Javier Ruiz, 52, has run his custom cobbler shop out of a cinder block building in East Austin for 17 years. His hands are crisscrossed with thin scars from sharp leather knives and dropped boot lasts, the tip of his left index finger is smudged permanent brown from shoe dye, and he hasn’t let anyone get within six inches of his personal life since his wife packed their minivan and drove to Albuquerque eight years prior. He blames himself, mostly—he was working 12-hour days six days a week back then, missed their 10th anniversary trip to Big Bend to fix a rush order of boots for a ranch crew that had to be out on a cattle drive by the end of the week, never apologized like he should have. Now he sticks to his routine: open at 7 a.m., close at 5, drink one Shiner Bock on his back porch every evening, wave at neighbors if they wave first, keep conversations to talk about boot sizes, leather quality, the weather.
The neighborhood block party in late August sticks out like a sore thumb in that routine. He only shows up because the guy who runs the taco truck down the street owes him a free pair of resoled work boots and brought a whole tray of brisket tacos just for him. He leans against the splintered wooden fence separating his shop’s back lot from the street, holds his cold beer in one hand, taco in the other, ignores the buzz of gossip rippling through the crowd about his new next door neighbor. Everyone on the block has been talking about her for three weeks: Lena, 48, traveling nurse, just moved from Portland to be closer to her 2-year-old granddaughter, left her high-powered lawyer husband after he cheated on her with a 22-year-old paralegal. The neighborhood wives have been warning every single guy over 40 within a three-block radius that she’s “on the rebound, looking for a quick fling, nothing but trouble.” Javier has done his best to avoid her entirely, even when she showed up at his front door two days after she moved in with a loaf of sourdough she baked, her hair still damp from the shower, wearing an old Texas Longhorns hoodie. He’d mumbled a thank you, shut the door before she could say anything else, left the bread on his counter for three days before he threw it away, too nervous to eat it.
He’s mid-bite of taco when she walks over, and he freezes. She’s wearing cutoff denim shorts, a faded Willie Nelson tee, scuffed white Converse with no socks, a sunburn peeling just a little across the bridge of her nose, a tiny caduceus tattoo curling around her left wrist. She stops so close he can smell coconut sunscreen and the peachy iced tea in the plastic cup she’s holding, can hear the quiet jingle of the silver charm bracelet on her other wrist—little charms shaped like a boot, a stethoscope, a tiny toddler shoe. “You’re the guy who has my dad’s work boots, right?” she says, and her voice is lower than he expected, warm, like she’s laughing at a joke only she knows. He blinks, remembers the pair of beat-up brown leather boots someone dropped off two weeks prior, a handwritten note tucked inside the box that said these were my dad’s, he built houses in this neighborhood in the 70s, I want to wear them hiking with my granddaughter. He’d spent three hours that night patching the cracked toe caps, already half done with the resole, even though it was a low-priority job. He nods, wipes a crumb of brisket off his chin with the back of his hand. “Yeah. They’re coming along good.”
A kid on a neon pink BMX bike swerves around a golden retriever chasing a popsicle stick, heads straight for Javier’s legs, and Lena grabs his bicep to yank him out of the way before he can react. Her hand is warm, calloused at the palms from lifting patients and hauling hiking gear, and she doesn’t let go for a full three seconds after the kid veers off, yelling an apology over his shoulder. When she finally pulls her hand away, she smirks, like she can tell his heart is racing. “You’ve been avoiding me,” she says, not a question. He shifts his weight, stares at the ground for a second, kicks a loose pebble across the asphalt. “Heard the gossip. Figured you didn’t want to be bothered by some old cobbler who spends more time talking to leather than people.” She laughs, loud enough that a couple standing a few feet away glance over, and she leans in a little more, so her shoulder is pressed against his, the soft cotton of her tee brushing his bare arm. “Half the gossip is true. I did leave my husband because he cheated. I am not looking for a husband, or a date to the PTA meeting, or whatever the hell those women on the block think I’m hunting for. But I think you’re cute. I like that your shop always smells like beeswax and leather. I like that you fixed my dad’s boots like they were worth a million bucks, even though I only paid you 80 dollars.”
He doesn’t say anything for a minute, listens to the 90s country cover band down the block start playing a slow George Strait song, watches a group of teens light a handful of sparklers on the sidewalk. He thinks about the last eight years, the quiet dinners alone, the way he stopped going to family weddings because everyone kept asking if he was seeing anyone, the way he almost sold the shop last year because he thought he’d spend the rest of his life alone. When he looks back at her, she’s staring at the scar on his jaw, the one he got three years ago when he dropped a 10-pound boot last on his face, and she reaches out, brushes the edge of the scar with her thumb, so light he barely feels it. “Want to walk back to your shop?” she says, her voice softer now, no teasing edge. “I want to see the boots.”
He nods, doesn’t even hesitate. They walk the half block to his shop as the sun dips below the oak trees, the sky turning pink and orange, fireflies flickering in the grass along the sidewalk. He unlocks the front door, flips on the warm fluorescent lights strung above his workbench, pulls her dad’s boots off the shelf where he left them, almost done, just needs the new heel caps glued on. She leans against the edge of the workbench next to him, her knee brushing his as he works, the smell of her sunscreen mixing with the leather and beeswax in the shop, and he finds himself rambling about the type of leather he used for the resole, how he patched the toe caps with the same kind of leather her dad would have used back in the 70s, and she listens, nods along, asks questions like she actually cares.
When he’s done, he kneels down, slips the first boot onto her foot, his fingers brushing the soft skin of her ankle, and she shivers a little, not from cold. He looks up at her, and she’s already leaning down, her hands on his shoulders, and she kisses him, slow, tastes like peachy iced tea and mint gum. Outside, someone sets off a handful of cheap fireworks, painting the front window bright pink and blue for half a second, and he doesn’t think about the gossip, doesn’t think about his ex-wife, doesn’t think about all the reasons he spent eight years shutting everyone out. He just kisses her back, his hand tangled in the ends of her sun-bleached blonde hair, the boot still laced loose around her ankle, the country song still playing faint through the open door.
