Rico Marquez, 51, makes his living sanding rust off vintage motorcycle frames and rewiring fried harnesses out of his cinder block garage in east Austin, and he hasn’t set foot at the neighborhood summer block party in six years. His wife Lila used to drag him every year, would make him enter whatever bike he’d just finished in the classic vehicle contest, would sneak extra chili cheese fries off his paper plate when he wasn’t looking. He’d planned to drop off his freshly restored 1972 Honda CB750 for the showcase and hightail it back to his garage before anyone could corner him with the same tired “how you holding up” questions, but the kid manning the vehicle check-in forgot the display placard, so he’s stuck leaning against the bike’s gas tank, sipping a lukewarm beer he grabbed from a cooler by the grill, pretending to stare at the oak tree across the street so he doesn’t have to make small talk.
The first time he notices her, she’s wiping sweat off her forehead with the back of her wrist, standing behind a folding table draped in a faded library logo tablecloth, selling paper cups of pink lemonade for a dollar a pop. She’s wearing a yellow cotton sundress printed with tiny sunflowers, scuffed white sneakers, and there’s a thin silver streak running through the front of her dark wavy hair, right at her part. He’s never seen her before, which is unusual in this neighborhood where everyone knows everyone’s business, and he’s just about to look away when she catches him staring. She doesn’t look embarrassed. She waves. He freezes, then lifts his beer in a half-hearted nod, and before he can pretend to get a phone call, she’s walking over, holding a tray of small sample cups of lemonade, her sneakers crunching on the scattered popcorn kernels littering the asphalt.
“You’re the guy who restored that CB750, right?” She stops half a foot away, close enough that he can smell coconut sunscreen and fresh cut lemon on her, the faint tang of mint gum on her breath when she speaks. He blinks, surprised anyone would recognize the bike, and nods before he can stop himself. “My dad had the exact same one. Taught me to ride on it when I was 16, out at his ranch outside San Antonio. Dented the tank trying to do a u-turn in the dirt. He still teases me about it.” She laughs, a low, warm sound, and when she shifts her weight to hand him a sample cup, her elbow knocks against his wrist. The tray tilts. Half the sample cups spill, lemonade splattering on the toe of his work boot and the hem of her dress.
He’s immediately flustered, mumbles an apology, bends down to pick up the crumpled paper cups at the same time she does. Their hands brush when they both reach for the same cup, her skin soft and cool against his calloused, grease-stained knuckles, and he yanks his hand back like he’s been burned. He’s angry at himself, suddenly, disgusted that his first reaction to a harmless accidental touch is to feel his chest tighten, his face heat up like a kid at his first middle school dance. He’d promised himself he wasn’t going to do this, wasn’t going to let anyone get close after Lila died, that he was fine with his quiet life of motorcycles and frozen dinners and baseball games on the radio alone. He opens his mouth to make an excuse, to say he has to get back to the garage, to leave before he makes even more of a fool of himself, but she snorts, wiping a drop of lemonade off her cheek with the back of her hand. “Relax, I’ve spilled way worse at library story time. Last week a kid puked grape juice all over my favorite cardigan. This is nothing.”
He finds himself laughing too, leaning down to grab the last of the cups, tossing them in the nearby trash can. He offers to buy a full cup of lemonade to make up for the mess, and she waves him off, pours him one for free, leans against the bike next to him while they talk. She tells him she’s the new head librarian at the neighborhood branch, moved here three months ago after her ex-husband took a job in Chicago, that she’s still getting used to how hot Austin summers get, how everyone here talks to strangers like they’re old friends. He finds himself telling her about Lila, about the block parties they used to go to, about the CB750 he’d been working on for two years, the first bike he’d finished that didn’t feel like work, that felt like fun again. He doesn’t even notice when the block party starts winding down, when most of the neighbors have packed up their coolers and folded their chairs, when the sun dips below the roofline of the houses across the street, painting the sky pink and orange.
She checks her phone, tucks it back into the pocket of her sundress, and tilts her head up at him, her eyes soft, no pity, no pushy expectation, just the same easy curiosity she had when she first walked over. “There’s a taco truck two blocks over that does carnitas so good you’ll forget your own name. You wanna go? I’m starving, and I don’t feel like eating frozen mac and cheese alone tonight.” He hesitates for half a second, the old guilt nipping at the back of his throat, the voice in his head saying he doesn’t get to have this, that he should go home, that he’s not ready. But then she shifts her weight, her shoulder brushing his arm, and he realizes he hasn’t felt this light in years, hasn’t talked to someone for this long without feeling like he’s performing fine for the benefit of people who feel bad for him. He says yes.
He grabs the half-empty cooler of leftover lemonade from her table to carry it for her, locks up his bike to the oak tree, and they walk down the sidewalk side by side, their shoulders brushing every few steps, their knuckles grazing when they swing their arms at the same time. The streetlights flicker on as they walk, the faint sound of a live blues band drifting from the bar down the block, the air still warm enough that he doesn’t need a jacket. When she reaches over to steal a bite of his carnitas taco before they even sit down at the plastic picnic table outside the taco truck, he doesn’t flinch, he just grins and pushes the plate closer to her.
