Elias Voss, 53, makes his living bringing broken typewriters back to life out of a converted one-car garage behind his Asheville bungalow. He’s worn the same faded navy work shirt five days a week for six years, keeps a radio tuned to a 1940s jazz station 24/7, and hasn’t attended a neighborhood social event since his wife left him for a travel writing colleague eight years prior. His only regular social interaction is with the 19-year-old art student who works his front desk three afternoons a week, and even that feels like a stretch some days. He’s at the block party only because she all but dragged him out the door, saying if he hid from the neighbors one more time they’d start assuming he ran a meth lab out of his shop.
The air smells like charcoal smoke and grilled corn, the low thrum of a country cover band drifting from the end of the block. Elias leans against a dented white cooler counting down the minutes until he can slip back home, a lukewarm seltzer in his hand, when something solid and warm bumps into his left side. A jar of pickled okra sloshes, brine dripping down the front of his only clean linen shirt. He bites back a sharp retort before he looks up.
She’s standing half an inch from his shoes, hazel eyes wide with apology, a streak of auburn hair shot through with silver falling across her forehead. He recognizes her immediately—she dropped off a dented 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe at his shop three days prior, said it had been her grandfather’s, she needed it working to write her next book. He’d only seen her through the smudged glass of his front counter then, her face half hidden by a baseball cap. Now she’s in a thin linen sundress printed with sunflowers, silver hoops glinting in the golden hour light, and she smells like jasmine and smoked paprika. She dabs at the brine stain on his shirt with a crumpled paper napkin, her knuckles brushing his chest through the fabric, and Elias’s throat goes dry. He hasn’t been touched by anyone who wasn’t dropping off or picking up a typewriter in almost three years.
He tries to step back, put space between them, but the cooler is at his back. She laughs, soft and low, when she sees him flinch. “Sorry about that. My dog bolted after a squirrel, almost took my ankles out. I’m Lila, I moved in across the street last month.” She holds out her hand, and when he takes it, her palm is calloused at the fingertips, warm, her grip firmer than he expects. He introduces himself, and her face lights up. “Oh, you’re the typewriter guy. I’ve been checking my email every hour waiting for an update on that Royal. I’ve written three books on that exact model, I swear it types better than any laptop I’ve ever owned.” She taps her left wrist, and he sees the tiny black tattoo of a typewriter ‘E’ key peeking out from under her bracelet.
They talk for 20 minutes, leaning against the cooler, the noise of the party fading into background static. She tells him she’s a travel writer, just moved to Asheville after her daughter left for NYU, sick of staying in hotel rooms and eating takeout alone. He finds himself telling her about the 1920s Underwood he’s currently restoring, the way the keys stick if humidity hits above 70 percent, the time a customer brought in a typewriter used to draft a Stephen King short story in the 70s. He doesn’t even realize he’s leaning in, his shoulder brushing hers every time he laughs, until they both reach for the same black cherry seltzer in the cooler at the same time, their knuckles brushing hard. The jolt goes all the way up his arm to his chest.
Elias’s first instinct is to run. To mumble an excuse, go home, lock the door, go back to his quiet shop and his jazz and the stack of broken typewriters waiting for him. He’s spent eight years building that wall, he doesn’t want to tear it down for some random neighbor who likes old typewriters and smells good. But then she tilts her chin up, holds his eye contact for three full seconds, no smile, just a quiet, unhurried look that makes his palms sweat. “I found a box of old typewriter parts in the attic when I moved in,” she says, her voice low enough only he can hear it. “No clue what any of them are. I also have a bottle of 12-year-old bourbon I’ve been saving for someone who’d actually appreciate it, not the guys at the party who drink light beer out of a can. You wanna come over and look?”
He hesitates for half a second, thinking about the frozen pizza in his freezer, the jazz station playing on his kitchen radio, the quiet, empty house he’s gotten so used to. Then he nods.
They walk across the street as the sun dips below the oak trees, the noise of the block party fading behind them. Her shoulder brushes his every three steps, the jasmine scent clinging to her dress wrapping around him like a blanket. She’s already telling him about the beat up Underwood she found in a Lisbon flea market last year, how she carried it on the plane in her carry-on because she was scared luggage handlers would break it. Elias isn’t thinking about the typewriters waiting for him in his shop, or the wall he’s spent eight years building, or the quiet empty nights he’s grown so accustomed to. He’s only looking at the way the last of the sunlight catches the silver streaks in her hair, and the faint click of her sandals on the warm asphalt.
