Rafe Mendez, 52, has made a living restoring vintage outboard motors out of his cinder block shop on the edge of Green Lake for 17 years. Since his divorce 8 years prior, he’s avoided every function that might bring him within 10 feet of his ex-wife’s family, convinced every last one of them thought he was too boring, too obsessed with his grease-stained work, to be worth sticking around for when a flashy younger realtor came calling. The only reason he’s manning a booth at the annual lake heritage festival is the promise of three days of steady sales, and the free bratwurst the organizers hand out to vendors every hour.
Late afternoon on the second day, he’s wiping down a polished 1957 Evinrude when a woman’s sandal brushes the scuffed toe of his work boot. He looks up, and his jaw tightens before he can stop it. It’s Lila, his ex’s younger cousin, the one who used to show up to family cookouts in cutoffs and a faded fishing hat, who never said much but always laughed at his dumb jokes about motor parts. She’s 44 now, her dark hair streaked with silver at the temples, wearing a linen dress the color of lake water and a pair of beat-up leather boots. She’s holding a jar of lemonade, and when she grins, the same dimple pops in her left cheek that he remembers from 10 years prior.
He tenses, waiting for the passive-aggressive jab about how he’s still messing around with old motors, the kind every other member of her family has thrown his way since the divorce. Instead, she nods at the Evinrude. “I remember you working on that one for three months the summer my cousin decided she hated living on the lake.” Her voice is low, warm, no edge to it at all. He blinks, sets down his rag. For the next 40 minutes, they talk about the motors, about the festival, about the way the lake water has been warmer than usual this summer, the kind of unhurried conversation he hasn’t had with anyone who isn’t a regular at the bait shop in years. When she leans in to get a closer look at a tiny restored minnow motor he keeps on the edge of the table, her shoulder brushes his bicep, and he catches a whiff of coconut sunscreen and pine soap, the kind his grandma used to keep by the kitchen sink. He feels a tug low in his gut he hasn’t felt since before the divorce, and he pushes it down immediately. This is his ex’s cousin. This is the kind of mess he swore he’d never get wrapped up in again.
When the festival closes for the night, the crowds thinning out as the sun dips low over the trees, she tilts her head at the beer tent at the end of the row. “You got time for a drink?” He hesitates, his mind running through every argument against it: the family gossip, the fact that he’s spent 8 years deliberately cutting all ties with her side of the family, the very real risk that this is some kind of prank she and his ex cooked up. But then she smiles again, and he finds himself nodding. They grab two cans of pale ale and walk down the rickety public dock half a mile from the festival grounds, the wood splintered under their shoes, crickets chirping in the reeds along the shore.
They sit down at the end of the dock, their knees brushing when she shifts to face the sunset. She takes a sip of her beer, then says, quiet enough that the wind almost carries the words away, “I drove three hours to come to this festival. I didn’t care about the motors, or the brats, or any of it. I wanted to see if you were still single.” He freezes, his can halfway to his mouth. For 10 long seconds, he wars between the voice in his head that screams this is a terrible idea, that this will only lead to drama and hurt and the same kind of humiliation he felt when his ex left, and the way her hand is resting two inches from his on the dock, the way she didn’t flinch when he complained about his ex earlier, the way she actually asked follow-up questions about his work instead of treating it like a silly hobby.
He sets down his beer, reaches over, and laces his fingers through hers. Her skin is warm, calloused at the knuckles from the textile work she told him she does, traveling the country selling handwoven blankets. She doesn’t pull away. She squeezes his hand, once, soft. They sit there until the first fireflies start blinking over the reeds, until the sky turns dark purple and the distant lights of the festival shut off one by one. He asks her if she wants to come back to his shop, that he’s got a 1960 Johnson he’s been restoring for months, that he strung fairy lights up over the back patio last month and there’s a cooler of beer in the fridge. She says yes, stands up, pulls him with her, their hands still locked together.
The faint whine of a distant fishing boat motor drifted across the dark water as they walked up the dirt path toward his truck, neither of them wasting time worrying about the family group chat that would inevitably blow up if anyone found out where they were going.
