Javi Mendez, 57, has restored 72 vintage travel trailers in the 8 years since his wife Elara died, each one sanded down to bare metal, re-wired, re-upholstered, sold to folks chasing road trip dreams he hasn’t let himself feel since he buried her. His flaw: he’s turned down every dinner invite, every set-up, every casual advance, convinced any spark with someone new would be a betrayal of the 22 years he had with Elara, even though she’d made him promise on her deathbed to stop moping once the kids were grown. He lives 10 minutes outside Flagstaff, wears the same frayed Carhartt flannel 6 days a week, still has permanent grease crammed under the edges of his fingernails no matter how hard he scrubs with Lava soap.
He only agrees to go to the annual fall food truck rally because his buddy Roy threatens to drop a load of rotted horse manure on his shop driveway if he hides out with his rivet gun again. The air is sharp with pine and wood smoke, the kind of crisp October evening that makes his knees ache a little but makes the hazy IPA he’s clutching taste better than it has all year. He’s leaning against a split rail fence, half listening to Roy rant about the local city council, when he spots her.
Lila, his next door neighbor Mara’s niece, moved to town three months prior after a messy divorce, runs a small home bakery out of Mara’s guest house. She’s behind the churro booth, flour dusted on her left forearm, a streak of cinnamon across her cheek, laughing so hard at a kid begging for a second treat that her eyes crinkle shut at the corners. Javi’s been avoiding her like the plague since she brought him a loaf of sourdough her first week in town, because he can’t stop staring at the way her jeans fit, or the sound of her laugh when she’s out walking her golden retriever at 6 a.m. He thinks a 15-year age gap is tacky, that messing around with Mara’s niece would make him the laughing stock of the small town he’s lived in his whole life, that he’s too old and too set in his grumpy ways to be worth her time anyway. He tries to slip around the back of the fence before she sees him, but she looks up right then, waves so hard her churro tongs clatter against the metal tray, and yells his name over the hum of the crowd.
He has no choice but to walk over. The line is long, but she waves the couple in front of him off for a second, leaning across the booth so she’s close enough that he can smell her perfume, vanilla mixed with the pine she uses in her candle melts, over the scent of fried dough and cinnamon. He mumbles a greeting, stares at the scuffed toes of his work boots, feels his face heat up like he’s 16 again asking a girl to prom. Some drunk guy in a cowboy hat stumbles past, slams into Javi’s shoulder, and Javi’s hand brushes the curve of her hip for half a second before he yanks it back like he’s been burned. He apologizes so fast the words run together, and she snorts, wipes a fleck of cinnamon off the front of his flannel with her thumb, says “Relax, Mendez, I don’t bite. Unless you ask nicely.”
She shoves a warm churro into his hand before he can argue, says it’s on the house. He takes a bite, the sugar crunching between his teeth, the dough soft and warm inside, and he realizes he hasn’t smiled this easy in months. She asks about the 1962 Airstream he’s been restoring for the last six months, the one he parks in his driveway covered with a tarp, says she’s been scouring Facebook Marketplace for a small vintage trailer to take up to the North Rim for weekends, asks if he’d help her look at a few models next week. He’s half a second away from saying no, from making up an excuse about being swamped with work, when she leans in a little closer, her shoulder brushing his, and says “I’d pay you in churros. And that peach pie you keep sniffing around when I drop stuff off for Mara.”
The local country band strikes up a slow, twangy cover of a Patsy Cline song, and couples start drifting onto the patch of grass set aside for dancing. She sets her tongs down, tells the teen she’s got working the booth to cover for 10 minutes, grabs his free hand, tugs him toward the grass before he can protest. He tells her he doesn’t dance, says he hasn’t since his daughter’s wedding 5 years ago, and she grins, laces their fingers together, says “Neither do I. Who gives a shit what anyone thinks?”
He lets her pull him in, rests his hand light on her waist, their chests almost touching as they sway off-beat to the music. She looks up at him, her eyes dark in the string light glow, and says “You’ve been avoiding me for three months. Did I do something wrong? Or are you just scared I’ll figure out you’re not as much of a grumpy asshole as you pretend to be?” He freezes, for a second he thinks about lying, about making up some dumb excuse, but he sighs, admits he thought the age gap was too weird, that he didn’t want to mess up his friendship with Mara, that he hadn’t even considered letting anyone get close since Elara died. She laughs softly, runs her thumb along the edge of the grease stain on his wrist, says “I don’t care about the 15 years. I care that you fix broken trailers for single moms for half price, that you leave dog treats out for my retriever even when you pretend you don’t like him, that you’re the only person in this town who doesn’t ask me 100 questions about my divorce. I’ve been dropping hints for months. Took you long enough to catch up.”
He leans in before he can overthink it, kisses her slow, the taste of cinnamon sugar and the IPA he’d been drinking mixing on their lips, the band playing loud enough that no one around them even glances their way. They leave the rally 20 minutes later, stop by his place first to grab the printouts of the trailers he’d flagged for sale that week, then drive out to his shop so he can show her the Airstream he’s almost done restoring. She runs her hand along the polished aluminum siding when he pulls the tarp off, her fingers catching on the rivet heads, says she wants to take it up to the Grand Canyon for the first snowfall next month. He unlocks the shop door, flicks on the warm overhead string lights, and holds the door open for her as she steps inside, the soft glow gilding the cinnamon still dusted on her cheek.
