Roy Pritchard, 61, has spent the last seven years restoring vintage travel campers out of the cinder block shop behind his Asheville, North Carolina, home, and avoiding every community event within a 20 mile radius. His wife passed from ovarian cancer in 2016, and the year after that, his business partner bailed on their shared restoration company, leaving him holding $14,000 in unpaid supplier bills he spent three years paying off alone. His biggest flaw, per his 16-year-old granddaughter Lila, is that he’d rather sand fiberglass for 12 hours straight than admit he’s lonely enough to talk to someone who isn’t his golden retriever, Duke, or a half-finished 1972 Airstream named Mabel.
He only agreed to man Lila’s lemonade stand at the annual town street food festival for an hour because she’d batted her eyes and promised to bring him a smoked brisket taco as payment. The July sun hangs low and heavy, seeping through the frayed brim of his worn Stetson, and his Carhartt shirt sticks to the small of his back where sawdust has caked to the sweat. He’s wiping a smudge of lemon pulp off the edge of a plastic cup when someone leans on the folding counter in front of him, close enough that their hip brushes his where he’s standing behind the table.
He looks up, and the first thing he registers is the faint, sweet smell of coconut sunscreen mixed with the sharp, savory tang of elote slathered in cotija cheese. It’s Lena Marquez, 49, his ex-partner Jake’s ex-wife, the woman he’d spent a decade blaming for Jake running off to Costa Rica without a heads up. He’d only met her a handful of times before, back when he and Jake were still working together, and he’d written her off as flighty, impulsive, the kind of woman who’d talk a man into ditching his responsibilities for a beach and a surfboard. She’s wearing a cutoff denim shirt tied at the waist, a sunflower tattoo curling up her left forearm, and there’s a smudge of chili powder on her upper lip that makes her look younger, less like the villain he’d built up in his head.
She orders a large lemonade, extra ice, and when he hands it to her, their fingers brush. The contact is warm, quick, and he yanks his hand back like he’s touched a hot exhaust pipe. She smirks, leaning in a little further, and he can see the gold flecks in her dark brown eyes he never noticed before. “You still mad at me for Jake’s dumbass decision?” she asks, sipping the lemonade, and he blinks, caught off guard. He’d found out two years prior that Jake had a hidden gambling debt he’d been hiding from everyone, that he’d left town to outrun loan sharks, not to chase a tropical fantasy with Lena. They’d gotten divorced six months after moving, and she’d moved back to Asheville three years ago to open a native plant nursery on the edge of town.
He grunts, wiping his hands on his worn jeans. “Was mad for a long time. Found out it wasn’t your fault.” His throat feels tight, and he’s suddenly very aware that he’s got sawdust in his hair and grease under his fingernails. She laughs, a low, warm sound that cuts through the noise of the festival around them, the clink of beer cups, the roar of a cover band playing 90s country down the block. “I’ve been wanting to say hi for ages,” she says, tilting her head, “but you always hightail it out of the grocery store when you see me in the produce section.” He has the decency to look sheepish; he’d done that three times in the last six months, too stubborn to face the guilt of blaming her for something she had nothing to do with.
Lila runs up then, holding a corn dog dripping with mustard, and tells him she’s got the stand covered, that her friends are here to help. He hesitates for half a second, then nods when Lena asks if he wants to walk down the food truck row with her. They fall into step easily, their shoulders brushing every few steps, and he lets himself relax, listening to her rant about the invasive ivy that’s been eating up the oak trees on her nursery property. She stops at a tamale stand, orders him a pork tamale slathered in red sauce, and when he takes a bite, the spice makes him cough so hard his eyes water. She laughs, reaching up to wipe a smudge of sauce off the corner of his mouth with her thumb, and he doesn’t pull away.
They sit on a weathered wooden bench by the town square fountain after that, sharing an order of churros dusted in cinnamon sugar. The sun is dipping below the Blue Ridge Mountains, painting the sky pink and tangerine, and the air is starting to cool, carrying the faint smell of pine from the woods outside town. She tells him she’d had a crush on him back when she was still with Jake, that she’d always liked how quiet he was, how he’d spend three hours fixing a single cabinet hinge instead of cutting corners the way Jake always did. He admits he’d thought about her too, more times than he’d ever admit to anyone, that he’d felt guilty for it for years, like he was betraying his wife, like he was betraying the grudge he’d held for so long.
