Javi Ruiz, 52, has restored 78 vintage camper vans in the last decade, and he can strip a 1970s VW engine and rebuild it in less than four hours, but he cannot survive a small town chili cookoff. He’d only shown up because his 19-year-old shop assistant had threatened to hide all his metric socket sets if he didn’t get out of the garage for one night, and he’d spent the first 45 minutes parked by the beer cooler, avoiding eye contact with every neighbor who’d ever asked him intrusive questions about his 2015 divorce.
The air smelled like smoked meat, cheap lighter fluid, and the faint cloying sweetness of the cotton candy stand set up by the fire department bouncy house, and he was just calculating how fast he could sneak back to his truck when a hand reached past his shoulder for a seltzer from the cooler below, brushing his wrist so lightly he almost thought he imagined it. He looked down first, at the smudge of charcoal on the stranger’s knuckle, the chipped clear polish on her thumbnail, then up, into warm brown eyes that held his longer than casual politeness dictated. She was the new Methodist pastor, the one he’d avoided meeting for three months, convinced she’d be just like the old one, who’d made a point of tsk-ing at him in the grocery store checkout line after his split.
“Sorry about that,” she said, grinning, and her voice was lower than he expected, rough around the edges like she spent too much time yelling over congregation hymns or driving with her windows down. “Yours is the brisket chili, right? The one that’s been making all the 70-year-old deacons reach for iced tea like it’s a life raft?”
He blinked, surprised she knew which entry was his. He’d written his name on the sign-up sheet in messy scrawl, fully expecting no one to connect it to the van shop on the edge of town. “Guilty. Guess it’s too spicy for folks who think black pepper is a radical ingredient.”
She laughed, leaning against the cooler next to him, her shoulder brushing his bicep when a group of kids ran past chasing a stray dog, and she didn’t step away. He could smell her perfume, faint cedar and orange peel, no heavy floral stuff he associated with church leadership, and her jeans were scuffed at the knee, her shirt a faded 1994 Soundgarden tour tee peeking out under an unbuttoned flannel. “I loved it. I put two extra scoops on my plate. Grew up in New Mexico, so my spice tolerance is basically unbeatable.”
The conversation moved slow, at first, him still guarded, waiting for the inevitable question about his ex, the inevitable polite judgment when she realized he hadn’t set foot in a church since he was 16. Instead she asked about the 1972 VW Westfalia he’d posted for sale the week prior, the one he’d spent six months restoring, lining the cabinets with cedar he’d cut himself from his grandpa’s old property up in the piney woods, putting in a custom pull-out bed and a solar panel setup that could run a mini fridge for three days off grid. She said she’d been looking for something to take on weekend trips to state parks, to draw the wildflowers, and that charcoal smudge on her knuckle made sense then, she was an artist before she went to seminary.
He found himself rambling, telling her about the tiny leak in the window seal he’d fixed the week before, about how he’d almost kept the van for himself, but he didn’t have anyone to road trip with, and it felt stupid to drive it alone when it was built for two. The words were out before he could stop them, and he tensed, waiting for the pitying look he got every time he admitted he was still living alone, still eating takeout on his couch every night. Instead she leaned in a little closer, the toe of her scuffed work boot tapping his boot lightly, and said, “Well, I don’t have anyone to road trip with either. Wanna test drive it up to Lake Bob Sandlin next weekend? I’ll bring the beer, you bring the leftover spicy chili. We can see if the window seal actually holds if it rains.”
The thought hit him first, fast and sharp, that everyone in town would talk. The divorced van restorer and the new pastor, out camping together? The church ladies would gossip for six months, his ex would hear about it through her cousin, and all the work he’d done to lay low for the last 8 years would go up in smoke. But then he looked at her, at the way she was biting her lip like she was nervous he’d say no, the charcoal smudge still faint on her knuckle, the Soundgarden logo faded on her shirt, and he realized he didn’t give a single shit what anyone thought. He’d spent too long hiding from people who made assumptions about him, and for the first time in almost a decade, someone was seeing exactly who he was, no pre-conceived ideas, no judgment.
He nodded, pulling his phone out to exchange numbers, and when her hand brushed his again as she passed him her phone, he didn’t flinch, didn’t overthink it. She left a minute later, called over to judge the kid’s apple pie contest, waving over her shoulder as she walked away, and he stood there leaning against the cooler, holding his half-empty beer, watching the hem of her flannel blow in the warm east Texas wind. He pulled up the photos of the Westfalia on his phone, already making a mental list of small upgrades he could add before the weekend, the extra wool blanket he could throw in the back, the jar of pickled jalapenos he had in his fridge that would go perfect with the leftover chili.
