Javi Mendez, 52, had spent the last 45 minutes leaning against the leg of his pop-up table, staring at the scuff on his steel-toe work boot and pretending he couldn’t hear the crowd milling around the West Asheville summer block party. His landlord had strong-armed him into setting up a display of restored vintage typewriters, calling it “good for community morale” — a phrase Javi associated exclusively with people who owned matching patio furniture and asked about your colonoscopy at neighborhood cookouts. He’d been single for eight years, ever since his ex-wife moved to Portland to start a small-batch kombucha brewery, and he’d long since written off casual interactions as more trouble than they were worth. His biggest flaw, the one even his older sister nagged him about every holiday, was that he refused to let anyone touch his tools or finished restorations; last time a curious teen had grabbed a 1940s Smith Corona off his shop counter without asking, Javi had banned all minors from his store for six full months.
She walked up to his table at 7:12 PM, he noted, because the clock on the wall of the carnitas taco truck behind him glowed neon pink against the fading golden dusk. She was the new owner of the succulent shop two doors down from his store, the one he’d pointedly avoided waving at for three months straight, even when she held up a potted cactus with a googly eye stuck to it through her front window. Her denim overalls were spattered with terracotta paint and a splotch of what looked like aloe vera gel, her blonde hair pulled back in a messy braid streaked with silver at the temples, and she was holding a can of mango hard seltzer in one hand. She didn’t say hi first, just leaned in close enough that he could smell lavender hand soap and the sharp citrus tang of her seltzer, and tapped the glass case holding the 1956 Royal Quiet De Luxe he’d spent three months restoring for a private collector in Boston. “How much for that one?” she said, nodding at it, her eyes bright even in the dimming light.
Javi grunted, told her it was already sold, and went back to staring at his boot. Most people would have taken the blunt hint and left, but she didn’t. She leaned further over the table, so close the wispy end of her braid brushed the edge of the typewriter case, and said she’d seen him through the window of his shop a dozen times, hunched over his workbench with a tiny flathead screwdriver between his teeth, so focused he didn’t notice when the delivery guy dropped off parts on his front porch. He was mid-eye roll when she reached across the table to point at a tiny dent on the Royal’s brushed steel side, and her hand brushed his. It was a small thing, just the side of her index finger brushing his ink-stained knuckle, but he flinched like he’d been burned. Her nails were chipped, caked with a little bit of succulent sap at the edges, and her skin was warm from hours spent out in the sun. He felt a sharp, unfamiliar twist in his chest, half embarrassment at how he’d flinched, half something hotter he’d spent years shoving down into the back of his mind.
He surprised himself by lifting the case lid and pulling the Royal out, setting it gently on the plastic tablecloth between them. “You can test it if you want,” he said, ignoring the little voice in his head screaming that no one touched his finished restorations, not even clients who paid him a 50% deposit up front. She lit up, leaning in so close when she sat down on the folding chair next to him that their thighs pressed together through their worn denim jeans. The fabric was thin from years of use, and he could feel the heat of her leg all the way up to his hip. He didn’t move away. When she fumbled a little with the paper return lever, he reached over to guide her hand, his calloused, grease-stained fingers wrapping around hers for half a second before he pulled back, his throat tight. She typed a few random keys, the sharp click-clack of the typewriter cutting through the low hum of the food truck generators and the sound of a small kid screaming while chasing a golden retriever down the street, then hit the return lever and slid the sheet of notebook paper out to show him. Scrawled in deep blue ink, it read: Grumpy typewriter guy owes me a carnitas taco for making me wait three months to talk to him.
Javi laughed, a loud, rough sound he hadn’t heard come out of his own mouth in at least a year. He admitted he’d been avoiding her, avoiding everyone, really, because he’d convinced himself he was bad at casual conversation, bad at being around anyone who wasn’t a 70-year-old typewriter collector asking after replacement silk ribbon. She smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling, and said she’d known, that’s why she’d kept waving, kept leaving little potted succulents on his shop porch when he was closed. She’d gone through a messy split two years prior, she said, knew what it felt like to want to hide from the world under a pile of work. He didn’t say anything for a minute, just stared at the piece of paper in his hand, then folded it up and stuck it in the breast pocket of his worn canvas work shirt. The collector in Boston could go to hell, he decided. He’d make another Royal for him, this one without the tiny dent that had caught her eye.
He grabbed his half-empty IPA off the table, stood up, and nodded toward the taco truck, his hand brushing the small of her back when she stood up next to him. The line was 10 people deep, and the taco truck owner was yelling about running out of carnitas in 15 minutes, but Javi didn’t care. For the first time in eight years, he wasn’t in a hurry to go home to his empty shop and his quiet workbench. He leaned down a little so she could hear him over the noise of the crowd, and told her he had a half-restored 1960s Hermes 3000 in the back of his shop she could test out after the tacos, if she wanted. She slipped her hand into his, her fingers lacing through his ink-stained ones, and squeezed tight as they walked toward the taco truck line.
