Javi Mendez, 57, has made a career out of patching up the cracked metal and frayed wiring of vintage campers, fixing the mistakes other half-assed mechanics left behind so families can drag those old Airstreams and Shastas to lakes and campgrounds across the West. He’s spent the last eight years living alone in his own 1968 Airstream Sovereign, parked on a half-acre lot a mile from the Oregon coast, turning down every invitation to potlucks, bonfires, or the weekly trivia night at the only bar in town. His biggest flaw, if you ask the few people who know him, is that he’s convinced letting anyone get close would be a betrayal of his late wife Elena, who died of ovarian cancer in 2015. He’d sold their custom auto shop in Sacramento three months after the funeral, packed up what little he wanted to keep, and drove north, never looking back.
He only agreed to judge the annual coastal vintage camper rally because the organizer offered him a free year of moorage for his 17-foot fishing boat, a deal even his stubborn ass couldn’t turn down. He’s leaning against the side of an immaculate 1964 Avion, holding a cold Rainier, when he spots her. The salt wind stings his cheeks, carries the smell of grilled bratwurst, seaweed, and coconut sunscreen, and she’s walking toward him carrying a tray of chargrilled oysters, her cutoff jeans frayed at the hem, rubber oyster-shucking boots caked in mud, a faded Pearl Jam flannel tied around her waist. It’s Mara, Elena’s youngest cousin, the one he’d only seen a handful of times, the last being at Elena’s funeral, when she’d hugged him so tight he could feel her heartbeat through his flannel, and he’d felt a stupid, guilty jolt at the way her hair smelled like lime and coconut.
He freezes, half expects her to pretend she doesn’t see him, but she grins, the laugh lines around her hazel eyes crinkling, and cuts through the crowd of campground regulars straight to him. She stops so close her shoulder brushes his bicep when she holds out the tray, the heat of her skin seeping through the thin cotton of his work shirt. “Knew you’d be here,” she says, her voice rough from years of yelling over wind and restaurant kitchen fans. She moved to town six months ago, she says, bought the run-down oyster shack at the end of the pier after her divorce, asked around about him as soon as she got there, but didn’t want to push when everyone told her he kept to himself.
He mumbles a thanks, takes an oyster, dabs it with hot sauce, and the briny, smoky flavor bursts across his tongue. He can’t stop staring at the freckles across her nose, the tiny scar above her left eyebrow she got when she crashed Elena’s old bike when she was 16, a story Elena used to tell at every family gathering. She teases him about still wearing the same beat up Red Wing work boots he had back in Sacramento, taps the toe of her rubber boot against his, and he finds himself laughing, a real laugh, not the tight half-smile he gives clients when they pay him. She mentions she’s been fixing up a beat up 1972 Scotty Camper on the property behind her oyster shack, can’t figure out why the interior lights keep shorting out, asks if he’d come take a look after the rally wraps up. He wants to say no, wants to make an excuse about having to fix a client’s water line first thing tomorrow, but he nods before he can talk himself out of it.
The sun is dipping low over the ocean, painting the sky pink and tangerine, by the time they get back to her place. The Scotty is parked behind the shack, half hidden by a cluster of shore pines, and he kneels down by the electrical panel, his jeans getting damp from the dewy grass. She leans over his shoulder, her breath warm against the back of his neck, and points at a loose frayed wire half hidden behind a panel, her hand brushing his forearm when she reaches past him. He feels a jolt run up his arm, sharper than any shock he’s ever gotten from a live wire, and he stands up fast, turning to face her. They’re inches apart, he can smell the coconut lime shampoo in her hair, the sparkling wine she’d been sipping at the rally on her breath, and she says she always knew he was miserable the last three years of Elena’s marriage, when Elena was sick and pushed everyone away, even him. No one’s ever said that out loud to him, no one’s ever acknowledged that he spent those three years sleeping on the couch, eating cold cereal alone, feeling like a stranger in his own house.
He doesn’t say anything, just leans in, and kisses her. She tastes like oyster brine and sparkling wine, her hand curling into the graying hair at the nape of his neck, and for the first time in eight years, he doesn’t feel a flicker of guilt. He pulls back after a minute, stammers that he’s not good at this, that he hasn’t so much as held anyone’s hand since Elena died, and she laughs, soft, not teasing, and tugs a strand of hair off his forehead. She says she’s not good at it either, that her ex-husband left her for a 22-year-old bartender two years ago, that she’s just as rusty as he is. She walks over to the cooler sitting on the shack’s back porch, pulls out two cold IPAs, and nods at the weathered wooden steps leading up to the porch.
He follows her, sits down next to her on the step, their shoulders pressed together, and takes the beer she hands him. The waves crash against the pier a few hundred feet away, seagulls cry as they circle the dumpsters behind the shack, and the last of the sun dips below the horizon, painting the sky deep purple. He doesn’t check his watch, doesn’t make an excuse to leave early. He takes a slow sip of beer, lets the salt wind blow through his hair, and for the first time in eight years, he doesn’t feel the need to rush home to an empty trailer.
