Ronan O’Malley, 53, makes his living rebuilding antique typewriters from the back of a 300 square foot shop in northeast Portland. He’s held the same grudge against fellow restorer Marty Hargrove for 16 years, ever since Marty undercut him on a high-profile restoration of a Hemingway-owned Royal for the city’s literary archive, and he’s avoided anyone connected to Marty’s shop like the plague ever since. His biggest personality flaw? He’s spent the 8 years since his wife left for a job in Anchorage convincing himself no one under 40 could possibly find him interesting, so he turns down every set up, every casual flirty comment from customers, every invitation to mixers from other small business owners. He only shows up to the annual Alberta Street small business fair because his landlord nags him into it, says the foot traffic is worth the 10 hours of standing in the sun next to booths selling crocheted dog sweaters and artisanal hot sauce.
The July heat sticks to the back of his neck like glue by 4 PM, the air thick with the smell of fried Oreos and pine from the street trees, a local bluegrass band sawing through a cover of “Folsom Prison Blues” three booths down. He’s polishing the keys of a 1952 Quiet Royal when a shadow falls over his table, and he looks up to see a woman in cutoff overalls and a faded Patsy Cline tee leaning into his booth, one elbow propped on the edge of the table stacked with replacement typewriter ribbons. He recognizes her immediately from the photos Marty posts on his shop’s Facebook page: Lila, Marty’s 29-year-old daughter, who just moved back to Portland after five years working as a book editor in Brooklyn.
“Sorry to bug you,” she says, and her voice is lower than he expected, rough around the edges like she spends half her time yelling over power tools. “Our extension cord shorted out, and the hardware booth ran out of spares. Figured you’d have an extra, since my dad always rants you come to these things prepared for a natural disaster.”
He hesitates for half a second, then nods, reaching under the table for the spare cord he keeps coiled in his toolbox. When he passes it to her, her forearm brushes his, her skin cool from the iced lemon seltzer she’s holding, and he notices the same tiny scar on the side of her index finger that he has, from a loose typewriter spring snapping shut when you’re not paying attention. She holds eye contact with him for a beat longer than necessary, a tiny smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth like she knows exactly who he is, exactly what the history between their families is.
He expects her to take the cord and leave, but she stays, perching on the edge of his booth, her knee brushing his thigh every time a group of fairgoers squeezes past the narrow walkway between booths. She teases him about the time her dad spent three hours ranting after Ronan posted a TikTok demonstrating how to properly clean a typewriter platen, calling Marty’s go-to method “lazy and disrespectful to the machine.” He finds himself laughing before he can stop himself, a rough, rusty sound he hasn’t pulled out in years. She asks him about the custom typewriter he built for a disabled veteran last year, the one with extra large keys that made the local news, and he’s shocked she even knows about it.
Part of him is screaming that this is stupid, that he’s a grown man flirting with his worst enemy’s daughter, 24 years his junior, that if anyone they know sees them they’ll be the talk of the local small business scene for months. The rest of him can’t remember the last time someone looked at him like that, like he’s not just the grumpy old guy who fixes typewriters, like the hours he spends poring over tiny broken parts matter to someone other than his regular customers. The sun dips below the rooflines of the adjacent buildings by 8 PM, the fair organizers announcing over the loudspeaker that booths need to be packed up within the hour, and neither of them has moved.
She drops a box of replacement typebars when she’s leaning over to grab her tote bag, and they both bend to pick it up at the same time, their heads bumping lightly. For a second they’re inches apart, he can smell the lavender perfume she’s wearing mixed with the cherry snow cone she ate an hour earlier, and before he can overthink it he’s kissing her. Her hand comes up to the back of his neck, her fingers cool against his sunburned skin, and he can taste the cherry syrup on her lip when she smiles into the kiss. He pulls back after a second, ready to apologize, ready to say he got carried away, that this is a bad idea, but she shakes her head before he can speak.
“I know my dad hates you,” she says, running a thumb over the corner of his mouth like she’s wiping away the cherry syrup. “I don’t care. I’ve heard stories about you my whole life, most of them from him complaining, and I’ve wanted to meet you since I moved back. Don’t overcomplicate it.”
He helps her load her boxes of typewriter parts into her beat up 2008 Subaru Outback, the back seat stacked with used books and a half-finished cross stitch project. She leans against the door once everything is loaded, tilting her head at him. “I’ve got a 1964 Smith Corona at my place that’s got a stuck shift key. My dad couldn’t fix it, said it was a lost cause. Figured you might be up for the challenge.”
He pauses for half a second, thinking about the stack of repair tickets waiting for him at his shop, about the grudge he’s held for half his adult life, about all the excuses he’s made for years to avoid feeling anything even close to this. Then he tosses his own toolbox into the back of her car, slamming the hatch shut. The bluegrass band’s final set drifted across the empty parking lot as she pulled out onto the street, her hand resting lightly on his thigh the whole drive.
