Roland Voss, 61, makes his living prying open rusted pocket watch cases, adjusting hairspring coils thinner than a human hair, and telling dead people’s timepieces how to tick again. He spends 90% of his days in the 200 square foot workshop behind his Asheville bungalow, the air thick with brass polish and old wood smoke, the radio tuned to a 24 hour bluegrass station he’s had locked in since 2017. He hasn’t been on a date in 12 years, not since his ex wife packed her bags and moved to Portland with a 28 year old coder who wore toe shoes and made his own kombucha. His biggest flaw is that he’s convinced he’s already used up all his luck with people, so he doesn’t bother trying to meet new ones. The only reason he’s at the annual neighborhood block party in late August is because Mabel, his 82 year old next door neighbor, promised him a whole slice of her famous peach pie if he showed up for at least an hour.
He’s leaning against the chest high beer cooler, condensation soaking through the knee of his faded denim overalls, holding an IPA so cold the can is slipping in his calloused, scarred hands, droplets of ice water running down his wrist under the cuff of his work shirt. There’s a smudge of brass polish on the edge of his left jaw he missed when he wiped his face an hour earlier. He’s actively avoiding the HOA president, who’s been nagging him for three weeks to trim the oak tree in his front yard that’s dropping acorns on her pearl white BMW. The air smells like grilled bratwurst, charcoal, and fresh cut grass, crickets chirp loud enough to cut through the rowdy chatter of the cornhole players ten feet away.
He’s debating bailing early, pie or no pie, when she walks over. Clara, the woman who moved into the house on his other side three months prior. He’s only ever waved at her from his porch, usually ducking back inside before she can say more than hello. He heard from Mabel she’s 47, retired after 25 years as an international flight attendant, has a tabby cat that keeps sneaking into his workshop to nap on his workbench. She’s wearing a linen sundress dotted with sunflowers, barefoot, her toenails painted a deep cherry red, holding a paper plate stacked with grilled corn slathered in chili lime butter that glistens in the string light glow. She steps close to get out of the way of a 7 year old on a neon green scooter zooming past, her bare shoulder brushing his upper arm, and he catches a whiff of coconut sunscreen and the pineapple seltzer she’s been sipping, sweet and sharp.
“Was starting to think you’d never talk to me,” she says, grinning, and nods at the brass polish on his jaw. She lifts her hand before he can react, swipes the smudge off with the pad of her thumb, her skin warm against his day-old stubble. He freezes, half a beat away from stepping back, but he doesn’t. He can’t remember the last time someone touched him that casually, that gently, no agenda, no complaint about a broken watch or an overdue bill.
He stammers out a greeting, wipes his sweaty palm on the leg of his overalls. He’s been avoiding her for three months for two reasons: every time he sees her on her porch drinking coffee at 4am, his chest feels tight, like he’s a teenager again staring at the girl who sat in front of him in homeroom, and he heard a guy at the grocery store joke last week that she was “way too young for the watch guy down the street”, a comment that stuck, made him feel stupid for even noticing her. He’d spent 12 years convincing himself he was better off alone, and she was walking around making that feel like the dumbest decision he ever made.
She laughs when he fumbles his beer can, catches it before it hits the ground, passes it back to him. Her fingers brush his, and he feels the heat climb up his neck to the tips of his ears. “Mabel told me you fix pocket watches,” she says, nodding at his hands, crisscrossed with tiny pale scars from slipped screwdrivers and snapped watch springs. “I found my grandma’s old one in a moving box last week, it hasn’t ticked since 1998. Was wondering if you’d take a look at it. I’ll pay you, obviously, or bring you as much peach pie as you want for a whole month.”
He nods, faster than he means to, says he can look at it whenever she wants to bring it over. She steps a little closer, so their shoulders are pressed together, and he doesn’t move away. “I also heard you haven’t gone on a date since the Bush administration,” she says, teasing, no bite to the words. “I get it. I haven’t dated anyone since I retired. All the guys my age either want to talk about their golf handicaps on loop or complain nonstop about their ex wives. I’d rather hang out with someone who knows how to fix something, who doesn’t need to post every meal they eat on Instagram.”
He blinks, doesn’t know what to say. He’d spent so long building up walls, convinced any interest anyone might have in him was a joke, or a mistake, that he never considered someone might actually like the quiet, boring, watch-fixing version of him. The HOA president walks past, glares at him, and he doesn’t even care. “I’m 14 years older than you,” he says, finally, because it’s the only argument he has left.
She snorts, takes a sip of her seltzer, and her bare knee brushes the side of his work boot. “I’m aware. I don’t care. My last boyfriend was 50, spent $800 on a custom gaming chair and cried when his favorite Twitch streamer got banned. I’ll take the guy who gets up at 4am to fix 100 year old watches over that any day.”
He laughs, a rough, rusty sound he hasn’t heard come out of his mouth in years. He asks her if she wants to come by his workshop tomorrow morning, he’ll make cold brew coffee, look at her grandma’s watch, maybe they can sit on the porch afterward if it’s not too humid. She grins, says she’ll be there at 6am, brings the best sourdough toast in the county slathered with honey butter, and leans in, presses a quick, soft kiss to his cheek, the corner of her mouth brushing his stubble.
She turns to walk away, says she’s going to steal a slice of Mabel’s pie before it’s all gone, winks over her shoulder as she heads for the dessert table. Roland stands there for another five minutes, holding his beer, the spot on his cheek still tingling, watching her laugh as she steals a bite of pie straight off Mabel’s plate. The kid on the neon green scooter zooms past again, almost slams into his boots, and he doesn’t even grumble, just tucks his free hand in his pocket and smiles.
