Ron all but shoves Javi Mendez through the entrance of the St. Augustine fire department’s annual charity fish fry, the air thick with fried catfish, menthol cigarette smoke, and the tinny twang of a cover band playing old Alabama tracks. Javi is 61, a custom fishing rod builder who’s spent seven years walling himself off after his ex-wife left him for a retired cruise ship captain, convinced that putting himself out there at his age is just asking for embarrassment. He lives in a 1970s cinder block cottage 10 minutes from the beach, eats frozen burritos for dinner four nights a week, and only leaves his boardwalk shop for supply runs or when Ron drags him to community events he has zero interest in. He grumbles, tugs at the cuff of his worn gray flannel (he’d forgotten to change after a morning wrapping guide threads on a custom rod for a tourist, sawdust still caught in the folds), and makes a beeline for the beer tent, planning to camp there until Ron gets drunk enough to forget he came.
He’s halfway through his second IPA, leaning against a splintered wooden picnic table and watching a group of teen boys race to eat a plate of hushpuppies, when it happens. A woman trips over the frayed cord of a rolling cooler, lurches forward, and sloshes a dollop of vinegar-drenched coleslaw right onto the front of his shirt. Her hand flies out to steady herself, palm pressing firm to his forearm for three full beats before she yanks it back, flustered. “I am so sorry,” she says, laughing so hard her shoulders shake, silver hoop earrings catching the golden late afternoon sun. Her hand is cool, calloused at the fingertips, and Javi’s first instinct is to step back, brush off the slaw, mutter that it’s fine, and walk away like he does with every stranger who tries to talk to him these days. But he doesn’t. He stares at her, at the faint smudge of charcoal on the edge of her jaw, at the way her hazel eyes crinkle at the corners when she apologizes again, and his chest feels tight, like he’s forgotten how to breathe for a second.
She grabs a handful of napkins from the stack on the table, dabs at the coleslaw stain on his shirt, her elbow brushing his ribs every time she moves. She smells like lavender hand lotion and lemon polish, and Javi finds himself leaning in without meaning to, close enough that he can smell the faint sweetness of the sweet tea she’s been drinking on her breath. “Javi,” he says, before he can talk himself out of it. “I build custom fishing rods over on the boardwalk.” “Mara,” she says, holding out her hand to shake. She’s the new part-time librarian at the downtown branch, she tells him, moved to town six months prior from Ohio, still getting used to the humidity and the way sand gets everywhere no matter how many times you wipe your shoes. She leans against the picnic table next to him, their shoulders three inches apart, close enough that he can feel the heat coming off her sun-warmed cotton t-shirt, and she doesn’t glance at her phone once the whole time they talk, not even when a group of her new friends wave at her from across the field.
Javi hasn’t talked to anyone that wasn’t a customer asking about rod blanks or Ron complaining about his grandkids in longer than he can remember. He tells her about the 12-foot surf rod he built last month for a guy who caught a 40-pound redfish with it, about the time a seagull stole a sandwich right out of his hand while he was testing a rod on the pier, and she laughs so hard she snorts, clapping a hand over her mouth like she’s embarrassed. He finds himself teasing her, asking if she’s even ever held a fishing rod before, and she tilts her chin up, playful, says she hasn’t, but she’s a fast learner. Part of him screams to leave, to go home to his quiet cottage and his frozen burritos, to not let himself get attached to someone who’ll just leave like his ex did. He’s disgusted with himself for feeling giddy, like a kid with a crush on his high school math teacher, for caring that she thinks his job is cool, that she asks follow-up questions about the different types of thread he uses to wrap the guides. The other part of him doesn’t want the conversation to end, wants to keep sitting here next to her, listening to her talk about the shorebird sketching program she’s running for the library’s summer kids’ events, until the sun goes down.
She says she has to head home, she’s got a stack of library books to catalog before tomorrow, and Javi walks her to her beat-up 2008 Honda Civic parked at the edge of the lot. She pauses before she opens the driver’s side door, reaches up to brush a fleck of sawdust off his collar, her thumb brushing the side of his neck for half a second, warm and soft. “Don’t forget,” she says, smiling, as she climbs in the car. “I expect a full lesson on what all those different guides do, no skipping the boring parts.”
He stands there until her taillights turn the corner onto the main road, the spot on his neck still tingling where her thumb touched. He’d forgotten what it felt like to look forward to something that wasn’t a new shipment of carbon fiber blanks or a good day of fishing alone. He takes a sip of his now-warm IPA, grins, and makes a mental note to oil the reels on his smallest, lightest rod before Saturday.
