Rico Marquez, 62, spent 37 years plying the cold, kelp-choked waters off Central California as a commercial abalone diver before a degenerative shoulder injury forced him to sell his charter boat and retire three years prior. He was stubborn to a fault, had turned down every half-joking setup from the community center aunties in the eight years since his wife Elara died of ovarian cancer, convinced letting anyone new close would just mean digging a fresh hole for grief later. He’d shown up to the local fire department’s annual fundraiser cookout only because his best friend’s kid was playing in the mariachi band that afternoon, and he’d already promised he’d stay for at least one set.
He was leaning against a splintered wooden fence picking at a paper plate of overcooked tri-tip and mustard-heavy potato salad, debating slipping out early before Tia Mabel could corner him with the number of her recently widowed cousin from Fresno, when a seven-year-old with a melting blue popsicle came barrelling past. He stepped back fast to avoid getting sticky drips on his faded 2018 Monterey Dive Team hoodie, and his elbow connected hard with the iced tea in the hand of the woman standing behind him. Half the glass sloshed down the front of her cream linen button-down, dark splotches spreading fast across the fabric.
He sputtered an apology, grabbing a handful of paper napkins off the nearest table and dabbing at the mess before he thought better of it. His knuckles brushed the soft curve of her stomach through the damp fabric, the cold of the tea seeping through to his skin, and he pulled back fast, face heating like he was a 16 year old kid who’d copped a feel at a high school dance. She just laughed, a low, warm sound that cut through the noise of the crowd and the sizzle of the grill, and waved off his stammered offers to pay for her dry cleaning. He noticed then that she was Clara, the new part-time librarian at the tiny branch three blocks from his bungalow, the one who’d helped him track down a stack of out-of-print sea shanty CDs two months prior. He’d barely looked at her then, too focused on tracking down the specific recording his wife had loved when they were first dating, but now he couldn’t look away. She smelled like lavender and sea salt, had hazel eyes crinkled at the corners from laughing, and a tiny silver dolphin tattoo peeking out from the cuff of her linen shirt.
He offered to buy her a replacement drink, and they ended up leaning against that same fence for the next 45 minutes, talking over the mariachi set. He found out she’d checked out his self-published dive memoir from the library a month prior, the one he’d printed 200 copies of and sold mostly to friends and regular charter clients, and she quoted a line he’d written about waiting out a rogue swell under the kelp canopy until the water calmed enough to surface, said it had gotten her through the worst of her divorce after 28 years of marriage. No one outside his immediate family had ever even mentioned that line to him, let alone told him it mattered. Their shoulders kept brushing when people squeezed past to get to the beer tent, each accidental spark of contact sending a jolt up his spine he hadn’t felt in close to a decade. He kept wanting to reach out, to tuck the strand of sun-streaked brown hair that kept falling in her face behind her ear, but he clenched his calloused hands at his sides instead, fighting the voice in his head that screamed he was too old for this, that loss was inevitable if he let himself want something again.
When the fire crew announced the 50/50 raffle, they both pulled the crumpled tickets they’d bought on the way in out of their pockets, and burst out laughing when they realized their numbers were consecutive. The winning number was exactly halfway between the two, so they split the $1240 prize, the volunteer handing them two fat stacks of crumpled one and five dollar bills. Clara grabbed his hand to drag him over to the food truck to get churros, her palm warm and calloused from the vegetable garden she told him she tended in her backyard, and he didn’t pull away. Halfway there, she leaned in so her shoulder was pressed fully against his, her breath warm against his ear, and admitted she’d been working up the courage to talk to him since he’d come in for those sea shanty CDs, had even asked the head librarian about him once.
He asked her to get fish and chips on the pier and watch the sunset before he could talk himself out of it, and she said yes so fast he almost laughed. They sat on the weathered wooden slats of the pier an hour later, splitting a paper basket of greasy cod and thick cut fries, the prize money stuffed in the pocket of his hoodie. She insisted they use their shares to charter a small boat the next weekend to go look for the raft of sea otters that had been hanging around the kelp beds just off shore, and he didn’t argue, even though he’d sworn he’d never set foot on a small charter boat again after he sold his own. The sun dipped below the horizon, painting the water streaks of tangerine and soft pink, and she leaned her head on his shoulder, the weight of it warm and steady through his hoodie. He rested his hand on her knee, the denim of her jeans soft under the rough, scarred skin of his palm. A wave crashed against the pilings below, spraying cold mist up over their ankles, and he didn’t even flinch.
