Rafe Sorenson is 53, an antique typewriter restorer who’s made a deliberate art of being left alone. Eight years out from a messy divorce that saw him move from Chicago to a creaky cottage outside Asheville, he works out of a converted two-car garage behind his house, only leaving for supply runs, solo mountain hikes, and the occasional trip to the post office to ship finished machines to collectors across the country. His biggest flaw is he’s convinced any romantic connection is just a recipe for disappointment, so he’s turned down every half-hearted set up from his neighbors, skipped every community event for six years straight, and only communicates with most people via short, to-the-point text messages. He only shows up to the summer block party on that sticky July Saturday because Mabel, his 72 year old retired teacher next door, leaves a six pack of his favorite hazy IPA on his porch with a scrawled note saying the smoked brisket truck was in attendance and if he skipped it, she’d never leave him homemade dill pickles again.
He’s leaning against a gnarled oak at the edge of the crowd halfway through his second beer, already mentally running through the list of typewriter repairs he could be knocking out at home, when he hears his name. It’s soft, cuts through the noise of the 90s country cover band and kids screaming on the bounce house, and he’d recognize it anywhere: Lila Marlow, 38, head of special collections at the downtown library, who he’s talked to a dozen times on the phone about restoring a 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe for their upcoming local writer exhibit, but who he’s deliberately avoided meeting in person for months, always making up excuses about tight deadlines or out-of-town supply runs. She’s holding a paper plate piled high with peach cobbler, a smudge of charcoal on her left jaw from running the face painting booth for the kids, a faded cutoff flannel tied around her waist, scuffed white Converse, a tiny silver typewriter charm glinting around her neck that he’d missed during their one brief FaceTime call the week prior. She stands close enough that he can smell coconut sunscreen and the cinnamon on her breath from the cobbler, her elbow brushing his bicep when she gestures to the food truck line, saying she saved him that last serving of cobbler because Mabel texted her he’d finally caved and come out.
He’s flustered for a second, which never happens—he’s used to being gruff, quiet, in control. He mumbles a thanks, takes the plate, the tips of their fingers brushing when he grabs it, her skin warm from three hours in the July sun. He fights the urge to reach up and wipe the charcoal smudge off her jaw, tells himself he’s being an idiot, that she’s 15 years younger than him, friends with his ex-sister-in-law who still hates his guts for leaving Chicago, that he doesn’t need the drama of whatever this could be. He tries to keep the conversation professional at first, talking about the Royal, how he’d finally gotten the sticky shift key unstuck that morning, how the previous owner had used it to write three pulp westerns in the 70s. She leans in when he talks, nodding, laughing when he complains about the guy who brought in a 1920s Underwood that had been used as a doorstop for 30 years, caked with mud and rat droppings. She admits she’s been bugging Mabel to introduce them for months, that she’s restored a few small typewriters herself but she’s nowhere near as good as he is, that she’d spent hours watching his TikTok clips of him taking apart and reassembling vintage machines when she was planning the exhibit.
She doesn’t pull away, just tilts her chin up to look at him, her eyes dark in the low light, and says she knew he wasn’t half as much of a reclusive grump as he pretended to be. He admits he avoided meeting her because he thought he was too old, too set in his ways, that he’d forgotten how to talk to someone he actually wanted to be around, didn’t want to get his hopes up for something that would just fizzle out like every other connection he’d tried to make since the divorce. She snorts, says she’s tired of dating guys her age who can’t change a lightbulb let alone troubleshoot a 70 year old typewriter, and leans in to kiss him, her hand coming to rest on his chest, the cold of her typewriter charm pressing through his thin cotton t-shirt. He tangles his free hand in the ends of her sun-warmed hair, the Royal on the bench beside them clicking softly when the open window sends a summer breeze through the shop.
