Hugo Mendez, 62, spent 31 years as an air traffic controller in Phoenix before retiring to a cactus-dusted patch of southern Arizona eight years ago, six months after his wife’s ovarian cancer took her. His only non-negotiable weekly ritual: hit the farmers market at 10 a.m. every Saturday for Hatch chiles and homemade tortillas, then post up at The Rusty Spur for a single Coors Banquet before heading home to work on his model train set. He’s spent decades avoiding unplanned detours, a habit honed from years of orchestrating hundreds of flight paths without a single error, a stubborn streak his late wife used to tease him for until her last breath.
The bar smells like fried green chile rellenos and lemon Pledge, the jukebox spitting out Waylon Jennings’ “Amanda” low enough that he can still hear the clink of ice in margarita glasses from the other end of the counter. He’s halfway through his beer when the stool next to him scrapes against the linoleum, and a woman slides onto it, her denim-clad thigh brushing his for half a second before she shifts to set her salt-rimmed glass down. He glances over, and his throat goes tight. It’s Elena, his new next-door neighbor, the woman who moved into the old adobe three weeks prior, the woman he’s gone out of his way to avoid because he recognized her the second she unloaded her U-Haul. She’s Elena Carter, ex-wife of Ray Carter, his old air traffic control shift lead, the woman he’d had a stupid, unspoken crush on for 25 years, back when all three of them were working double nights in Phoenix.
He’d never so much as flirted with her back then. Ray was his best friend, had his back when he messed up an approach during a monsoon in 2001, brought him soup when his wife was in the hospital the last month of her life. Ray died of a sudden heart attack 11 months prior, and Hugo still feels a sharp twist of guilt when he looks at Elena, like even noticing the way the sun catches the silver streaks in her dark hair is a betrayal of a man who can’t defend himself.
She turns to him, grinning, and her elbow brushes his when she lifts her margarita to take a sip. “I knew that beat up Ford F-150 out front was yours. Recognized the faded air traffic control sticker on the back window from the old days.” Her voice is lower than he remembers, rougher around the edges, like she’s spent years singing along to country radio too loud with the windows down. He fumbles for his beer, his knuckles knocking against hers on the counter, and he pulls his hand back like he’s been burned. She doesn’t mention it, just leans in a little closer, the scent of jasmine lotion and lime clinging to her shirt, so close he can see the faint laugh lines fanning out from the corners of her warm brown eyes. “Ray always said you were the only guy in the tower he trusted not to lose his head when shit hit the fan. Said you were too stubborn to panic.”
He huffs a laugh, surprised, and relaxes a fraction, his knee brushing hers again under the counter. He doesn’t move it this time. They talk for two hours, his forgotten beer going warm on the counter between them. She tells him she moved down here to get away from the noise of Phoenix, that she’d always loved the desert when they used to come down for weekend camping trips back in the 90s, that she’s been trying to find the hidden slot canyon half an hour outside of town but hasn’t had the nerve to go looking alone. He tells her about his model train set, about the way the sun lights up the mountains pink every evening from his back porch, about how he’s avoided making new friends since his wife died because he didn’t want to go through the pain of losing someone else. He doesn’t realize he’s said that last part out loud until she covers his hand with hers, her palm warm and calloused from gardening, and squeezes.
The room goes quiet for a second, the jukebox cutting out mid-song, and he meets her eye, the guilt warring with the warm, fluttery feeling in his chest he hasn’t felt since he was 22 and asked his wife out to a drive-in movie. He’d spent so long telling himself wanting anything outside his routine was selfish, that wanting Elena specifically was wrong, that he’d forgotten what it felt like to be seen, to have someone listen when he talked instead of just waiting for their turn to speak.
He doesn’t overthink it. He tells her he hikes that slot canyon every Sunday, leaves at 8 a.m. sharp, brings extra water and lemon bars from the bakery downtown, if she wants to come. She grins, squeezing his hand again before she pulls away to grab her purse, and her thumb brushes the back of his knuckle when she lets go.
He walks her out to her SUV, the dry desert sun warm on the back of his neck, and she leans in to kiss his cheek, her lips soft against his sunburned skin, before she climbs into the driver’s seat. She rolls the window down before she pulls out, holding up a jar of homemade prickly pear jelly she’d stashed in her purse, tossing it to him through the open window. “For your toast tomorrow. Don’t be late.”
He stands there in the gravel parking lot, the jar cold in his hand, watching her taillights fade down the dirt road toward their neighborhood. He pulls his phone out of his pocket, opens his alarm app, and changes his Sunday wake up time from 7 a.m. to 6:40, so he has time to stop by the bakery and pick up an extra lemon bar, just in case she likes extra powdered sugar on hers.
