Rafe Mendez, 53, makes a point of hitting the Hermiston farmers market only once every four weeks, early enough that the crowds haven’t thickened to the point he has to make small talk with people who still ask about his ex-wife. He’s a vintage pickup restorer, calluses permanently crusted under his fingernails, a faint scar slashing across his left eyebrow from a 2019 mishap with a rusted bumper bracket, and his biggest flaw is he holds grudges longer than he holds onto truck parts most people would throw away. He hasn’t spoken to anyone from his ex’s side of the family in 11 years, ever since her cousin stiffed him $1,200 for a full engine rebuild he did as a favor, so when he turns from the jam stand with his usual jar of spiced peach, he almost drops it when he sees Lila Marlow.
She’s his ex’s younger half-sister, 48, just moved back to town last week to take over her mom’s used book store, the one he used to sneak into when he was 19 to buy beat-up westerns before he even met her sister. She’s wearing cutoff denim shorts and a faded Willie Nelson tee, sun streaking through the ends of her honey blonde hair, and she’s grinning like she already knew he’d be there. He tenses up first, half ready to mumble an excuse and bolt for his truck parked two blocks over, but she steps close enough that he can smell lavender perfume mixed with the sweet, buttery fumes of the peach cobbler stand three stalls behind her, no more than six inches between their shoulders.
“Still buying that spiced jam that’s so hot it makes your eyes water?” she says, nodding at the jar in his hand, and he blinks, shocked she remembers that detail from the last family cookout he went to back in 2012. He nods, his throat suddenly dry, and when she reaches past him to grab a jar of dill pickles off the table next to his elbow, her bare arm brushes the rolled-up sleeve of his flannel, warm and soft against the coarse hair on his forearm. He doesn’t step back. He can hear the tinny jingle of the ice cream truck circling the market edge, the crackle of the corn roaster behind him, a group of teens laughing as they carry giant cotton candy cones past, and for a second he’s torn between the old, sharp instinct to run, to not cause gossip, to not let himself want something everyone will call wrong, and the quieter, louder pull of the fact that no one has asked him about his ongoing 1967 F-100 restoration in over three months, let alone remembered he hates sweet pickles and loves overly spicy jam.
She buys him a root beer from the soda stand a minute later, and when she hands it to him, their fingers brush again, her nails painted a chipped dark red, and she sits down on the edge of a splintered wooden picnic table, patting the spot next to her. He sits. She tells him she got divorced six months ago, her ex-husband hated that she wanted to move back to small town Oregon, thought a book store was a waste of a college degree. He tells her about the F-100, how he just tracked down the original chrome trim he’s been searching for for two years, how his daughter just got an internship at a mechanic shop in Portland. She laughs at his dumb joke about how most people who bring him trucks to restore don’t even know the difference between a carburetor and a catalytic converter, and her laugh is the same as he remembers, loud and unapologetic, no fake politeness like most people in town use when they talk to him.
He doesn’t even realize they’ve been sitting there for 45 minutes until the jam lady starts packing up her stall. She admits she hung around the market for an extra hour after she saw his truck parked on the street, because she didn’t know if he’d even talk to her, had been scared he still hated everyone related to his ex. He admits he always thought she was the only one in that whole family who ever saw him as more than the free mechanic they could call at 2 a.m. when their car broke down. He doesn’t care about the stupid grudge anymore, doesn’t care if the old ladies at the church bake sale gossip about them next week, doesn’t care if his ex hears about it and throws a fit.
She scribbles her phone number on a crumpled receipt from the book store, shoves it into his hand, and tells him to swing by the shop later that week if he wants to bring her a jar of that jam, or show her the F-100 he won’t stop talking about. He tucks the crumpled paper into the pocket of his grease-stained work jeans, already looking forward to the sound of her laugh echoing off the cinder block walls of his shop Saturday afternoon.
