Rafe Mendoza is 62, a retired wildfire mitigation consultant who moved to Boise three years prior to be ten minutes from his granddaughter’s elementary school. He’s got a scar slicing through his left eyebrow from a 2009 blaze outside Santa Fe, calloused palms from clearing brush for local homeowners on side gigs and rebuilding vintage dirt bikes in his garage on weekends, and a habit of avoiding all neighborhood events like they’re mandatory HR training. The only reason he’s at the late August block party is because his 7-year-old granddaughter Lila begged him for face paint and a snow cone, pouting so hard her lower lip stuck out half an inch.
He’s leaned against the white plastic cooler at the edge of the lawn, sweating through the armpits of his faded Carhartt work shirt, holding a lukewarm lager he doesn’t even want, when Linda Marlow steps up beside him. She’s 58, his next door neighbor, ex-wife of the only friend Rafe’s made in Boise—Jim, the guy he takes steelhead fishing on the Snake River every other Saturday. Jim has ranted for six months straight about Linda leaving him, calling her flighty, selfish, impossible to please, so Rafe has made a point of only waving at her over the fence, never stopping to chat, even when he’s seen her leaving out bowls of food for the neighborhood feral cats at 2 a.m. or painting watercolors on her back porch at dusk.
The portable speaker propped on the picnic table is blaring 90s country so loud Rafe’s molars rattle, so Linda leans in close to yell over it when she asks if the seltzers in the cooler are the lime ones. He can smell coconut sunscreen and the faint, warm tang of bourbon she’s snuck into her drink, see the smudge of charcoal on her left forearm from helping the kids draw dinosaurs on the sidewalk earlier, the freckles scattered across her nose that don’t show up when she’s standing more than three feet away. He nods, fumbles around in the ice for a minute, pulls one out for her. Their fingers brush when he hands it to her, and he flinches like he’s touched a live wire, even though the contact was barely there. Linda doesn’t pull away immediately, holds her hand against his for two full beats, her hazel eyes crinkled at the corners like she’s amused by his reaction.
He knows he should walk away. Knows Jim would lose his mind if he saw them standing this close, talking without the buffer of the whole neighborhood around them. Knows he hasn’t felt this jittery around a woman since his wife died eight years prior, that he’s spent every year since building walls so high even his daughter can barely get over them. But he doesn’t move. He listens while she teases him about always hiding in his garage, says she’s heard him swearing at rusted bike bolts through the open window on Saturday mornings, and he laughs, a rough, rusty sound he hasn’t used for anyone but Lila in months.
When she leans in further to tell him a story about Jim accidentally dying their old poodle neon pink while trying to dye a Halloween costume, her bare arm brushes his again, this time on purpose, he thinks. His throat goes dry. He’s torn between the sharp, hot spark of desire curling low in his gut and the heavy, sour twist of guilt, like he’s betraying both his wife and his friend just by standing here, letting her talk to him like he’s someone worth paying attention to.
Lila comes barrelling over then, face painted like a sparkly unicorn, dragging him by the wrist to the snow cone stand. He tells Linda he’ll be right back, half out of breath, like he’s just run up a flight of stairs. When he comes back, his hands sticky with blue raspberry syrup, he spots her leaning against the fence surrounding the community garden, away from the crowd, waving him over.
He walks slow, like he’s approaching a skittish deer, his boots crunching on scattered potato chip crumbs and clumps of cut grass. She says she knows this is weird, that she’s Jim’s ex, that Rafe probably thinks she’s the bad guy from all the stuff Jim’s said. She says she doesn’t want to cause trouble, but she’s been watching him with Lila, watching him carry old ladies’ groceries to their cars when it rains, watching him spend three hours rescuing a baby hawk that fell out of the oak tree between their houses last month, and she hasn’t met anyone that quiet and that kind in a long time.
Rafe admits he’s been avoiding her for six months because he didn’t want to mess up the only friendship he’s got here, and because he hasn’t felt this off-kilter around anyone since his wife passed, like he’s 17 again and can’t talk to the girl he likes without tripping over his own feet. She laughs, soft, and reaches up to brush a stray pine needle off his shoulder, her fingers grazing the side of his neck for half a second. He doesn’t flinch this time.
He tells her he’s heading up to a vintage dirt bike rally in McCall next weekend, that he’s got a spare cabin he rents every year, that she can come if she wants, no pressure, they can just drink coffee and walk around the lake if she doesn’t care about the bikes. She grins, says she’s always wanted to learn how to ride, as long as he doesn’t laugh if she faceplants in the dirt.
He hears Lila yell his name then, looks over to see her waving a water balloon so full it’s stretched almost transparent. When he turns back, Linda slips a crumpled piece of notebook paper with her phone number scrawled on it into the front pocket of his Carhartt, her knuckles brushing the fabric over his chest. He tucks his own hand into the pocket right after her, wraps his fingers around hers for a split second before she pulls away to go help a kid who just tripped over a sprinkler line.
Rafe watches her walk across the lawn, bare feet kicking up small tufts of grass, and takes a long sip of his warm, flat lager, no longer itching to sneak out early and hide in his garage.
