Elias Voss, 57, had wedged himself between the dented metal beer cooler and the side of Miller’s hardware store at the annual Maple Street block party, half-hidden in shadow so he could mess with the frayed string of neon party lights someone had shoved into his hand ten minutes prior. He’d been a vintage neon sign restorer for 31 years, had fallen three stories off a Chicago downtown high-rise fixing a beer ad sign three years back, had the thin, silvery scar snaking up his left forearm to prove it, and had not willingly made small talk with a stranger at a neighborhood event in the eight years since his wife packed her minivan and drove to Madison with a guy who sold timeshares. His biggest flaw, if you asked his sister who called once a month from Phoenix, was that he’d rather spend three nights troubleshooting a faulty gas tube than admit he wanted anything other than cold beer and quiet in his life.
The air smelled like charred bratwurst, sugary lemonade, and the faint chemical tang of the neon gas he worked with every day. The portable speaker propped on the cooler hummed an old Travis Tritt track, and he could hear the high-pitched yells of kids chasing each other with water guns down the block. He was just about to twist the final loose bulb into place when a shadow fell over his hands.
She was close enough that her bare shoulder brushed his bicep when she reached past him for a seltzer from the bottom of the cooler, the fabric of her sunflower print dress soft against his skin. He recognized her immediately: Mara, the 38-year-old part-time librarian who’d moved into the blue bungalow two doors down six months prior, who he’d only exchanged stiff nods with because every time they crossed paths Mrs. Henderson from across the street would pause her yard work to stare like she was watching a soap opera unfold. He’d heard the gossip, too—she’d divorced the local high school baseball coach back in spring, had been asking the barista at the corner coffee shop about the “quiet guy who fixes the bright signs in his garage.” The thought made his chest tight, half annoyance at the idea of being the neighborhood’s newest gossip fodder, half a warm, stupid spark he’d thought died years ago.
“Those are the lights the rec department bought for the park last year,” she said, tilting her head so her blonde ponytail slipped over one shoulder, and he had to fight the urge to stare at the smattering of freckles across her nose. “I tried to fix them last month. Couldn’t figure out why half the pink bulbs kept shorting out.”
He held up the frayed wire he’d just taped together, his calloused fingers wrapping around the plastic casing. “Cheap wiring. They buy the bulk stuff from Amazon, doesn’t hold up to Midwest winter frost.”
Her eyes drifted down to his forearm, to the scar snaking up from his wrist to his elbow. She reached out, slow, like she was checking if he’d pull away, and her index finger brushed the raised, silvery skin. It was supposed to be an accidental, polite gesture, he knew, but her touch was warm, left a tingle that ran all the way up to his shoulder. “What happened here?”
“Fell off a scaffold fixing an Old Style sign in downtown Chicago,” he said, and he didn’t even mind saying it, didn’t mind the way she didn’t flinch or look away like most people did when he told the story. “Landed on a stack of empty pallets. Got lucky, all things considered.”
She didn’t pull her hand away for half a beat longer than she needed to, and when she did, she was smiling, the corner of her mouth tucked up like she knew something he didn’t. “I have a sign just like that broken in the library’s kids wing. The one that says STORYTIME in pink cursive. I’ve been bugging the city to send someone to fix it for three months, they keep saying it’s not in the budget.”
Elias hesitated. He knew if he offered to fix it, everyone on the block would know by sundown. Mrs. Henderson would be on her porch with her binoculars when he showed up Saturday morning, the guys at the hardware store would tease him for weeks for “chasing the librarian.” The thought of the attention made his skin crawl, made him want to lie and say he was booked solid for the next two months. But then he caught a whiff of her coconut shampoo, mixed with the faint sweet smell of the cherry pie she’d definitely just eaten, and she was looking at him like he was the only person on the block who could help her, like she didn’t care who saw them talking.
“I can fix it,” he said, before he could talk himself out of it. “I’ve got spare pink tubing in the garage. I can swing by Saturday around 10, if that works.”
Her smile widened, and she dug a crumpled napkin out of her purse, scribbled her cell number on it in sparkly purple pen, and tucked it into the breast pocket of his worn gray flannel shirt. Her fingers brushed the skin of his chest through the thin fabric, and she held eye contact for three full beats, long enough that he could see the flecks of green in her hazel eyes, long enough that he didn’t care if Mrs. Henderson was watching from across the street. “I’ll have coffee on. And I made a cherry pie this morning. There’s plenty left, if you like that sort of thing.”
She grabbed her seltzer, gave him a small wave, and walked back to her group of friends by the grill, her dress swishing around her calves as she went. Elias twisted the final bulb into the string of neon lights, and the whole strand lit up bright, fuschia pink, casting a warm glow over his hands. He slipped his hand into his flannel pocket, pressed the crumpled napkin against his thigh, and watched her laugh at something her friend said, her head tilted back in the golden late afternoon sun. A group of kids ran past, spraying each other with water guns, and one of them bumped his shoulder, but he didn’t even look away.
