Elias Voss, 52, makes his living restoring antique typewriters out of the sunporch of his 1940s bungalow outside Eugene, Oregon, and he’d rather spend 12 hours prying a stuck carriage off a rusted 1918 Remington than make small talk at a neighborhood block party. His niece, home from college for the summer, had practically dragged him out the door 20 minutes prior, saying if he spent one more night eating frozen pizza and listening to old Johnny Cash records alone she was going to sign him up for a senior center dating app. He’d grumbled the whole walk over, shoved his hands in the pockets of his paint-splattered Carhartt overalls, and parked himself by the galvanized steel beer cooler the second they arrived, planning to stay just long enough to not hurt her feelings before bailing.
He’s twisting the cap off a cheap lager when her arm brushes his, warm and solid through the thin cotton of her linen button-down, as she reaches past him for a black cherry seltzer. He glances up, recognizes her as the woman who moved into the blue Craftsman three doors down three months ago, the one he’s only ever waved at from his driveway when she’s hauling a backpack full of pressed wildflowers back from the national forest. She’s got faint indigo stains under her short, unpolished nails, a smattering of freckles across her nose, and she smells like pine resin and jasmine hand lotion, sharp and soft all at once. She holds his eye contact for two beats longer than casual politeness requires, then nods at the ink smudge darkening the side of his left wrist. “Typewriter restorer, right? Mrs. Henderson down the street said you do good work, if you don’t bite people’s heads off first.”
Elias huffs a laugh, surprised. He’s gotten used to neighbors only talking to him to offer sympathy casseroles after his wife died six years prior, or to ask if he can fix a broken toaster for $20 because he’s “handy with small machines.” Most of the single women in the neighborhood treat him like a fixer upper project, something to patch up and drag to church potlucks, and he’s gotten very good at shutting those conversations down before they start. He’s halfway to making a gruff excuse about being booked three months out when she says she’s got a 1927 Underwood her grandma left her, the keys stick so bad she can barely type a grocery list on it, and she’d pay him twice his usual rate if he’d look at it, no pressure if he doesn’t have time. She doesn’t lean in too close, doesn’t bat her eyes, doesn’t mention anything about him looking lonely, and that throws him off enough that he doesn’t say no.
They end up wandering away from the blaring country music and the crowd of kids chasing each other with water guns, sitting on the curb at the edge of the block sharing a crinkly bag of salted caramel popcorn a teen volunteer handed them. She tells him she’s a traveling botanical illustrator, she’s in Oregon for the next year to document native wildflowers for the state park system, and she’s been avoiding the block party too, because the local garden club kept hounding her to lead a wreath making class for their Christmas bazaar. He finds himself telling her about the 1950s Royal he’d fixed that morning for a high school kid who wanted to write poetry on it, about how his wife used to tease him for talking to the typewriters like they were stubborn cats, about how he’d stopped coming to community events because he got tired of telling the same “yes, I’m fine, no, I don’t need a lasagna” speech every other week. She doesn’t say she’s sorry for his loss, doesn’t pat his arm, just nods and says that sounds exhausting, and she’d hate having to perform being okay for strangers too.
A kid on a neon pink BMX bike swerves too close to the curb a minute later, and she leans into him hard to avoid getting clipped, her left hand landing flat on the top of his thigh for three full seconds before she pulls back. She doesn’t apologize, just smirks and brushes a piece of popcorn off his overall strap, says the neighborhood kids are feral this time of year, and asks if he’s got plans next Saturday. When he blinks and says no, she says the chanterelle mushrooms are popping up in the woods off the ridgeline, she’s got an extra hiking pole, and if he’s not too much of a hermit he can come with her, and they can talk typewriters on the walk. He says yes before he can overthink it.
He pulls a crumpled grocery receipt out of his pocket, scribbles his cell number on the back with the beat-up ballpoint he keeps on his keychain, and their fingers brush when he hands it to her. She tucks it into the breast pocket of her shirt, says she’ll text him the address of the trailhead first thing tomorrow, then waves and walks off to meet a group of friends by the taco truck. He stays on the curb for another ten minutes, sipping his now warm lager, and when he rubs at the ink smudge on his wrist he can still smell faint traces of her jasmine lotion clinging to his skin.
