Ray Mendez, 59, made his living restoring antique typewriters out of the sun-faded garage behind his Oregon coast bungalow, a job he’d fallen into after taking early retirement from the local school district’s IT department when his wife Elena passed eight years prior. His biggest flaw, as his older sister never tired of teasing him, was that he’d locked himself in a self-imposed state of suspended grief, turning down every set-up, every casual offer of coffee from the single women at his woodworking group, convinced any new connection would be a betrayal of the 32 years he’d had with Elena. He’d gone to the same Saturday farmers market every week for seven of those eight years, sticking to a rigid routine: grab a black coffee from the food truck first, pick up a jar of seedless blackberry jam (Elena’s favorite, the kind he slathered on toast every morning still) from the Amish stand, then head home before the crowds got too thick. He’d noticed the sourdough baker, Clara, for three months straight, but had never dared step foot near her booth, even when he passed by and the smell of warm rosemary loaves wrapped around him like a hug.
The conflict snuck up on him mid-week, when a 17-year-old kid who’d brought in a beat-up 1952 Royal typewriter for restoration asked if he could drop it off at the market for her, since she was working double shifts at the diner and couldn’t make it to his house. Turns out Clara was her aunt. Ray tried to weasel out of it, made up a lie about having a doctor’s appointment, but the kid’s face fell so far he caved before she could finish thanking him. He showed up to the market that Saturday with the typewriter in its scuffed leather case, his palms sweating under his worn work gloves, the usual coffee tasting bitter on his tongue. The booth was swamped when he got there, a group of tourists jostling for loaves of garlic sourdough, so he stood off to the side waiting, shifting his weight from one boot to the other, until a kid running with a dripping cherry popsicle darted right at his legs. He stepped sideways to avoid him, and his elbow brushed Clara’s hip where she was leaning over the table slicing a sample loaf.
She froze for half a second, then looked up, wiping a streak of flour off her cheek with the back of her hand, and her hazel eyes, flecked with the same gold as the wheat she sourced from a farm 20 miles inland, locked on his. He could smell rosemary and yeast and a hint of lavender from the hand cream she wore, and his throat went tight, old guilt coiling in his gut, telling him he had no right to notice how soft her smile was, no right to feel the heat that lingered on his elbow where it had touched her. “You’re Ray, right?” she said, wiping her hands on her flour-dusted apron, stepping closer to him so a group of tourists could pass between the booth and the walkway, her shoulder brushing his bicep. “Lila told me you’d bring the typewriter. I’ve been bugging her to get that thing fixed for years, I learned to type on it when I was her age.”
He nodded, fumbling to set the typewriter case on the edge of the table, his knuckles brushing the rough burlap tablecloth dotted with crumbs. The hum of the market faded for a second, the sound of the bluegrass busker down the row turning to background noise, as he realized she knew his name. He’d never spoken to her before, not once. “I see you every week, you always get the blackberry jam,” she said, like she could read his mind, leaning in a little so he could hear her over a group of kids yelling about cotton candy. Her breath was warm against his ear. “I lost my husband six years ago. I still buy his favorite pickles every week, even if I hate dill.”
The tight coil of guilt in his chest loosened, just a little, the disgust he’d been feeling at himself for even being near her melting into something softer, something he hadn’t felt in so long he didn’t have a name for it at first. Curiosity, maybe, or relief that he wasn’t the only one carrying around old ghosts that didn’t demand he stop living. She reached under the table and pulled out a loaf of sourdough wrapped in brown paper, the edges still warm enough to seep through the paper to his palm when she handed it to him, their fingers brushing for three full seconds, neither of them pulling away. “Put extra blackberry jam swirl in it,” she said, nodding at the jar of jam peeking out of his canvas tote bag. “Figured you’d like it.”
He didn’t even think before he asked her if she wanted to get iced coffee at the little shop down the street once the market closed, his voice coming out gruffer than he meant it to, and she laughed, a low, warm sound that made the tips of his ears go pink. She nodded, wiping flour off her jaw again, and said she’d meet him there in an hour, once she packed up the booth. He walked to the coffee shop slowly, the warm loaf heavy in his bag, the ghost of her fingers on his still lingering, and for the first time in eight years, he didn’t feel guilty for smiling at a stranger.
They sat at a weathered picnic table outside the coffee shop an hour later, the sun dipping low over the ocean, painting the sky pink and orange, as she broke off a chunk of the sourdough and handed it to him. Crumbs fell on the front of her plaid flannel shirt, and he reached over without thinking, brushing them off with his thumb, his knuckles brushing the soft cotton of her shirt. She leaned into the touch just a little, her smile crinkling the corners of her eyes, and took a bite of the bread, crumbs sticking to her lower lip. He picked a crumb off her lower lip with the tip of his thumb, the salt from his work gloves mixing with the sweet taste of blackberry jam when he wiped it on his own tongue.
