Moe Sorrentino, 58, retired air traffic controller, swiped sweat off his brow with the back of a grease-stained wrist and glared at the stack of raw patties next to his grill. He’d only agreed to work the neighborhood block party because his next door neighbor had shown up at his door at 8 a.m. with a six pack of his favorite stout and a sob story about her bad back, and he’d never been able to say no to a woman bringing free beer. He’d spent 32 years ordering commercial pilots through storm systems and holiday rushes, never once deviating from protocol, and the last seven years since his wife’s death had been even more rigid: same breakfast every morning, same 3 mile walk at 6 p.m., same bar stool every Friday, no exceptions. The tax hike the new city council had rammed through two weeks prior, the one that would raise his property payment by $400 a month, had been the first thing to rattle his routine in months, and he’d spent three nights ranting about it to his buddies over shots of bourbon.
He spotted her hovering by the cooler ten minutes later, picking at a lumpy scoop of potato salad on a flimsy paper plate, a smudge of cerulean paint on the side of her wrist. Elara Voss, 49, wife of the councilman who’d spearheaded the tax hike, the one Moe had called a greedy crook to anyone who would listen. Everyone walking past her threw glares, one guy even muttered “tax thief” loud enough for her to hear, and she hunched her shoulders a little, staring at her shoes. Moe’s first instinct was to turn away, pretend he hadn’t seen her, but his boot caught on a loose brick in the sidewalk when he turned to grab a fresh beer, and he stumbled, spilling half his drink down the front of her cream linen skirt.
They ended up leaning against the side of the cooler, out of the way of the crowd, talking over the roar of the music. She told him she was a watercolor artist, that the blue paint on her wrist was from a piece she’d been working on that morning of the rose bushes in her front yard, that she’d fought her husband for three weeks about the tax hike, told him it would crush fixed income folks in the neighborhood, but he’d ignored her, too busy currying favor with the real estate developers funding his re-election bid. No one had bothered to ask her side of it, she said, everyone just saw her as the pretty accessory on the councilman’s arm. Moe found himself leaning in when she talked, so he could hear her over the noise, his bicep brushing her shoulder every time someone squeezed past them. He smelled jasmine and coconut on her perfume, noticed the faint smattering of freckles across her nose, the way her bottom lip tucked between her teeth when she was thinking about what to say next. When she reached out to take a sip of his beer, just to try it, her fingers wrapped around the bottle at the same time as his, and she didn’t pull away for three full beats, her skin cool even in the 82 degree heat.
He was torn, half of him screaming that this was wrong, that he hated her husband, that all his friends would roast him alive if they found out he was chatting up the councilman’s wife, the other half thrumming with a kind of excitement he hadn’t felt since he was 20 years old, sneaking into his girlfriend’s dorm room after curfew. The conflict evaporated when her husband walked up, slung a heavy arm around her waist, and gave Moe a plastic, politician’s smile, saying “Hope she’s not boring you to death with all her art nonsense” before yanking her away to go greet a group of guys in tailored suits, the same developers who’d pushed for the tax hike. She looked over her shoulder at him as she was pulled away, raised one eyebrow, and nodded once toward the small community garden at the end of the block, hidden from the party by a row of overgrown sunflowers.
Moe waited ten minutes, told the guy running the grill he was feeling lightheaded from the heat, and headed for the garden. She was there, leaning against a tomato trellis, holding two cold IPAs she’d snuck out of the cooler, grinning when she saw him. They sat on a weathered cedar bench tucked between rows of basil and cherry tomato plants, the air thick with the smell of ripe fruit and cut grass, no one able to see them from the street. She leaned in first, kissed him slow, her hand resting on his chest, and he tasted IPA and cherry lip balm on her tongue, forgot all about tax hikes, and routine, and the rules he’d lived by for seven years.
They stayed there for 45 minutes, talking quiet between kisses, no rush, no pressure. She slipped him a crumpled slip of paper with her cell phone number scribbled on it in blue pen, told him her husband was leaving for a four day conference in Phoenix next Thursday. He tucked the paper into the breast pocket of his flannel shirt, walked her to the edge of the garden, and she slipped out first, so no one would see them together. He walked home slowly, stopping at his mailbox to grab his mail, and pulled out his new property tax bill, the councilman’s name printed in bold black ink at the bottom of the first page. He folded the bill in half, shoved it into the same pocket as her phone number, and turned his key in his front door lock.
