Leo Marquez, 57, has run his tiny antique typewriter repair shop out of a converted bodega in downtown Boise for 12 years. He’s the kind of guy who still leaves candy on the counter for the middle schoolers who cut through his parking lot on the way home, who stays late three nights a week to fix machines for retired journalists on fixed incomes for free, who hasn’t asked a woman out since his wife packed her bags and left for Oregon with a real estate agent eight years prior. His biggest flaw, if you ask the few people who know him well enough to say, is that he’d rather eat a frozen dinner alone for a month than rock the boat with anyone, even the group of gossiping retirees who camp out at the grocery store checkout spreading rumors about everyone on his block.
It’s a 92-degree July Saturday, the kind of heat that makes the asphalt shimmer and the beer garden’s plastic picnic tables stick to the back of your jeans. He’s just finished rebuilding the carriage of a 1952 Royal Quiet De Luxe for a poetry undergrad who paid him half in cash and half in a six pack of hazy IPA, and he’s camped out at the farthest table from the band, sipping a cold one, grease still crusted under his fingernails, flannel sleeves rolled up to show the faded tattoo of a typewriter on his left forearm. The band is halfway through a wobbly cover of Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” when someone drops their bag on the bench across from him and sits down.
He looks up, and it’s her. The new next door neighbor he’s only waved at over the split-rail fence between their yards for the past three weeks. She’s 52, a traveling phlebotomist who moved back to Boise to care for her mom who’s got early stage dementia, and he’s heard the old ladies at the grocery store mutter every terrible rumor about her under the sun: that she left her husband of 20 years for a 28-year-old bartender, that she parties until 3 a.m. on weeknights, that she’s “bad news” for the quiet block. He’d nodded along when they talked, too polite to tell them to mind their own business, and had gone out of his way to leave for work 10 minutes early every morning so he wouldn’t run into her outside.
She shifts to get comfortable, and her bare knee brushes his denim-clad one, warm through the fabric. He freezes, and she smirks, like she notices. She’s wearing a cutoff denim shirt and faded white tank top, a smudge of band-aid on her left elbow, lime wedge perched on the edge of her seltzer can. “You’re the typewriter guy, right?” she says, leaning forward so her voice carries over the band. Her arm brushes his when she reaches across the table to grab a paper napkin that’s blowing toward his beer, and he can smell coconut sunscreen and spearmint gum off her, sharp and sweet over the smell of hops and grilled hot dogs from the food truck at the edge of the garden.
He nods, fumbling for a second to set his beer down without spilling it. He’s not used to anyone looking at him that directly, no polite smile, no awkward small talk about the weather, just steady eye contact like she’s actually interested in what he has to say. She tells him her dad used to repair typewriters too, back when he ran an office supply store in Twin Falls, and she’s still got his beat up 1948 Underwood sitting in her garage, collecting dust, too scared to let anyone touch it. He offers to look at it for free before he can think better of it, and her face lights up, the kind of unselfconscious smile he hasn’t seen on anyone in years.
The internal conflict nags at him the whole time they talk, loud enough that he almost misses half of what she says. One part of him is screaming that this is stupid, that the neighbors will talk, that he’s too old for this kind of drama, that he’s got his routine and he doesn’t need to mess it up for a woman everyone’s already written off as trouble. The other part of him is hyper aware of every brush of her arm against his, every time she laughs so hard she snorts a little, every time her knee presses against his again like she’s doing it on purpose, can’t remember the last time he felt this light, like he doesn’t have to be the responsible, predictable guy everyone expects him to be.
The band finishes their set as the sun dips below the oak trees lining the garden, painting the sky pink and orange, the air cooling just enough that the sweat on the back of his neck feels good instead of sticky. She leans in, so close he can feel her breath on his ear when she talks, loud enough only for him to hear. “I know what the old ladies on the block say about me,” she says, and he flinches a little, like he’s been caught. “I don’t care. You’re the only person on that street who hasn’t stared at me like I’m a sideshow for the past three weeks. I like that.” She brushes a fleck of sawdust off the shoulder of his flannel, her palm resting there for a full three seconds, warm through the fabric, and he doesn’t pull away.
He admits he’s been avoiding her, that he was scared of the gossip, scared he didn’t have anything to offer someone who seems so unapologetically alive after spending so many years making himself small to make other people comfortable. She laughs, soft, and tucks a strand of gray-streaked brown hair behind her ear. “I don’t care about gossip,” she says. “I care about guys who know how to fix things instead of breaking them and running. That’s rare, these days.”
They walk back to their block together, their shoulders brushing every few steps, the sound of crickets chirping from the front yards, kids laughing as they run through the sprinklers on the corner. When they get to her porch, she fumbles in her bag for her keys, then turns to him, grinning. “You wanna come in and look at the Underwood tonight? I’ve got cold lemonade in the fridge, no rush.” He nods, and follows her up the steps, the screen door slamming shut behind them before she can reach out to hold it open.
