Rafe Mendez, 52, has spent the last seven years covered in two-stroke oil and quiet, restoring vintage outboard motors out of a cinder block garage 10 minutes from the Florida panhandle coast. His only regular social interaction is haggling with fishermen over part costs and yelling at raccoons that steal scrap wiring from his back lot, so when his childhood buddy Jimmie showed up at 4 p.m. with two Apalachicola Seafood Festival tickets and a threat to drain the gas from his prize 1978 Evinrude if he said no, he caved. He’d been leaning against a dented beer cooler for 45 minutes, avoiding the line dancing crowd and the church group selling fried alligator bites, when he heard that laugh.
He didn’t know what to say first. For years, she’d been off limits, the little sister, the kid who’d cried when he married her sister’s friend back in 2001. He’d felt guilty enough when he’d gotten the invite to her wedding 12 years ago and didn’t go, too wrapped up in his wife’s first round of chemo to think about anything else. Now she was standing right in front of him, smirking, and all he could do was stare at the thin white scar wrapping around her left wrist, the one she’d gotten when she fell off his ski and the tow rope sliced her open. He’d driven her to the ER that day, held her hand while she got 11 stitches, and told her not to tell her mom he’d let her go 30 miles an hour across the bay. “You still wear that stupid race team cap,” she said, nodding at the faded blue hat on his head, the logo peeling at the edges. “I thought you’d have thrown that out by now.”
The first thought that popped into his head was that he had no business noticing how her flannel shirt fit across her shoulders, no business feeling the heat from her arm where it was still pressed against his, no business wanting to lean in closer so he could smell that coconut shampoo again. He felt a twist of disgust in his gut, the same guilt that had stopped him from going on a single date since his wife died, the voice in his head that said he didn’t get to want anything nice anymore. But then she told him she’d moved back three months prior, divorced after her ex cheated on her with his paralegal, running the smoked mullet stall for her dad now that his arthritis kept him away from the smoker. She talked fast, hands moving when she explained she’d just bought a small bungalow on the bay, had an old boat in the yard that needed a new motor, asked if he still did restoration work.
He was mid-sentence saying he could come look at it next week when the first firework burst red across the sky, and a group of drunk college kids stumbled past, shoving her right into his chest. Her hand landed flat on his sternum, fingers curled a little into the worn fabric of his work shirt, and he reacted without thinking, resting his hand lightly on her waist to steady her, keep her from getting knocked over by the crowd surging forward to watch the show. The fireworks boomed overhead, bright flashes painting her face blue and green and gold, and she didn’t step back. He could feel the thud of her heart under his palm, fast, matching his own, and when she tilted her chin up to look at him, her pupils were blown wide, the corner of her mouth tugging up in that same teasing smirk she’d had at 16, when she hid his wrench in her backpack to get him to talk to her. The voice in his head screaming about guilt and rules and what he was supposed to do went quiet, for the first time in seven years.
When the last firework faded and the crowd cheered, she pulled back just enough to fish truck keys out of her apron pocket, twisting them around her finger. “I baked key lime pie this morning,” she said, nodding toward the beat-up Ford F150 parked at the edge of the lot. “It’s the recipe you taught me to make when I was 17. Still got the crumb topping you said was the only way to make it right.” He paused half a second, glanced at the half-empty case of beer he’d brought, then grabbed it off the cooler, slinging the handle over his shoulder. He followed her across the lot, his work boots crunching on oyster shells, the faint smell of coconut hanging in the air behind her.
