Ray Voss, 58, retired auto shop teacher, showed up to the Westside fall block party only because his former teaching partner begged him for three straight days. He’d spent the morning swapping spark plugs on his 1972 F-150, so there was a faint smudge of grease on his left jaw and a dark stain sewn into the knee of his worn denim jeans. He nursed a $3 lager from the local bar’s pop-up stand, breath fogging a little in the crisp October air, and tried to avoid the group of senior center volunteers waving him over to sign their petition for new kitchen equipment. He’d written a scathing letter to the local paper three months prior, calling their campaign to reallocate road repair funds to the center “entitled whining,” and had no interest in hashing that out with strangers.
He stepped back to avoid a kid on a neon scooter when his elbow connected with a plastic cup held by a woman just behind him. Spiced cider sloshed over the rim, splattering across her navy cardigan and the front of his red flannel. He fumbled for a stack of napkins on the nearest folding table, muttering apologies, and leaned in to dab at the wet spot over her chest before he thought better of it. She didn’t step back. He could smell vanilla and clove on her sweater, hear the huff of her quiet laugh when he froze half an inch from her collarbone, and when he lifted his head to meet her eyes, he caught flecks of gold in her hazel irises, bright even under the string lights strung between the oak trees. Her arm brushed his when she took a napkin from his hand, dabbing at the cider stain on his flannel sleeve, and he felt the heat of her skin through the thin fabric.
He realized who she was when she said, “Ray Voss, right? I recognized the grease stain. You’re the guy who called my senior center op-ed a waste of print space.” Clara Bennett, 56, part-time librarian, the woman he’d complained about to every one of his friends for weeks. He tensed, ready to defend the letter, but she was grinning, not angry. “For the record, I thought your counterpoint was almost well-reasoned, if a little out of touch with how many people in this town can’t afford three meals a week.” He opened his mouth to argue, then shut it when she nodded at his truck, parked two spots down from the bar. “Nice 351 Windsor under that hood, right? My dad had the exact same model, taught me to swap the transmission when I was 17.”
For the next 40 minutes, they leaned against the side of his truck, trading barbs and stories. He told her about the student who tried to hotwire the school’s shop truck for a prom prank, she told him about the guy who tried to check out 12 true crime novels at once and left his parole bracelet on the front desk. He kept finding excuses to brush his hand against hers when they reached for the bowl of pretzels on the truck’s hood, kept catching her looking at his mouth when he talked. He hated that he was attracted to her, hated that every assumption he’d made about her being a shrill, out-of-touch busybody was crumbling by the second, hated that his chest felt tight in a way it hadn’t since his wife died four years prior. He’d spent so long convincing himself he was better off alone, that dating at his age was either sad or a scam, that the pull of her laugh, the soft press of her shoulder to his when a group of drunk college kids stumbled past, felt like a betrayal of the quiet, predictable life he’d built.
He didn’t pull away. When the song ended, she stepped back, tucking a strand of silver-streaked brown hair behind her ear, and asked if he wanted to get coffee at the 24-hour diner three miles down the highway. He nodded, already fumbling for his truck keys in his jeans pocket. He dropped his half-empty lager in a nearby trash can, waved off his buddy yelling at him from across the parking lot, and opened the passenger door for her. The amber glow of the streetlight caught the gold flecks in her eyes when she smiled up at him before climbing in. He slid into the driver’s seat, turned the key, and the old truck’s radio sputtered to life, blaring the same Tom Petty track they’d just been dancing to.
