Manny Rios is 62, retired air show stunt pilot, lives five miles outside Hood River, Oregon, has avoided any non-essential human interaction since his wife Diane passed from ovarian cancer seven years prior. His biggest flaw? He frames every small, warm interaction with a stranger as a betrayal, like he’s stealing time he should be spending honoring the memory of the woman he’d been married to for 34 years. That day, he’d only driven into town for the annual harvest street fair because the Methodist church booth made the peach pie he’d loved since he was a teenager, and he’d pre-ordered two: one for himself, one for his son who was flying in from Phoenix for a long weekend the next day. He’s leaning against the chipped red brick of the old downtown hardware store, cold IPA in a flimsy plastic cup, sun warm on the scar across his left forearm (a 2019 propeller mishap that ended his stunt career for good) when he spots her.
Lena Carter moved into the old white farmhouse three miles down his gravel road three months prior. He’d only waved at her twice, both times half-hearted, his foot heavy on the gas of his beat-up 2006 F-150 before she could yell a greeting. The town gossip mill said she was 50, a former children’s book restorer from Chicago, had left her ex-husband after he’d left her for a 27-year-old paralegal he’d met at his law firm. She’s carrying a stack of three hand-thrown ceramic mugs, her sandals catching on the raised edge of the curb, and she stumbles forward before he can even think to move. His palm hits the small of her back before she hits the asphalt, warm through the thin linen of her sunflower-print dress, and her elbow brushes the bare skin of his chest as she steadies herself, the scent of lavender and roasted hazelnuts wrapping around him sharp and sweet. She laughs, a little breathless, and sets the mugs down on the sidewalk to brush off her knees, looking up at him with those big hazel eyes that don’t dart away like most people’s do when they notice the faint white scar slicing through his left eyebrow.
He mumbles an apology for grabbing her so sudden, and she snorts, swatting his arm playfully, the palm of her hand light on his bicep for half a second too long. Says if he hadn’t caught her, those mugs she’d waited an hour in line for would be dust, and she owes him a snack. He’s about to turn her down, the familiar tightness in his chest flaring up, the little voice in his head saying you don’t get to do this anymore, but she’s already grabbing his wrist and tugging him toward the fried green tomato stall ten feet away, her fingers small and calloused against his skin. They sit at a wobbly foldable table off to the side, the hum of the bluegrass band playing at the end of the block soft enough they don’t have to yell to hear each other, and every time she shifts in her seat her knee brushes his, denim against denim, and he has to stop himself from shifting closer. She tells him about the book repair studio she’s setting up in the spare bedroom of her farmhouse, shows him the tiny ink stain permanently embedded in the pad of her left thumb from decades of gluing spines, and he finds himself telling her about the tattered copy of *Where the Wild Things Are* he’s had in his closet since his son was four, spine split clean down the middle, pages stuck together with old grape juice, that he’s never had the heart to throw away.
She leans forward then, elbows on the table, and her face is so close he can count the faint freckles across her nose, the string lights strung above the street catching the gold flecks in her eyes. Says she’ll fix it for him, no charge, if he brings it by her place tomorrow. He freezes, the half-eaten tomato halfway to his mouth, and for a second all he can hear is the little voice screaming that this is wrong, that he’s supposed to be alone, that Diane would hate this. Then she smiles, soft, not pushy, and says no pressure, if he doesn’t want to she gets it, she’s noticed him speeding past her mailbox every morning, figured he valued his privacy. He blushes, which he hasn’t done since he was 16 and asked Diane to prom, and admits he was scared to talk to her, that he hasn’t had a conversation with someone that didn’t revolve around grocery lists or plane parts or his son’s new job in almost seven years.
They walk back to his truck as the sun dips below the Columbia River, the sky turning pink and orange at the edges, and she stops him before he can pull the door open. Her hand rests on his forearm for a full three seconds, her thumb brushing the edge of his old stunt scar, and she tells him her door’s unlocked by 9 a.m. if he decides to come. Their fingers brush when he hands her the extra peach fritter he’d bought on a whim ten minutes earlier, and he feels a jolt run up his arm that has nothing to do with the old nerve damage from his crash. He nods, can’t find the words to say anything else, and climbs into his truck, watching her wave as she walks down the street toward her old Subaru parked two blocks over.
He drives home slow, the cab of the truck smelling like the peach pie on the passenger seat, and when he walks in the front door he heads straight for the hall closet, pulling the tattered, juice-stained copy of *Where the Wild Things Are* from the back of the top shelf. He runs his thumb over the split spine for a minute, then sets it on the kitchen counter right next to his car keys, already mentally mapping the fastest route down her gravel road for the next morning.
