Elmo Ruiz, 62, retired high school woodshop teacher, has spent the eight years since his wife’s breast cancer death hiding behind his widower status, turning down every invitation that isn’t related to his granddaughter’s soccer games or trips to the local lumber yard. He only started selling his custom cutting boards at the Silverton farmers market three months prior, because his 12-year-old granddaughter Lila told him he was “wasting his cool skills” sitting in his garage alone every weekend. He only works the Saturday shift, shows up an hour late, leaves an hour early, avoids small talk like it’s contagious.
The August air hangs thick and sticky, smelling like cut grass and fried onion rings from the food truck at the end of the row, sweat soaking the hem of his faded Carhartt t-shirt as he runs a fine-grit sanding block over the edge of a walnut board. He doesn’t look up when the volunteer at the info tent two spots over mutters to her friend that the woman walking toward them is the new mayor’s ex-wife, moved up from Sacramento three months ago to run the tiny public library, no one’s supposed to mention the messy divorce that ended with her catching him cheating with his campaign manager. He doesn’t care about small town gossip, until she stops right in front of his booth, sets a dripping cherry Kool-Aid cup down on the edge of his wooden counter, and taps the faded 1987 Portland Timbers sticker on the side of his dented white cooler.
He freezes. That sticker’s been there since he was 26, no one’s commented on it in at least a decade. He looks up, and she’s leaning in just enough that her shoulder is six inches from his, loose linen shirt slipping down one sun-freckled shoulder, sunglasses pushed up into wavy auburn hair streaked with gray right at the temple. She smells like lavender shampoo and peppermint lip balm, no rings on her left hand, chipped mint green nail polish like she paints them herself and doesn’t bother touching up chips.
“Used to go to those games with my dad every Sunday,” she says, her voice low and a little rough, like she smokes a single cigarette every now and then after a long shift. She holds his eye contact longer than is strictly polite, a half-smirk on her face like she knows he’s been staring. His first instinct is to mumble a thanks and go back to sanding, shut down like he does every time someone tries to make small talk that isn’t about cutting boards or Lila’s last hat trick. But then she laughs, soft, and says “Don’t look so scared, I’m not here to beg you to donate a board to the library silent auction. Well, not yet, anyway.”
His chest pulls tight, half sharp disgust at himself for even noticing how pretty she is, half hot, thrumming desire he hasn’t felt since before his wife got sick. He knows the unwritten small town rules: you don’t flirt with the golden boy mayor’s ex-wife, you don’t make a spectacle of yourself when you’re the town’s official sad widower, you don’t do anything that would make the church ladies whisper over their peach pies after Sunday service. But then she leans in a little more, her forearm brushing his when she points at the stack of spalted maple boards on his back shelf, and he can feel the heat of her skin through his thin t-shirt, the crackle of the nearby kettle corn stand fading to background noise for a beat.
She asks about the twisted grain on the reclaimed oak board he has displayed at the front, and he finds himself talking, telling her how he found that oak tree fallen on his property after the ice storm last winter, milled it himself in his garage, spent three weeks sanding it down because the grain was so knotted it kept catching his sandpaper. She listens, actually listens, doesn’t check her phone, nods when he rambles about the difference between food-grade mineral oil and beeswax finishes, and when he accidentally drops his sanding block, they both reach for it at the same time. Her palm brushes his calloused, sawdust-covered knuckles, and she doesn’t pull away right away, just holds his gaze, that half-smirk still tugging at the corner of her mouth.
He should pull back, make an excuse about needing to restock his display, remind himself he’s not supposed to want this. But then she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and he sees a tiny scar above her left eyebrow, and she says “I don’t know anyone here yet, and the bar down on Main Street has $3 Pacificos on Saturday afternoons. You wanna get one after the market wraps up?”
He hesitates for two full seconds, throat dry, half ready to make an excuse about needing to pick Lila up from her friend’s house, a lie he already has half-formed on his tongue. But then she says “Relax, the mayor’s at a fundraiser in Portland all day, so no one’s gonna throw a fit if you’re seen with me.” He snorts before he can stop himself, and says “Yeah, okay. That sounds good.”
She grins, pulls a crumpled library checkout receipt out of her jeans pocket, scribbles her number on the back with a chewed blue ballpoint pen, presses it into his palm. Her fingers linger on his for a beat, warm, the ink smudging a little against the sawdust on his skin. She picks up her Kool-Aid cup, says “I’ll be over by the honey stand if you need to find me before closing,” and turns to walk away.
He tucks the receipt into the inner pocket of his canvas work vest, pats it once to make sure it’s secure, and looks back down at the half-sanded walnut board in front of him. He runs the sanding block along the smooth, warm edge, already mapping the exact spot he’ll carve the tiny pine tree for her, the small detail he only adds to pieces he makes for people he actually likes.
