Elias Voss is 61, makes his living restoring antique maps from the ground floor of his Portland row house, and has skipped every neighborhood block party for 17 straight years. The only reason he’s here now, sweating through his faded navy flannel and balancing three framed 19th century nautical charts under one arm, is that 10-year-old Javi from next door showed up at his shop at 8 a.m. with a batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies and begged him to bring his collection for the community history table. Elias doesn’t have a soft spot for much, but he’d taught Javi how to fold a paper boat that could survive the gutter runoff last spring, so he caved.
The air smells like charcoal and cut Kentucky bluegrass, a 90s Alan Jackson playlist warbling from a beat-up Bluetooth speaker propped on a cooler of craft beer. He’s half a step from tripping over a stack of lawn chairs when a warm hand wraps around his elbow, steadying him. He looks down, first at the smudge of barbecue sauce on the wrist of the hand, then up at the woman attached to it, and his throat goes dry.
Mara Carter is 48, his ex-wife’s younger sister, widowed two years prior, moved back to the neighborhood six months ago. He’s spoken to her exactly twice since she arrived, both times quick waves across the street, because he’d carried a stupid, useless crush on her for 20 years back when he was married, and the guilt of it had curdled into something like avoidance. She’s wearing cutoff denim shorts and a scuffed Pearl Jam tee, silver hoop earring catching the sun when she tilts her head to grin at him. “Careful there, map man. Those old things cost more than my car, right?”
Her hand stays on his elbow a beat longer than necessary, the callus on her palm from her work as a veterinary technician catching on the frayed edge of his flannel. He nods, fumbling a little to adjust the frames under his arm, and realizes he’s holding the chipped lighthouse mug she got him for Christmas in 2004, the one he’d dug out of a box after she moved back, for no reason he’d wanted to admit to himself. She spots it, her grin softening into something warmer, less teasing. “You still have that.”
It’s not a question. He shrugs, hoping the flush on his cheeks reads as sunburn instead of embarrassment. “Holds coffee fine. Better than the new crap they sell at the bodega.”
They fall into conversation easier than he expects, leaning against the side of the coolers while kids scream down the slip n slide set up in the middle of the street. She tells him she’d stopped by his shop three times in the last two months, hoping to get a 1970s map of the Olympic Peninsula framed for her late husband’s birthday, but the door was always locked after 3 p.m. He winces, admits he locks up early most days, keeps to himself, hasn’t let anyone but Javi in the back workroom in over a year. “I’ve got one of those maps, by the way,” he says before he can think better of it. “Mint condition survey from 1972. Been sitting in my back stock for six months, didn’t have the heart to sell it to some tourist.”
Her eyes light up, and she grabs his wrist this time, no pretense of steadying him. “Can you show me? I’ll pay whatever you want.”
He hesitates for half a second, thinking of the gossip that would spread if they disappear from the party together, thinking of his ex-wife who still lives three blocks over, thinking of the stupid guilt he’s carried for two decades. Then he looks at her, at the faint freckles across her nose that he’d always thought were cute, at the way she’s biting her lip like she’s nervous he’ll say no, and he nods.
The shop is cool, dark, smells like old paper and lemon oil when he unlocks the door, flipping on the string lights strung above the work table. He rummages in the flat file cabinet behind the desk, pulls out the rolled map, and hands it to her. Their fingers brush when she takes it, and the jolt that goes up his arm is the same one he felt the first time he met her, at his wedding reception, when she’d spilled red wine on his suit jacket and laughed so hard she snort-laughed.
She unrolls it on the table, running her fingers over the inked outline of the coast, and when she looks up at him, her face is close enough that he can smell the coconut sunscreen she’s wearing, the faint sweetness of the peach hard cider she’d been drinking at the party. “I always liked you, you know,” she says, quiet, like she’s admitting something she’s been holding in for years. “Even when my sister was being an idiot and leaving you for that guy she met at spin class. I thought you were too good for her.”
He doesn’t say anything for a beat, too shocked to form words, and then she’s leaning in, kissing him soft, her hand coming up to rest on the side of his neck, the ink stains on his fingers smudging the hem of her tee when he reaches for her waist. He doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t even think about pulling away, the stupid guilt he’s carried for 20 years melting like ice in the sun.
They hear Javi yelling his name from the sidewalk outside, knocking on the shop door, asking if he’s bringing the display out soon. He pulls back first, grinning when she chases his mouth for one more quick kiss before he rolls the map back up, tucking it into a kraft paper tube for her. He laces his fingers through hers when they walk toward the door, doesn’t let go even when he spots his ex-wife standing by the food table, staring at them, her mouth open.
