Manny Rocha is 62, retired HVAC specialist who spent 38 years crawling through restaurant attic ducts and soldering copper lines in 100-degree Albuquerque heat. His knuckles are crisscrossed with old burn scars, he wears the same faded Carhartt work shirt three days a week, and he hasn’t let anyone outside his immediate family inside his house since his wife Linda passed eight years prior. That’s his flaw, the thing his adult kids nag him about every time they call from Boston: he’s turned being a widower into a full-time job, convinced any joy that doesn’t circle back to Linda is a betrayal. He fixes vintage pinball machines for local arcades for pocket cash now, spends most nights hunched over a workbench in his garage, the clink of silver balls against plastic bumpers the only sound in the house after 7 p.m.
He’d only planned to stop by the neighborhood summer block party for ten minutes, just to drop off the 1978 Space Invaders pinball machine he’d repaired for the community center booth. The air hums with the buzz of portable generators and kids’ laughter, smells like roasted green chiles and charred hamburgers and the faint tang of mesquite smoke from the grill at the end of the block. He’s hauling the heavy metal leg of the machine around the back of the booth when his boot catches on a loose chunk of gravel, his grip slips, and a hand snaps out to catch the edge before it slams into his shin.
It’s Clara Marlow, his next-door neighbor of three months, who he’s only exchanged awkward half-waves with from across the fence until now. She’s 58, runs the vintage western wear consignment shop downtown, has a streak of silver cutting through the auburn bangs falling across her forehead, and her palm is calloused where it brushes his, rough from hauling stacks of denim jackets and resizing leather belts all day. She’s wearing cutoff jean shorts and a faded Willie Nelson tour shirt, her shoulders dusted with freckles and shiny with coconut sunscreen. When they heft the leg into place and straighten up, she doesn’t look away, her brown eyes crinkling at the corners when she grins. “Heard that thing pinging through the walls for three nights straight. Figured you were building a bomb over there for a minute.”
He snorts, surprised into a laugh he didn’t know he had in him. He should drop the machine off and leave, go back to his quiet garage and his half-finished beer and the pinball machine he’s been troubleshooting for the arcade on 4th Street. But when she holds out a cold can of lager she grabbed from the food truck next to them, he takes it. The can is slick with condensation, it leaves a wet ring on the leg of his jeans when he leans back against the booth. They sit on folding chairs tucked in the shade of a cottonwood tree, far enough from the crowd that they don’t have to shout over the chatter.
He finds himself telling her about Linda, how she’d drag him to pinball tournaments across the state every summer, how she’d beat him nine times out of ten, how he’d kept all her old high score sheets tucked in the glove box of his truck. The words taste weird coming out, like he’s breaking a rule he set for himself eight years ago, a hot twist of guilt curling in his stomach for even talking about his wife with another woman, for enjoying the way she listens, leaning in a little so her shoulder brushes his when she nods. She tells him about her husband Jesse, who died in a motorcycle crash six years prior, how she still buys his favorite brand of beef jerky every time she goes to the grocery store, just out of habit. “Took me four years to stop feeling like I was cheating every time I laughed at a joke that wasn’t his,” she says, quiet enough that only he can hear it over the mariachi band setting up at the front of the block. “You don’t have to feel bad for not being miserable forever, you know.”
The band strikes up a slow cumbia, the horns bright and warm cutting through the sticky evening air. She stands up, brushes crumbs of chile fry off her shorts, holds out her hand. He freezes. He hasn’t danced since his 25th wedding anniversary, when Linda dragged him onto the dance floor at the restaurant they’d gotten married at, stepping on his toes three times before he got the rhythm right. The guilt is still there, sharp at the edges, but it’s softer now, overshadowed by the way her hand is still outstretched, the tiny turquoise ring on her index finger glinting in the string lights strung between the trees. He takes her hand.
They don’t walk over to the makeshift dance floor with the rest of the crowd. They just sway where they are, his hand light on her waist, her other hand resting on his bicep, close enough that he can smell the faint cherry of her lip balm when she tilts her head up to talk to him. Her hair is stuck to the back of her neck with sweat, when she laughs at a dumb joke he makes about how bad he is at dancing, her shoulder shakes against his chest. He forgets about the crowd, forgets about the rule he made for himself, forgets about the half-repaired pinball machine sitting in his garage.
By the time the band wraps up their set, most of the crowd has drifted off, coolers are being packed up, kids are being hauled to cars half-asleep. He walks her to her front door, their boots crunching on the gravel of the shared driveway. She pauses on the porch step, turns to him, brushes a fleck of roasted chile dust off his cheek with her thumb, her skin warm against his stubble. “Baked a peach cobbler this morning. It’s probably still warm. You wanna come in?”
He doesn’t hesitate. He hasn’t not hesitated about anything that doesn’t involve soldering or pinball machine wiring in eight years, but he nods before she finishes the sentence. He follows her over the threshold, the sweet, warm scent of peach and cinnamon wrapping around him before the screen door clicks shut behind them.
