Elias Voss, 53, makes his living patching rusted seams, reupholstering cracked vinyl bench seats, and rewiring wonky electrical systems in vintage campers from his converted barn shop outside Asheville. He’s a perfectionist to a fault, the kind of guy who will redo a floor seal three times if it’s not perfectly even, and he’s spent the last 12 years structuring every minute of his days to avoid surprises, ever since his ex-wife left him for a 28-year-old whitewater rafting guide they’d hired for a weekend anniversary trip. He tells his friends he likes the quiet, that solo hikes with his beagle Mabel and cold beer on his porch after work are all he needs. He mostly believes it, too, until three weeks ago, when his new next door neighbor backed her beat-up Ford F-150 into his split-rail fence, crumpling two posts, and he’d been so thrown off by the disruption to his routine that he’d brushed off her apology before she could finish, grumbling that he’d fix it himself and disappearing back into his shop before she could offer to pay.
He’s at the county fire department’s annual chili cook-off on a crisp October Saturday, only there because his best friend dragged him out, when he feels a hard bump to his shoulder and hot chili sloshes over the edge of his plastic bowl onto his flannel sleeve. He turns, ready to snap, and comes face to face with the neighbor. She’s wearing a faded Willie Nelson tee under an unbuttoned flannel, cutoff denim shorts, and scuffed work boots, a smudge of chili powder dusted across her left cheek, and she’s laughing so hard her shoulders shake. “Whoa, fence guy. Sorry about that. And sorry again about the fence. You still holding a grudge?”
He feels his face heat up, embarrassed now about how rude he was. He shakes his head, grabs a napkin from the stack on the picnic table behind him to wipe the chili off his sleeve. “No grudge. Fence is fixed already. Let me get you a beer to make up for being an ass when you moved in.”
She nods, and he turns to grab two lagers from the ice chest, his boots scuffing the sawdust scattered across the grass to soak up spilled beer and chili grease. The country cover band on the small stage is grinding through a halfway decent version of a 90s Alan Jackson track, the smell of smoked pork and cumin hangs thick in the air, and when he hands her the beer, their fingers brush for half a second, her skin warm even through the cold condensation on the can.
They lean against the edge of a weathered picnic table to eat, and every time someone squeezes past the crowded row of cook-off booths, their shoulders press together, solid and warm. She tells him her name is Lena, she’s 48, a travel nurse who just settled in Asheville after 10 years of moving between ERs across the southeast, finally taking a permanent position at the local hospital after her divorce finalized six months prior. She teases him about the scowl he had on his face when he was fixing the fence, and he tells her about the client who insisted he install a fully functional disco ball in the bathroom of their 1968 Airstream, and she snorts beer out of her nose when he describes testing it out after the job was done, Mabel barking at the flashing lights bouncing off the aluminum walls.
Every time she laughs, she leans in a little closer, her knee brushing his when she shifts her weight, and he can smell pine soap and citrus shampoo on her hair when the breeze blows her way. He’s fighting the urge to reach out and wipe the chili powder off her cheek, telling himself he’s being stupid, that he doesn’t need to complicate his life with anything other than campers and Mabel and his routine, but every time she holds eye contact with him for a beat longer than normal, that tight, hollow feeling in his chest he’s gotten used to over the last decade softens a little. He hasn’t had anyone listen this close to the stupid little stories he tells in years, hasn’t had anyone remember the offhand comment he makes about blueberry pancakes being his favorite, or that he hates beans in his chili.
When she mentions she’s got a rotting 1972 Scotty camper parked in the side yard of her house, that she bought it for $500 from a guy down the road and has no clue how to even start fixing it up, he almost says he’s booked solid for the next three months, that he doesn’t take side jobs. But then she leans in to point at a chili stain on the front of his jeans, her hand brushing his wrist for a full second when she does, and the words come out before he can stop them. “I’ll come over tomorrow morning. Bring my tools. We can start with patching the roof, at least, before it rains next week. No charge.”
Her face lights up, and she grins, taking a sip of her beer. “Deal. I’ll make pancakes. Extra blueberries, like you said you like. I’ve got real maple syrup, not that fake corn syrup garbage.”
They stay until the band packs up their gear, until the last of the chili booths close down, walking the three blocks back to their houses side by side, the streetlights glowing gold through the oak leaves, crickets chirping loud in the bushes along the sidewalk. Mabel is waiting for him on his porch when they get to their shared driveway, wagging her tail so hard her whole body wiggles. Lena pauses at her steps, squeezing his arm gently for a second before she turns to head inside, calling over her shoulder that she’ll leave her side gate unlocked for him in the morning.
Elias sits down on his porch step, scratching Mabel behind the ears while he watches Lena’s kitchen light flip on. He hasn’t felt this light, this unplanned, in longer than he can remember, the old fear of getting hurt quieter than it’s been in years. He pulls his phone out to set a 7 a.m. alarm, already mentally running through which sockets and sealant he’ll toss in his tool bag before sunrise.
