Manny Ruiz, 53, makes his living restoring vintage Airstream and VW camper vans for clients across the southeast, running his one-bay shop out of a cinder block garage on the edge of Asheville, North Carolina. He’s avoided all neighborhood social events since he moved there three years prior, still raw from the divorce that left him living alone in a half-renovated 1972 Airstream behind the shop, his only consistent company a three-legged tabby cat named Rusty and the classic rock radio he blares while he sands fiberglass. His only full-time employee, a 22-year-old kid named Javi, practically begged him to come to the summer food truck rally that Tuesday, swearing the Texas brisket truck was making its only stop of the season, so Manny caved, showing up in scuffed work boots caked in undercarriage grease, a faded Waylon Jennings flannel, and a ball cap pulled low over his salt-and-pepper curls, already irritated by the crowd of screaming kids and overfriendly retirees.
He spots Lena two spots ahead of him in the brisket line and almost turns to leave immediately. She’s the 47-year-old who took over the downtown laundromat six months prior, the same woman who’d banged on his shop door at 7 a.m. three weeks prior, yelling at him for leaving his trash cans out 48 hours after pickup, saying raccoons had torn through the bags and scattered rotting food all over the sidewalk leading to her shop. He’d snapped back that the county trash truck was always 12 hours late, so he left them out extra to make sure they got emptied, and she’d rolled her eyes and called him a lazy, inconsiderate ass before storming off. He’d spent the next three weeks intentionally leaving the cans out an extra half day just to annoy her, half embarrassed that he’d gotten under her skin, half weirdly fixated on the way her cheeks flushed when she was angry.
The sky opens up without warning, fat cold raindrops slamming into the hot asphalt, sending up a cloud of steam that smells like burnt rubber and brisket smoke. Everyone in line scrambles for cover under the tiny food truck awning, and Lena steps back so fast she slams right into his chest, her shoulder pressing into the hard muscle of his sternum. She turns to apologize, recognizes him, and smirks, the corner of her mouth tugging up in a way that makes his neck feel hot. “Fancy seeing you here, trash can bandit,” she says, shifting closer to him as the rain picks up, her denim jacket brushing his forearm every time she adjusts her weight. He huffs, but moves over to give her more space, his elbow bumping hers when he tilts his hat to keep rain from dripping onto her shoulder. He notices she’s wearing scuffed tooled leather work boots, the same kind he’d bought his ex-wife for their 10th anniversary, and there’s a dark grease stain on the knuckle of her left hand, like she’d been working on a machine earlier that day. She mentions her bank of commercial dryers broke two days prior, and she’s been driving all over the county looking for a replacement motor, and he freezes, because he has the exact motor she needs sitting on a shelf in his shop, left over from a camper conversion he’d finished the month before. He almost offers it to her, then stops himself, remembering she’d called him an inconsiderate ass, angry at himself for even wanting to help her. He can smell her shampoo, coconut mixed with pine, under the scent of rain and smoked meat, and it makes his chest feel tight, a flutter he hasn’t felt in eight years, since his wife told him she was leaving for a guy who sold real estate in Miami.
The food truck worker calls their order numbers at the exact same time, and they both reach for their paper bags at the same second, his calloused, fiberglass-streaked hand brushing hers. Neither of them pulls away for a full beat, and she laughs, a low, rough sound that makes his ears burn. “I was only mad about the trash cans,” she says, her thumb brushing the back of his hand before she grabs her bag, “the raccoons kept dragging chicken bones into the laundromat. Customers were tripping over them. I didn’t know the trash truck was always late.” He shrugs, picking up his own bag, the paper crinkling under his fingers. “I have that dryer motor you need in my shop,” he says, before he can talk himself out of it. “No charge. I’ll bring it over tomorrow. And I’ll start pulling the cans in earlier.”
She grins, leaning in a little so close he can feel her breath on his jaw, the rain dripping off the end of her hair onto his flannel sleeve. “I’ll buy you a cold beer while you install it,” she says, tucking a strand of wet hair behind her ear. “Fair trade for the trash can hassle?” He nods, and they walk to the parking lot together, the rain slowing to a soft drizzle, her shoulder pressed to his the whole way, sharing an order of fried okra he’d grabbed on a whim from the next truck over, the tang of pickled seasoning bursting on his tongue. He drops her off at her beat-up Subaru, and she taps his arm before she climbs in, her fingers warm through the flannel. “7 tomorrow,” she says. “Don’t be late, trash bandit.”
He drives back to the shop, the brisket bag still untouched on the passenger seat, and heads straight for the back shelf to dig out the dryer motor, a small, unsteady smile tugging at the corner of his mouth that he can’t wipe off no matter how hard he tries. Rusty rubs against his ankle when he bends down to grab the part, and he pats her head, already mentally rearranging his schedule for the next day to leave time to stop at the laundromat.
