Leo Marlow, 57, has repaired close to 1,200 antique typewriters over the 23 years he’s run his shop in west Asheville, and he’d take a jammed 1930s Remington over a crowded farmers market any day of the week. His niece, home from college for fall break, all but dragged him out of his workshop at 10 a.m., saying he smelled like machine oil and loneliness and needed to breathe fresh air for an hour. He’d grumbled the whole walk over, hands stuffed in the pockets of his oil-stained canvas work jacket, scuffed leather work boots crunching over fallen maple leaves. The market hummed with the kind of small-town chaos he’d spent eight years avoiding: kids screaming chasing golden retrievers, bluegrass buskers plucking a wobbly version of *Foggy Mountain Breakdown*, the sweet tang of apple cider donuts sticking to the back of his throat. He’d only agreed to come to get his niece off his back, planned to grab a jar of dill pickles and bolt back to his shop where the only noise was the clack of metal keys and the low hum of his old space heater.
The sharp, bright smell of habanero and lime cut through the cloying donut sugar, and he drifted toward the end of the row before he realized he was moving. The booth was strung with warm fairy lights, hand-painted signs reading MALA MUYVE HOT SAUCE scrawled in neon orange marker, jars of ruby red and bright green sauce lined up on rough-hewn pine planks. The woman behind the counter leaned over to pass a sample to a giddy kid, her dark wavy hair pulled back in a messy braid, a smudge of chili powder on her left cheek, and Leo froze. It was Elara. Lila’s younger cousin, the one who’d showed up to their wedding barefoot with a case of hazy IPA, the one he hadn’t seen since Lila’s funeral eight years prior, when she’d hugged him so tight he thought his ribs would crack before driving back to Austin that same night.
She looked up before he could turn and walk away, and her face lit up, no pity, no soft “how are you holding up” wince he got from everyone else in town who knew his story. “Leo Marlow. I’d know that beat-up work jacket anywhere.” She leaned further over the booth, her forearm brushing his when she held out a small paper plate with a tortilla chip dipped in mango habanero sauce. The fabric of her well-worn flannel shirt was soft under his wrist, her hand calloused at the knuckles from stirring 10-gallon pots of sauce over open flame, he noted, before he could tell himself not to look. He took the chip, chewed, the heat blooming slow across his tongue, sharp and sweet, and he coughed a little, eyes watering. She laughed, low and warm, and passed him a small paper cup of cold whole milk, their fingers brushing for half a second when he took it. The jolt that ran up his arm was so sharp he almost spilled the milk all over his jacket.
He stood there for 20 minutes, he later realized, no plan, no urge to leave. She told him she’d moved back to Asheville three months prior, quit her corporate marketing job in Austin to make hot sauce full time, had rented a small sunlit cottage 10 minutes from his shop. She teased him about still wearing the scuffed work boots Lila had bought him for their 25th anniversary, the ones with the split sole he’d refused to replace for three years even when the cobbler said they were on their last legs. He teased her back about still chipping her cherry red nail polish the same way she had when she was 22, crashing on their couch for a month after a bad breakup with a touring musician. The guilt niggled at the back of his head the whole time, quiet and sharp: this is wrong, she’s Lila’s cousin, you shouldn’t be enjoying this. He’d sworn off any kind of romantic or even casual connection after Lila died, had turned down three separate setups from mutual friends, had convinced himself anyone who showed interest was just feeling sorry for the widowed typewriter guy. But Elara didn’t look at him like he was broken. She looked at him like he was the same guy who’d helped her fix her beat-up 1998 Honda Civic in his driveway 18 years prior, the same guy who’d snuck her extra slices of pecan pie at Thanksgiving dinners when Lila wasn’t looking.
When the market started closing down, vendors folding up their tables, the bluegrass buskers packing up their guitars and tip jar, she wiped her hands on her ripped jeans and leaned against the booth, tilting her head at him. “The dive down the street has $3 craft pints on Saturdays. You wanna get one? I’ve got stories about the guy who tried to order a gallon of ghost pepper sauce for his ex’s birthday cake you’d love.” He almost said no. Almost made up an excuse about a 1952 Royal typewriter he had to get back to, about needing to feed his two grumpy 12-year-old tabby cats. He looked at her, the chili powder still smudged on her cheek, her dark eyes bright and unapologetic, and the excuse died in his throat. “Yeah,” he said. “That sounds good.”
They sat in a scuffed vinyl booth in the back of the bar, the neon “OPEN” sign casting soft pink light across the table, the jukebox playing old Johnny Cash deep cuts. She told him about the hot sauce business, about the time she burned a batch of Carolina Reaper sauce so bad the fire department showed up to her cottage thinking there was a structure fire, and he told her about the elderly veteran who’d brought in a typewriter he’d used to write love letters to his wife while deployed in Vietnam, had cried when Leo fixed it for half the price he normally charged. When he pulled his worn leather wallet out to pay for their second round, the faded polaroid of Lila he kept tucked in the front slipped out a little, and Elara tapped it with her finger, soft, no sadness in her face. “She’d kick your ass if she knew you spent the last eight years only talking to typewriters and your cats, you know.” He laughed, the first real, unforced laugh he’d had in months, and when her hand rested on his wrist for a beat, warm and solid, he didn’t pull away. He lifted his beer to clink against hers, the amber liquid catching the neon glow, and for the first time in eight years, he didn’t feel guilty for looking forward to what comes next.
