Leo Marquez, 52, runs a vintage camera repair shop out of his garage in the tiny coastal town of Bayport, Washington. He’s lived there three years, moved cross-country from Ohio after his wife Karen died of breast cancer, and his only consistent social outings are the monthly trivia nights at The Salty Spur, the town’s only dive bar. He hates small talk, always sits at the same wobbly high-top in the back, wears the same faded gray Carhartt work shirt even when the July AC is busted and sweat beads at his hairline, and twists the dented silver wedding band on his left finger so hard when he’s anxious that the skin underneath stays pink for hours.
The bar is packed tonight, doors propped open to let in briny ocean breeze, fried onion ring fumes curling through the air, Merle Haggard’s *Mama Tried* playing low on the jukebox. A team of four slides into the table next to his, their shoulders brushing his when they sit, and he tenses, ready to move to a bar stool if they’re too loud, until he spots her. She’s the new town librarian, moved here two months prior, the one who’d come by his shop last week with a 1960s Polaroid her dad left her, asking if he could fix it. He’d barely said two words to her back then, too focused on the camera to meet her eye, told her it would take two weeks to source the part, and rushed her out the door before he could notice the smudge of ink on her left cheek or the way she laughed when she thanked him.
She sits directly to his left, elbow knocking his when she reaches for her IPA, and she freezes for half a second, turning to him with a crinkly smile. Her hand brushes his forearm when she apologizes, and he can feel the rough callus on her index finger from holding pens all day, the warm press of her skin seeping through the thin cotton of his shirt. He mumbles that it’s fine, twists his wedding band so hard his finger throbs, and stares fixed at the trivia sheet in front of him, even though he can smell her perfume—lavender and sweet citrus, the same kind Karen used to wear on date nights—and the sound of her laugh when her teammate makes a dumb joke makes his chest feel tight, half guilt, half something he hasn’t felt in four years, something light and nervous and warm.
Ten minutes later, the trivia host asks a question about 1970s 35mm camera models, and she leans over to him before she can think better of it, her shoulder pressing solidly against his for three full seconds, her breath warm against his ear when she whispers that she saw his beat-up Canon F-1 sitting on the table next to his beer, does he know the answer. He can feel the soft fabric of her linen blouse against his bicep, strands of her loose braid brushing his neck, and for a second he can’t speak, just nods, whispers the answer back to her, and she grins so wide her eyes crinkle at the corners, squeezes his arm quickly before turning back to her team to write it down.
The intermission contest pops up halfway through the night, the host projecting a blown-up old photo of the town’s lighthouse onto the wall above the bar, offering a $50 bar tab to whoever can guess the exact year it was taken. Leo stares at the photo for two seconds, recognizes the soft grain and muted blue tones of the Kodak film stock discontinued in 1978, knows the photo was shot with a Canon AE-1, the same model he’d repaired for a teen last week. He says “1978” out loud at the exact same time she does, and they turn to each other in unison, their faces six inches apart, the noise of the bar fading to a low hum for a beat. He doesn’t twist his wedding band. He doesn’t look away. He smiles, a real smile, not the tight polite one he gives customers, and she smiles back, her cheeks pink, her eyes glinting in the neon beer sign light.
They split the bar tab, buy each other a round of bourbon after trivia ends, sit and talk for an hour about old cameras, weird book requests at the library, how the town’s best clam chowder sells out of the pier food truck every Saturday by 11 a.m. He doesn’t mention Karen once, doesn’t feel guilty for laughing at her dumb jokes, for noticing the way she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear when she’s thinking, for the way his skin tingles when their knees brush under the table.
When the bar closes at 1 a.m., he walks her to her car, parked two blocks away, streetlights glowing golden, crickets chirping in the sidewalk bushes, the ocean crashing low in the distance. He stops when they reach her beat-up Subaru, pauses for a second, then asks if she wants to come by his shop tomorrow afternoon, he just got a box of old Polaroid film he can give her, and he can show her the vintage camera collection he’s been restoring for the local historical society. She says yes so fast she laughs at herself, leans in and hugs him quickly, her cheek pressing against his, arms loose around his shoulders, and he doesn’t flinch, wraps one arm around her waist for a beat before she pulls away. She waves when she climbs into her car, rolls down the window to yell that she’ll be there at 2, and he stands there until her taillights disappear around the corner.
He tucks his hands into his work shirt pockets, feels the folded polaroid of Karen he carries everywhere, the one of her laughing on their Hawaii honeymoon, pulls it out for a second, smiles at it, tucks it back in. He turns toward home, the cool ocean breeze hitting his face, and for the first time in four years, he doesn’t feel like he’s walking alone.
