Maceo Ruiz, 57, makes his living sanding rust off vintage travel trailers and patching their aluminum skins in his shop outside Sisters, Oregon. He’s lived alone since his wife left him for a cattle rancher in Amarillo 12 years prior, and his most consistent personality flaw is that he’d rather spend three nights rewiring a 1972 Airstream’s electrical system than make small talk with someone new. He only agreed to come to the town’s annual chili cookoff because his shop assistant threatened to hide all his specialty socket sets if he didn’t get out of the property for at least two hours.
He’s leaning against a splintered wooden post by the beer tent, sipping a cheap lager and checking his watch for the sixth time in 10 minutes, when a woman’s hip bumps his elbow hard enough to slosh beer down his flannel sleeve. He looks up ready to snap, and the words die in his throat. It’s Lila Marquez, his new next door neighbor, the widow of the town’s fire chief who passed from a heart attack 10 months prior. He’s avoided her since she moved in three months ago, even when she brought over a jar of homemade salsa as a welcome gift, because every time he sees her his chest tightens like he’s 16 again fumbling through his first date. He’s convinced half the town would side eye him for even looking at her twice, like he’s stealing something that belongs to the community’s collective memory of a beloved public servant.
She laughs, swiping a stray curl off her forehead, and he notices there’s a smudge of chili powder on her left cheek and flecks of flour on her wrist from the cornbread she’s been selling at her booth. “Sorry about that,” she says, leaning in close enough that he can smell lavender lotion mixed with the smoked paprika clinging to her shirt, the bluegrass band’s fiddle so loud their shoulders have to press together for him to hear her. “Some kid just darted between my legs with a plate of chili fries, I had to jump out of the way.”
He mumbles an apology for the beer on his sleeve, stupidly, and she grins, holding his gaze a beat longer than casual conversation calls for. “I was actually hoping I’d run into you here,” she says, and his stomach flips. She says she has a 1968 Aristocrat trailer sitting in her side yard that’s been rotting since her husband bought it right before he got sick, that she’s been asking around town for someone to restore it, and everyone told her he’s the best. He wants to say no, wants to make up an excuse about being booked six months out, but he’s staring at the way her dimples pop when she tilts her head and he can’t get the words out.
They talk for 40 minutes, leaning against that same post, and every so often someone passing by jostles them so their arms brush, or she laughs so hard she leans her weight against his bicep for half a second. He keeps glancing over at the groups of townsfolk milling around, convinced someone is going to make a comment, but no one does. When a light, cold October rain starts to fall, she asks him to walk her back to her truck parked on the edge of the field. They duck under a drooping ponderosa pine to avoid a heavier burst of rain, and she turns to him, her boots half sunk in the wet grass.
“I know you’ve been avoiding me,” she says, soft, no anger in her voice. “I know people around here think I’m still supposed to be in mourning forever. But I’m lonely. And I see you out there in your shop every morning, working alone, and I know you are too.”
He hesitates for what feels like an hour, the rain pattering on the pine needles above them, then he reaches out and wraps his calloused hand around hers, the rough edge of a scar on his palm catching on the soft skin of her wrist where the flour still flecks her skin. He doesn’t say anything, just nods, and she smiles, squeezing his hand back.
They make it to her truck a minute later, and she reaches into the passenger seat, pulling out a crumpled brown paper bag and pressing it into his free hand. “Leftover chili, extra beans, and a slice of peach pie I baked this morning,” she says, then leans in and presses a quick, warm kiss to his stubbled cheek before she climbs up into the driver’s seat.
He stands there in the rain, holding the bag, watching her taillights fade down the dirt road, and when he opens the bag a minute later, the warm smell of chili and cinnamon from the pie hits him. He licks a crumb of pie crust off his thumb, already mentally rearranging his schedule for the next week so he can stop by her place first thing tomorrow.
