Rafe Marquez, 53, makes his living rebuilding vintage outboard motors out of the cinder block garage behind his small Minnesota lake house, has not voluntarily spent more than 10 minutes one-on-one with anyone who isn’t dropping off or picking up a motor since his wife packed her bags and moved to Tucson eight years prior. His biggest flaw, if you ask the few people who still know him well, is that he talks himself out of every good thing before it even has a chance to land. He’d spent three decades working as a state fisheries biologist, trudging through muck and ice to count walleye populations, before he quit cold turkey after the divorce, swapped his waders for a socket set, and decided he was done answering to anyone.
He only came to the annual Main Street brat and beer festival to avoid the guys from the local bait shop who kept stopping by his shop begging him to join their bowling league. He’s propped against the thick trunk of a 100-year-old bur oak, mustard smudged on the cuff of his faded Carhartt jacket, half-empty hazy IPA in his other hand, when she walks up. She’s wearing a cutoff flannel over a faded brewery t-shirt, work boots caked in lake mud, and the sun hits the copper streaks in her dark hair just right so he finds himself staring before he can stop himself.
She doesn’t seem to notice his hesitation, pulls up her phone, and shoves it toward his face, a photo of a beat-up 1972 Evinrude 25 horsepower motor propped on a workbench taking up the whole screen. “I’ve been trying to fix this for my dad’s old fishing boat for three months. Replaced the spark plugs, cleaned the carb twice, still won’t turn over for more than 10 seconds. All the guys on the Facebook group kept saying you’re the only person within 100 miles who knows those old Evinrudes better than the guys who built them.” She’s grinning when she talks, crinkles at the corners of her hazel eyes, and when she shifts her weight closer, her knee bumps his, warm through the thin denim of her cutoff jeans. He feels a jolt go up his spine, the kind he hasn’t felt since he was a teenager sneaking into the drive-in with his high school girlfriend, and he hates himself for it, for even wanting to say yes, for craving the attention of someone who isn’t just asking him how much a rebuild costs.
He almost says no. Almost tells her he’s booked solid for the next two months, that she should take it to the shop up in Brainerd. But then she holds up her phone again, swipes to a photo of her dad, a grizzled old guy Rafe recognizes from his fisheries days, holding up a 30-inch walleye next to that exact boat, and the words stick in his throat. “I can swing by your place tomorrow morning, 9 a.m. Bring a six pack of that hazy IPA you’re passing out, I’ll bring the carb rebuild kit I’ve got sitting in my parts bin. Probably take an hour, tops.”
She whoops so loud a couple of people standing nearby turn to look, and she grabs his wrist to squeeze it, her hand warm and calloused from working on the boat herself, and he doesn’t pull away. They exchange numbers, she tells him her name is Mia, lives in the little cottage on the north end of the lake, just a 10 minute drive from his place, and she promises she’s got a cooler of beer and a plate of her homemade chocolate chip cookies waiting for him when he shows up.
He leaves the festival 10 minutes later, doesn’t stop to talk to anyone on the way out, drives home with the windows down, the cool lake air blowing through his hair, and he can still feel the pressure of her hand on his wrist, the smell of her shampoo lingering in his nose. He tells himself he’s just doing a favor for an old coworker’s kid, that it doesn’t mean anything, that he’s not going to let it turn into more. But when he gets into his garage, he rummages through his parts bin until he finds the exact carb rebuild kit he needs for that 1972 Evinrude, still in the unopened plastic wrapper, and he pulls out his phone to snap a photo of it to send to her. She texts back 30 seconds later, a photo of her holding a six pack of his favorite IPA and a plate stacked high with chocolate chip cookies, the caption saying “can’t wait.”
He sets his phone down on his workbench, runs a calloused finger over the rusted edge of the old Evinrude he’s currently rebuilding for a guy from St. Paul, and smiles for the first time in eight years without forcing it.
