara stumbles forward, pressing her shoulder to his chest for half a second to keep from falling. Her hair brushes his jaw, and he can smell the cinnamon gum she’s chewing, feel the heat of her body through his layers. She laughs, steadying herself on his forearm, and doesn’t let go right away. “I’ve got a case of that hazy IPA you like in my fridge,” she says, like she knows he drinks it every night when he’s working on the F-100, because she’s seen the empty cans stacked by his curb on trash day. “You can come look at the Chevy, and stay for meatloaf if you want. No strings attached.”
He hesitates for a beat, the familiar, sharp disgust curling in his stomach at the thought of letting someone into his quiet, ordered life, at the thought of getting hurt again. But she’s still holding his forearm, her thumb brushing the thin, pale scar he got when an exhaust pipe fell on him three years ago, and she’s grinning like she already knows he’s going to say yes. He nods, before he can talk himself out of it.
She whoops, tucking her hand into his to pull him toward the parking lot, so they can stop by his shop to grab his tool bag before they head to her house. He lets her lead, his calloused hand fitting into hers like it was made to be there, watching the sun catch the strands of gray in her braid as she walks ahead of him.
