Elio Ruiz, 52, makes his living building custom reclaimed cedar surfboard racks for shops up and down the Central California coast. His knuckles are crisscrossed with thin scars from planer slips and splinters, he still drives the same beat-up 2007 Toyota Tacoma he bought the year his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, and he hasn’t voluntarily attended a community event in the seven years since she died. He only showed up to the fire department’s annual chili cook-off because his main lumber supplier had badgered him for three weeks straight, saying he needed to “get out from under his sawdust cloud and remember what other people look like.”
He’s leaning against the side of the beer truck, half-heartedly picking at a paper bowl of three-alarm chili that’s burning a hole in the lining of his stomach, when he spots her. The name tag pinned to her linen sundress reads Maren Hale, and it takes him three full seconds to place her: the only daughter of his old woodworking mentor, Tom Hale, who’d taught him everything he knew about joinery back when Elio was 19 and fresh out of high school. He hasn’t seen her since she left for college in Portland 16 years earlier, back when she was a scrawny 17-year-old with a lip piercing and a habit of sneaking into her dad’s workshop to steal sips of Elio’s root beer.
She spots him before he can slip around the back of the truck, and her face lights up, crinkling at the corners of her hazel eyes the exact same way her dad’s used to when he was about to tell a dirty joke. She cuts through the crowd of firefighters and local moms herding sugar-crazed kids, holding a plastic cup of hard seltzer in one hand, and stops so close to him he can smell the vanilla and sea grass perfume she’s wearing, sharp over the smoky tang of chili and charred hot dogs drifting from the cook stations.
“Elio Ruiz. I’d know those calloused mitts anywhere,” she says, nodding at his hands, which he’s suddenly self-conscious of, still dusted with fine cedar sawdust from the rack he’d finished that morning. He huffs a laugh, wipes his palm on the side of his well-worn flannel shirt before he shakes hers, and his skin tingles where her soft, cool fingers wrap around his. She’s not the scrawny kid he remembers. Her hair is streaked with sun-bleached blonde, she’s got a small tattoo of a wave curling around her left wrist, right next to the faint scar he’d given her when he’d let her use a planer unsupervised when she was 12, and the sundress she’s wearing fits her like it was stitched just for her, cinched at the waist, flaring at the hips, skimming the tops of her tanned, freckled thighs.
He feels a hot flash of guilt so sharp it makes his jaw ache. She’s Tom’s kid. He’d held her when she was 10 and her goldfish died. He’d driven her to her first high school dance when Tom had to rush his wife to the ER for appendicitis. He has no business noticing the way her lip gloss glistens when she smiles, or the way she leans in closer when a group of rowdy volunteer firefighters yell as they win the chili trophy, her shoulder pressing firm against his bicep, warm through the thin fabric of his shirt.
She asks him about his workshop, if he still plays that beat up Willie Nelson cassette he used to blast on repeat while he worked, if he still goes surfing at that secret cove north of town he used to take her dad to on weekends. He answers her questions slowly, half distracted by the way she keeps brushing her hair behind her ear, the way her knee bumps his when they both step to the side to let a stroller pass, the way she keeps holding eye contact like he’s the only person in the crowd that matters.
When the fire department announces the 50/50 raffle, he realizes he’d stuffed a ticket in his flannel pocket when he walked in, forgotten all about it. He pulls it out, and Maren laughs, holding up her own ticket: consecutive numbers, one digit apart. When they call the number halfway between theirs, the emcee shrugs, says they’ll split the pot, $420 total, and hands them each a stack of crumpled 20s.
“Fair’s fair,” Maren says, tucking her cash into the pocket of her dress, grinning. “We have to spend this on something stupid. You still love those carnitas tacos at El Torito down the street? The ones you used to buy me after I helped you sand shelves for my dad’s shop?”
Elio hesitates for half a second, the voice in the back of his head screaming that this is a bad idea, that she’s too young, that everyone in town will talk, that he’s betraying his wife’s memory even thinking about saying yes. But then she tilts her head at him, waiting, and he can’t remember the last time someone looked at him like he wasn’t just the quiet widower who keeps to himself, who only talks to people when he’s selling them a surfboard rack.
He nods. She grins, slips her hand into his, lacing their fingers together, and he doesn’t pull away. They walk down the main street toward the taco shop, the sun sinking low over the ocean, painting the sky streaks of tangerine and lavender, the distant crash of waves mixing with the sound of a mariachi band playing outside the bar down the block. His palm is sweaty, his heart is hammering so hard he’s half convinced she can feel it through their joined hands, and for the first time in seven years, he doesn’t feel like he’s just going through the motions of living.
He squeezes her hand once, the faint salt tang in the air mixing with the scent of grilled carne asada drifting from the taco shop’s open door.
