Milo Rourke, 62, makes his living restoring tattered 19th century Appalachian survey maps out of his sunroom, and hasn’t attended a neighborhood event since his wife left him for a hot air balloon tour pilot eight years prior. He only caved to his buddy’s pressure to hit the summer block party because the brisket food truck parked out front is the same one that sets up at the monthly map collector’s meetup he actually likes. He’s standing by the fence picking cilantro off his taco, wearing a faded Pendleton shirt dotted with indigo map dye stains, work boots caked in backyard clay, when he turns to avoid Todd—his next door neighbor who rants about solar panels killing birds over the fence every Saturday—and slams straight into a woman holding a plastic cup of hard cider.
Salsa drips off his taco onto the shoulder of her cream linen blouse. He panics, grabs a handful of napkins from the stack on the food truck counter, and dabs at the stain before he remembers he’s a grown man who shouldn’t be patting a stranger’s chest without asking. Her skin is warm through the thin fabric, she smells like jasmine hand lotion and fermented apple, and when he yanks his hand back, mortified, she laughs so hard her shoulders shake. The sound cuts right through the tinny Tom Petty cover blaring from the stage at the end of the block. “Relax,” she says, swiping the napkin from him to blot at the stain herself, “I bought this shirt for a wedding I hated last year. Been looking for an excuse to ruin it.”
He’s just about to apologize again when he spots Todd stomping their way, bullhorn slung over his shoulder, and acts on pure instinct. He grabs her wrist, tugs her behind the rickety cornhole board set up between two oak trees, and presses his back to the slats, one hand splayed on the wood next to her shoulder to keep them both out of sight. “That’s my next door neighbor,” he whispers, so close his breath brushes her ear, “He’ll corner us for 20 minutes to rant about chemtrails if he sees me. I can’t do that today. I’m sorry.” She snorts, loud enough that he claps a hand over her mouth for half a second before he yanks it away again, cheeks burning. She leans in, shoulder pressed firm to his, so he can feel the hum of her laugh through his shirt, and peeks around the edge of the board. “Oh, that’s Todd,” she says, “I know him. We were married for 17 years. Separated three years ago, thank God.”
The twist makes him snort too. He spends the next 45 minutes pressed up against that board with her, talking while the party buzzes around them. She’s 58, a veterinary tech, in town to finalize custody of their 16 year old son who still lives with Todd, and she’s moving back to Asheville next month after three years staying with her sister in Charlotte. She notices the indigo stain on his left wrist, asks what he does, and when he pulls out his phone to show her photos of the 1872 Watauga County survey map he’s spent the last three months repairing, she leans in so close her dark hair, streaked through with silver at the temples, brushes his jaw. Her fingers brush his when she taps the screen to zoom in on a hand-drawn marker for a hiking trail she used to take with her dad when she was a kid, and his skin tingles for a full minute after she pulls her hand away.
He’s spent eight years telling himself he’s better off alone, that dating is too much hassle, that he likes his quiet sunroom and his routine and not having to answer to anyone. He’s disgusted with himself for how fast he’s leaning in, how badly he wants to tuck that strand of hair behind her ear, how he’s already running through the list of hiking trails he knows that match the old markers on his maps. It feels wrong, on some level, to be flirting with his worst neighbor’s ex wife, like he’s breaking some unspoken neighborhood rule, but the way she’s looking at him, head tilted, eyes crinkling at the corners when he makes a dumb joke about Todd’s bullhorn collection, drowns that thought out fast.
Todd spots them right as she’s telling him about the three legged cat she adopted last year. He stops 10 feet away, mouth hanging open, and Milo doesn’t even think about hiding this time. He laces his fingers through hers, squeezes, and lifts their joined hands just enough to make sure Todd sees. “Hey Todd,” he says, casual as you please, “This your first time meeting my girlfriend, right?” She smirks, squeezes his hand back so hard her nails dig into his palm, and leans into his side. “Yep,” she says, “First official introduction. Nice to see you’re still wearing that terrible Hawaiian shirt you bought for our 10th anniversary.” Todd sputters for a full 10 seconds, mumbles something about “keeping out of my business”, and stomps off toward the stage.
They stay there for another hour, eating two more brisket tacos each, splitting a cup of mango sorbet, talking about the trails they want to hike once she moves back, the old maps he’s got tucked in his flat files that mark swimming holes no one else in the county knows about. When she says she has to go pick up her son from soccer practice, she grabs a napkin from the food truck, scribbles her number on the back in sparkly purple pen, and presses it into his palm, her thumb brushing the indigo stain on his wrist slow and deliberate. He walks her to her Subaru, leans against the door frame while she climbs in, and when she leans up to kiss him, first on the cheek, then soft on the mouth, she tastes like lime sorbet and hard cider.
He tucks the napkin into the front pocket of his shirt before he climbs into his beat up Ford F150, turns the key in the ignition, and sits there for a minute staring at the house he’s barely left in eight years, grinning so wide his cheeks ache.
