Rafe Mendez, 59, makes his living stripping rust off 1970s Hondas and rebuilding carburetors out of a cinder block garage outside Bend, Oregon. He’s gone six years without so much as a coffee date, since his wife Lou died of breast cancer, and he’s made a point of writing off any romantic attention as “trouble he doesn’t need” — a flaw he’s defended to every friend who’s tried to set him up, even when they point out he spends most Friday nights eating frozen burritos alone and watching old Westerns. His 27-year-old apprentice Jesse has been nagging him for months to “get out of the shop and live a little,” so when Jesse begged him to help judge the vintage tractor show at the Deschutes County Fair, he caved, if only to get the kid off his back.
He’s leaning against a fried dough stand, wiping powdered sugar off his worn flannel sleeve, when Carla walks up. She’s Jesse’s stepmom, 56, the woman who’d dropped Jesse off at the shop every day for his first three months on the job, when he didn’t have a license. She’s holding a lemon shake-up, condensation dripping down her wrist to her elbow, and she’s wearing cutoffs that show the faint scar on her left knee from a motorcycle crash when she was 22, and a faded Johnny Cash tee that’s frayed at the collar. She laughs when she spots him, stepping close enough that he can smell coconut sunscreen and the faint hoppy tang of the craft beer she’s been sipping, and she reaches to brush a stray piece of hay off his shoulder, her fingertips grazing the skin of his forearm through the flannel’s open cuff. He flinches before he can stop himself, unused to any touch that’s not a handshake from a customer or a pat on the back from a VFW buddy.
Jesse’s tied up talking to a group of 4-H kids who brought their granddad’s 1952 John Deere to the show, so Carla holds up two crumpled demolition derby tickets and asks if he wants to ditch the tractor judging before the guy with the handlebar mustache starts ranting about carburetor modifications again. He hesitates for half a second, his brain screaming that this is a line he shouldn’t cross, that Jesse would see it as a betrayal, that fooling around with his apprentice’s family is the kind of stupid move that gets you labeled a creep. But she’s grinning, her brown eyes crinkled at the corners, and he finds himself nodding before he can talk himself out of it.
They climb the metal bleachers to the back of the grandstand, and she sits so close their thighs press together through the thin fabric of their jeans, the heat of her leg seeping through to his skin even through the denim. When the first car slams into the side of a beat-up minivan, she leans in to yell over the roar of the engines, her mouth half an inch from his ear, her warm breath sending a shiver down his spine that has nothing to do with the cool August wind. He keeps telling himself he should move away, that he’s being an idiot, that the guilt eating at the edge of his chest is well earned, but every time she laughs so hard she snorts a little at a car spinning out into the dirt barrier, the guilt fades just a little. She passes him a bag of salted peanuts halfway through the derby, and her knuckles brush his when he reaches in, the contact so small it should mean nothing, but it makes his palms sweat like he’s 16 again on his first date.
After the last car is towed off the track, they wander over to the beer tent, grabbing a picnic table tucked in the far corner, out of the line of sight of most of the fair regulars who know him. She leans across the table, her elbows on the splintered wood, and admits she’s had a crush on him since that first day she dropped Jesse off, when she saw him covered in transmission fluid, singing Merle Haggard under his breath while he tightened a bolt on a 1972 CB750. She says she and Jesse’s dad have been separated for eight months, no one knows yet, not even Jesse, that she’s been waiting for the right time to tell him, and she didn’t plan on saying anything to Rafe today, but she couldn’t pass up the chance. He leans across the table before he can overthink it, his hand cupping her jaw, and he kisses her, soft and quick, tasting lemon and beer on her lips.
He hears a wolf whistle from across the grass right after he pulls back, and he freezes, expecting to see Jesse glaring, ready to quit on the spot. But Jesse’s grinning, holding up a cotton candy cone, and he yells over the crowd, “Took you two losers long enough! I’ve been trying to set you up since Christmas!” Rafe snorts, and Carla laughs so hard she snorts, and she laces her fingers through his on top of the table, no hesitation.
They stay at the fair for another two hours, riding the Ferris wheel when the line dies down, and she holds his hand the entire ride, her thumb brushing the scar on his knuckle from a time he dropped an engine block on his hand three years back. When they get to the top, the whole valley spread out below them lit up with fair lights, she kisses him again, slow, no one around to see. He drives her back to her small bungalow on the west side of town later, walks her to her front porch, and when she asks him to come in, he doesn’t hesitate. He sets his scuffed work boots next to her pink rubber rain boots by the front door, and for the first time in six years, he doesn’t feel guilty for looking forward to the morning.
