Art Pappas, 62, retired Detroit public schools auto shop teacher, leans against the dented bed of his 2002 Silverado, condensation from his cheap lager beading down the can and sticking to his palm. It’s late July, the block party’s been going four hours, sun dipping low enough that the oak tree at the end of the block casts long shadows over the cornhole pit, where his neighbor’s 14-year-old just missed a shot by three feet. Art snorts, takes a sip of beer, sweat sticking his faded 2004 Pistons championship tee to his shoulders. He’s deliberately avoided the west end of the block all evening, where next-door neighbor Margot set up the s’mores station, because he knew Lila was in town.
Lila’s Margot’s 58-year-old niece, a traveling glassblower who passes through every three months to crash at Margot’s guest room between installations. Last summer, the first time she visited, Margot pulled him aside on his driveway, one hand on her bad knee, and told him Lila was fresh off a messy divorce from a guy who’d cheated with his 22-year-old apprentice, so don’t go getting bright ideas. Art nodded, mumbled he wouldn’t, even though he’d already spent three afternoons that week watching Lila carry half-inch glass sheets into Margot’s garage, admiring the way her forearms flexed when she lifted, the streak of blue glass stain permanently on her left wrist. He spent the rest of that visit hiding in his garage working on his 1964 Corvair Monza, too nervous to even wave if she was outside.
He’s halfway through his second beer when she walks up, no warning. She smells like lavender body spray and burnt marshmallow, a smudge of charcoal ash high on her left cheek, the hem of her white linen shorts streaked with that same cobalt blue. Her leather sandal brushes the scuffed toe of his work boot when she stops, holding a paper plate with two s’mores on it, one oozing marshmallow at the edge. She holds one out to him, says Margot told her he’s the only person on the block who doesn’t load his s’mores with three extra chocolate squares that melt all over his shirt. Art blinks, takes it, his fingers brushing hers as he grips the graham cracker. He feels the thick, rough calluses on her index and middle fingers, the kind you only get from holding a 1500-degree glass blowing pipe for hours, the same kind he has from gripping wrench handles for 31 years of teaching auto shop.
They lean against the truck, making small talk for ten minutes, the hum of the portable speaker playing 80s Seger mixing with yells from the cornhole players. She asks about the Corvair, says she’s seen him out sanding the body early on weekends, thinks the faded seafoam green paint is perfect, doesn’t need the full respray he’s been planning for six months. Art blinks again, surprised. Everyone else calls the Corvair a death trap, tells him he’s wasting time on a vehicle GM abandoned half a century ago. She laughs, swats his arm lightly when he says that, says she restores vintage glass kilns on the side, knows exactly what it’s like to pour hundreds of hours into something everyone else writes off as useless trash. She leans in when she talks, her elbow brushing his bicep every time she gestures, holds eye contact so long he has to glance away every few seconds, his ears going pink. He feels stupid, like a 16-year-old on his first date, fumbling for words after spending the last 8 years talking to almost no one but his tabby cat Muffler and the guys at the auto parts store.
She asks if he can help her drag the extra seltzer cooler out of Margot’s basement, says Margot’s knee is acting up too bad to lift it, and all the guys on the block are too busy yelling about cornhole scores to be useful. Art agrees immediately, even though he can feel Margot’s eyes on his back from across the street, feels like he’s breaking some rule even as he follows Lila up the porch steps. The basement is cool, dim, only lit by a single bare bulb over Margot’s workbench, the air smelling like cedar and lavender laundry detergent. The cooler’s on the top shelf, heavy with ice and cans, and they both reach for it at the same time. Their hands press together on the plastic handle, he can feel the heat of her skin through her thin canvas work glove, and she doesn’t pull away. She smirks up at him, says Margot’s whole “don’t get bright ideas” speech last year was a test, she’d gotten sick of Art hiding in his garage every time Lila came to town.
Art stares, confused, and she laughs quiet, so the people upstairs don’t hear. She says Margot’s been trying to set them up for 18 months, told Lila Art was the only decent guy within 10 miles, didn’t cheat on his wife when she left him for a pharmaceutical sales rep 8 years prior, didn’t blow half his social security at the casino every weekend, didn’t talk down to people who couldn’t tell a carburetor from a catalytic converter. He feels his face go hot, realizes he spent the last year feeling guilty for even glancing at Lila, like he was violating some unspoken neighborhood rule, and it was all just a ploy to get him to stop being a coward. She reaches up, swipes a speck of beer foam off his upper lip with her thumb, her touch light and rough at the same time from those calluses, doesn’t pull her hand away for two full seconds. She says she’s only in town for three more days, and she doesn’t want to spend the whole of it making small talk over s’mores and bad cornhole.
Art nods, fumbles for words for a second, finally manages to say she can come by his garage tomorrow at 10, he’ll show her the Corvair’s engine, just finished rebuilding the carburetor last weekend. She grins, says she’ll bring the glazed donuts he likes, the ones from the bakery on 8 Mile, Margot told her he picks up a dozen every Saturday. They lift the cooler together, carry it up the stairs, and when they step back out into the warm, thick evening air, she squeezes his wrist for a beat before walking back to the s’mores station, looks over her shoulder and winks when she reaches the table.
He watches her laugh as she hands an oozing s’more to a neighbor’s toddler, the sun almost fully gone now, string lights strung between the oaks glowing soft gold, the speaker switching to that old Seger track he used to play in his first car back in high school. He twists the cap off another beer, already mentally clearing stacks of tattered auto manuals and half-empty oil cans off his workbench for tomorrow.
