He’d planned to drop the typewriter and bolt, but the 88-degree heat stuck to his shirt like a second skin, so he ducked into the Lions Club beer tent for a cold IPA before heading home. He grabbed a spot at the wobbliest picnic table on the far edge of the tent, away from the hooting groups of high school kids and retired factory workers arguing over cornhole scores, and twisted the top off his can, savoring the first cold sip that burned all the way down his throat.
He didn’t notice she’d sat down across from him until her forearm brushed his when she reached for the napkin dispenser between them. He looked up, surprised, and recognized Lena Hart, 47, the county library director he’d only spoken to twice before, both times when he’d donated stacks of out-of-print typewriter repair manuals to the library’s local history collection. He’d only ever seen her in crisp blouses and tailored slacks, her hair pulled back in a tight bun, but today she was wearing frayed cutoff denim shorts, a faded 1995 Tom Petty tour tee, and her wavy brown hair fell loose to her shoulders, a smudge of purple ink on her left jaw. The soft scratch of the poetry tattoo wrapped around her wrist lingered on his scarred knuckles for a full ten seconds after she pulled her arm back, and she held his gaze three beats longer than polite, a half-smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth like she knew he’d been staring at the freckles across her knees half a second before she spoke.
He almost made an excuse to leave right then. For eight years he’d told himself any romantic or even casual interest in another woman was a betrayal of Maria, that anyone his age chasing that kind of thrill was sad and desperate, that a woman 15 years younger would never look at him for anything other than a discount on a typewriter repair. The old guilt twisted in his chest, sharp and familiar, but then she said she’d seen him drop off the Hermes earlier, that she’d found a beat-up 1964 Smith Corona at a garage sale the month before, that she’d been meaning to call him for weeks to ask for lessons, that she wrote poetry and hated typing on her laptop.
He didn’t even hesitate when she asked him if he wanted to ditch the fair, head back to her cottage on the edge of town, and take a look at the Smith Corona. He grabbed his half-empty beer can, followed her through the crowd, his shoulder brushing hers every few steps as they wove past families pushing strollers and teenagers selling lemonade from folding tables. When they got to her beat-up silver pickup, she leaned across the cab to adjust his seatbelt for him, their faces six inches apart, and he could taste the cherry seltzer she’d been drinking on her breath when she kissed him, soft at first, then harder when he kissed her back, the old guilt melting away faster than the ice in his beer can left out in the sun.
Her golden retriever came bounding off the porch when they pulled into her driveway, barking so loud the neighbor’s chickens squawked and flew over the fence. She laughed when the dog jumped up on him, leaving dusty paw prints all over his work jeans, and he realized he hadn’t laughed that easy, that unplanned, in almost a decade. He had a spare black typewriter ribbon tucked in the back pocket of his jeans, the same one he’d stuffed there that morning before he left the shop, just in case he ran into a customer with an emergency. He set the roll of ribbon on her entryway table, brushed a stray strand of hair off her forehead, and followed her down the hall to the room where she kept the Smith Corona.
