Maceo Ruiz is 52, runs a vintage neon sign restoration shop out of a cinder block garage on the edge of La Grande, Oregon, and hasn’t looked forward to any day that didn’t end with him alone in his workshop for three straight years. He’s got a scar snaking up his left forearm from a 12,000 volt transformer shock he took last winter, a habit of chewing spearmint gum until it crumbles, and a bad habit of shutting down any conversation that veers closer to personal than asking for a price quote on a broken beer sign. His wife Elara died of ovarian cancer in 2020, and he’s avoided casual small talk with anyone in town ever since, sick of the pitying side glances, the half-hearted offers to bring over casseroles he never eats. The only regular trip he makes outside his shop is the weekly Wednesday farmers market, to pick up the yellow peaches Elara used to can every August, sweet enough to eat right off the pit without sugar.
The air that Wednesday is thick enough to drink, 92 degrees with no breeze, smelling like grilled sweet corn, cut alfalfa from the fields outside town, and the syrupy strawberry drizzle from the shaved ice stand at the end of the row. Maceo’s t-shirt is stuck to his back with sweat when he reaches for the last flat of peaches on the table, and his knuckles brush someone else’s mid-reach. He yanks his hand back like he’s touched a hot wire, and looks up to see Lena Hart, the new county public health inspector who’d flagged his shop for improper solvent storage two weeks prior, hit him with a $120 fine he’d grumbled about for three days straight.
She’s grinning, like she knows exactly who he is, a smudge of blue ballpoint ink on the edge of her jaw, her dark hair pulled back in a messy braid, wearing a faded denim work shirt and work boots caked in mud from the construction site she’d probably inspected that morning. “Figured I’d find you here,” she says, and her voice is lower than he remembers, rough around the edges like she’s spent all day yelling over construction noise. “I felt bad about that fine, by the way. The last inspector let half the small business rules lapse, I didn’t realize you’d been using that same storage cabinet for 17 years without a problem. Already voided it, check your email later.”
Maceo blinks, the spearmint gum going still in his mouth. He’d spent two hours drafting an angry email to her boss he never sent, had half a mind to hang a neon sign out front mocking the health department if the fine didn’t get reversed. He nods, and shifts his weight, acutely aware of how close she’s standing, their shoulders almost touching under the flimsy shade of the fruit stand’s pop-up tent. A kid runs past with a blue raspberry shaved ice, dripping all over the gravel, and she steps closer to avoid him, her arm brushing his, the rough cotton of her shirt scraping against his bare skin. She smells like cedar and citrus, not the heavy floral perfume Elara used to wear, and his chest tightens for a second, half disgust at himself for even noticing, half a low, warm hum he hasn’t felt in years.
They stand there for ten minutes, talking about nothing, and everything. She tells him she moved to La Grande three months prior, left a 15 year marriage and a boring desk job in Portland, wanted to spend more time outside, less time staring at spreadsheets. She says she’s driven past his shop a dozen times, stopped once to look at the old 1950s bowling alley sign he restored out front, the neon pink and blue glowing so bright you can see it from the highway two miles out. Maceo finds himself telling her about the sign, how he tracked down the original tubing from a supplier in Ohio, spent three weeks rewiring it, how Elara used to laugh at him for talking to the signs like they were old friends. He doesn’t realize he’s mentioned Elara until after the words are out, and he tenses up, waiting for the pitying look he gets from everyone else in town. It doesn’t come. Lena just nods, like she gets it, says she still talks to her old dog sometimes, even though he died two years ago.
A group of his neighbors walk past, and he sees them glance over, eyebrows raised, and the old urge to run hits him hard. He doesn’t want to be the town’s next gossip item, the widower who’s already moving on with the new health inspector, doesn’t want people whispering about him in the grocery store checkout line. But then Lena leans in a little, so close he can feel her breath on his ear, and asks him if he knows any good places to get fish and chips after 9pm, says she hasn’t found a single spot in town that doesn’t serve soggy cod and greasy fries.
He looks her in the eye, notices her pupils are blown wide even in the bright sun, her knee brushing his where they’re standing, and for the first time in three years, he doesn’t overthink it. He says he knows a little shack out by the Umatilla River, only open on Wednesdays and Thursdays, run by an old guy who catches the cod himself every morning, and it’s the best west of the Cascades. He says he can take her there, if she wants. She grins, and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, says she’ll meet him at his shop at 8, don’t be late.
She walks away then, boots kicking up little clouds of dust on the gravel, and Maceo picks up the flat of peaches, the cold root beer she’d pressed into his hand halfway through their conversation still sweating through the paper napkin wrapped around it. He walks back to his truck, the sun warm on his face, and for the first time since Elara died, he doesn’t dread the quiet of the evening ahead. He unlocks his truck, sets the peaches on the passenger seat, and pulls out his phone to check for the email voiding his fine, already mentally rearranging his work schedule so he can close up the shop an hour early.
