Manny Ruiz, 59, makes his living restoring antique typewriters out of his garage workshop in East Austin, and has spent the last 12 years actively avoiding any neighborhood event that requires small talk with people he doesn’t do business with. His ex-wife used to drag him to every block party, holiday potluck, and community clean-up, chattering the whole time about how he needed to “get out more” right before she left him for a realtor who wore tailored polos and never had ink under his fingernails. His only soft spot is his 22-year-old daughter, who texted him four times in the last week begging him to show up to the summer street fair, said the taco truck from his favorite spot on 6th was catering, so he caved.
He’s leaning against a street light 10 feet from the taco line, paper plate loaded with carnitas in one hand, sweating Modelo in the other, faded burnt-orange UT cap pulled low to avoid eye contact, when he hears the yelp. The new woman who moved into the old Henderson place three blocks over is stumbling backward, her rescue hound yanking hard on its leash after a squirrel darting across the grass, one hand full of elote, the other clamped around a seltzer can, about to face-plant into a patch of prickly pear. Manny pushes off the light pole in two long steps, catches her elbow with his ink-stained left hand, steadying her, and grabs the elote plate before it slides off her wrist and hits the dirt.
Her skin is warm where his fingers wrap around her forearm, he feels the raised callus on her middle finger the same second she notices the smudge of ribbon ink on his wrist. She laughs, a low, rough sound that makes the corner of her hazel eyes crinkle, and tucks a strand of gray-streaked auburn hair behind her ear. She’s wearing a linen button-down tied at the waist, frayed cutoff jeans, silver hoops big enough to slip a finger through, and a tattoo of a fountain pen curling up her left forearm. She introduces herself as Lena, says she’s a calligrapher, moved down from Portland three months prior to get away from an ex who kept throwing out her vintage pen collection because he thought it was “clutter.”
Manny tells her he restores typewriters, and she lights up so bright he almost steps back. She says she’s been hunting for a working 1950s Royal Quiet De Luxe for six months, every one she’s found online is either rusted through or priced so high she’d have to skip rent for two months to afford it. He has one, fully restored, sitting on his workbench right now, a client bailed on paying for it two weeks prior, and the words are on the tip of his tongue before he freezes. The old, familiar tightness curls in his chest, the voice in his head that’s been there since the divorce saying don’t do this, you’re bad at this, she’ll just leave like everyone else, you’re better off alone in the garage with your machines that don’t lie.
She’s leaning in now, shoulder six inches from his, close enough he can smell coconut sunscreen and roasted chile on her clothes, and she doesn’t push when he goes quiet for a second. She just nods at the UT cap, says she went to Texas State, used to drive up to Austin for football games every fall, and the hound sits down at his feet, leans its heavy body against his work boot, warm through the denim of his jeans. He finds himself laughing at the story she tells about the time she snuck into a game with a fake ID and spent the whole third quarter hiding from security in a port-a-potty, and the tightness in his chest loosens, just a little. He realizes the disgust he’s trained himself to feel at the thought of letting someone new into his space isn’t disgust at all, it’s fear, and right now the desire to show her the Royal, to hear what she thinks of his work, to keep talking to her, is louder than that fear.
He’s halfway through a story about a client who brought him a typewriter full of mouse droppings and a 30-year-old love letter tucked under the ribbon spool when she tilts her head, smirks, and cuts him off. “You gonna invite me over to see that Royal you were talking about, or am I gonna have to stand here flirting with you for another hour before you work up the nerve?”
Manny blinks, then barks out a laugh so loud a couple passing kids glance over at him. He tells her the workshop’s a mess, but it’s only a three minute walk, and she grins, tugs the hound’s leash to get him up off the grass. They walk slow, the dog trotting between them, stopping every few feet to sniff at a fire ant mound or a wildflower growing through the sidewalk crack, and she asks him question after question: how he got into typewriter restoration, how long he’s lived in the house, if he has any other machines besides the Royal. He answers all of them, no half-truths, no deflections, and for the first time in 12 years, he doesn’t feel like he’s rushing to get back to being alone.
When they turn onto his street, he unlocks the side gate to the garage, flips on the string lights strung above the workbench. The Royal sits dead center, polished chrome glinting in the light, brand new black and red ribbon threaded through the carriage. She steps up to it immediately, runs a delicate finger over the rounded keys, and looks over at him, smile soft. He reaches into the mini fridge tucked under the workbench, pulls out two ice-cold Modelos, and sets one down on the wood next to her elbow.
