Rico Marquez, 52, ran a vintage fishing reel repair shop out of a 200-square-foot nook on Astoria’s boardwalk, the air always thick with machine oil and salt, walls lined with dented Penns and Shakespeare reels people dragged in from attics, garage sales, even shipwreck salvage. Eight years prior, his wife packed a duffel and left for Maui with a commercial fisherman she’d met at his shop, and he’d buried himself in work ever since, stubbornly turning down every set-up local waitresses and church ladies tried to arrange, convinced any interest was just pity for the guy whose wife bailed. He drank PBR at the Sand Bar every Thursday after closing, sat in the same scuffed wooden stool at the end of the bar, never talked to anyone unless the bartender asked how his week went.
That Thursday, the place was packed, the usual crowd of fishermen and dock workers mixed with tourists in from the food truck rally out front. He was wiping smudged reel grease off his knuckles with a bar napkin when she sat down two stools over, and he caught a whiff of jasmine lotion first, sharp and sweet over the bar’s usual scent of fried onion rings and stale beer. He glanced over, and recognized her immediately: Lila Hale, wife of Tom Hale, the city councilman who’d rammed a 30% boardwalk rent hike through two days prior, the hike that would put Rico’s shop out of business by the end of the year if it didn’t get reversed. She wore high-waisted raw denim jeans, a faded Pearl Jam t-shirt, red flannel tied around her waist, silver hoops that caught the neon Coors Light sign light when she turned her head to order a margarita, extra salt on the rim.
When the bartender slid her drink over, she reached for it at the same time Rico reached for his fresh PBR, and her elbow brushed his bicep, warm and firm through the thin cotton of his work shirt. She apologized, smiling, and he noticed a tiny gap between her two front teeth, the kind of flaw that felt more intimate than any perfect smile he’d seen in years. “Sorry about that,” she said, nodding at the grease streaked across his wrist. “You’re the reel guy, right? My dad’s been hauling around a 1972 Penn Spinfisher in his garage for a decade, swears no one can fix it but the guy on the boardwalk with the neon ‘REEL REPAIR’ sign.”
Rico nodded, short, his jaw tight. “That’s me. Might not be there much longer, if your husband has his way.” He expected her to get defensive, stand up and move to a different stool, but she laughed instead, a low, throaty sound that made the back of his neck prickle. “Tom doesn’t know half the things I’m up to,” she said, sliding her stool a foot closer, so their knees were almost touching, the heat of her denim-clad leg seeping through the frayed cuff of his work pants. “I’ve been yelling at him for three weeks to carve out an exemption for legacy shops on the boardwalk. He’s too busy schmoozing out-of-state developers to listen.”
She leaned in when she talked, her hazel eyes flecked with gold, never looking away when he held her gaze, the salt on her margarita rim glistening when she took a sip. When she reached past him to grab the bowl of salted peanuts the bartender set between their stools, her chest brushed his shoulder for half a second, and he could smell tequila on her breath mixed with jasmine lotion, his throat going dry so fast he had to take a long drink of beer to clear it. He told himself he should stand up, pay his tab, walk out, that getting tangled up with Tom Hale’s wife was the stupidest thing he could possibly do, that it would turn the councilman against him for good, that he’d spent eight years avoiding drama and this was nothing but a ticking time bomb. But he couldn’t move.
They talked for an hour, about her dad’s beat-up reel, about the way salmon runs had shrunk every year, about the terrible cover band that played the Sand Bar every Saturday. She laughed at his dumb joke about the guy who brought in a reel caked in seagull poop the week prior, and when she laughed, she rested her hand on his forearm for two full seconds, her palm warm through his shirt, the callus on her index finger from years of holding a paintbrush (she taught watercolor classes at the community center) rough against his skin.
When she stood up to leave, she slipped a crumpled receipt into the front pocket of his work flannel, her fingers brushing his chest through the fabric, her address scrawled on the back in bright blue ink. “Tom’s at a conference in Portland tomorrow until Sunday,” she said, her voice low enough only he could hear. “Come over at 6. Bring your tools. I’ll make sure the rent hike is off the table by Monday. Don’t be late.” She squeezed his shoulder lightly before she turned and walked out, the bell above the bar door jingling behind her.
He sat there for ten minutes after she left, swirling the last sip of beer in his bottle, the receipt crinkling in his pocket, faint jasmine still lingering on his sleeve. He’d spent eight years playing it safe, keeping his head down, avoiding anything that felt like it could break him. He knew showing up at her house was reckless, that it could cost him his shop, his reputation, the quiet life he’d built for himself. He didn’t care.
He finished his beer, paid his tab, pulled his hood up against the fine coastal drizzle falling outside, and pulled out his phone to delete the three repair appointments he had scheduled for the next evening.
