Manny Rodriquez, 53, ran his antique map restoration business out of a converted garage behind his Asheville bungalow, and had avoided every neighborhood block party for the six years he’d lived there. The only reason he showed up this time was Ron, the retired mail carrier two doors down, had dropped off a jar of fermented dill pickles the week prior, and Manny owed him a favor. He hovered by the folding table stacked with crockpots of chili and foil pans of brownies, paper plate in one hand, lukewarm Pabst in the other, wearing his faded charcoal Carhartt even though the late September air was mild enough for a t-shirt. The jacket pockets held his go-to magnifying glass and a spare exacto knife, old habits from hunching over water-damaged 19th century survey maps for 10 hour stretches, and it made him feel armored, like he could slip out unnoticed if the small talk got too thick.
The wind shifted, carrying the sharp, sweet smell of jasmine lotion and fermented apple cider, and then her arm brushed his when she reached past him for the jar of cinnamon sticks sitting by the cider urn. He glanced over. It was his next door neighbor, the one who’d moved in two months prior, the one he’d only waved at over the split rail fence when she walked her shaggy golden retriever at 7 a.m. every day. She held up the cinnamon stick, grinning, and her hazel eyes held his longer than casual politeness required. “I’m Clara,” she said, sticking her free hand out to shake. Her palm was calloused at the fingertips, the kind of rough you get from working with clay or paintbrushes, and he noticed the smudge of cobalt blue acrylic under her thumbnail when their hands touched. She taught third grade art, she told him, had just finalized her divorce back in March, moved to Asheville to be closer to her sister.
She leaned in a little to ask him about the framed 1932 Blue Ridge Parkway survey map she’d seen in his front window the week prior, and her shoulder pressed solidly against his bicep, the soft knit of her cream sweater warm through the thick fabric of his jacket. He tensed up at first, half ready to step back, mumble an excuse and bolt for his garage. It had been eight years since Elaina died, eight years since he’d let anyone who wasn’t a client or Ron stand that close, and the pull of desire tangled sharp with the familiar twist of guilt, like he was betraying a promise he didn’t remember making. He almost did leave, right then, but then she laughed at a dumb joke he made about how half the maps he restores have scribbled margin notes from drunk hikers, and the sound was warm, no edge of pity in it, no quiet “I’m sorry for your loss” that people always laid on him when they found out why he lived alone.
She told him she had a tattered 1947 Great Smoky Mountains National Park map her dad had left her when he died, that it had a bad water stain running along the southern border from when her ex-husband knocked a beer over on it last Christmas, and she’d been meaning to knock on his door to ask if he could fix it. The crowd of neighbors shifted around them, a group of teens hauling a stack of lawn chairs past, and her hand brushed his wrist when she stepped closer to avoid getting jostled. “I was gonna make peach cobbler tonight,” she said, nodding toward the blue bungalow next to his, the one with the sunflowers planted along the front walk. “Got a bottle of small batch bourbon my cousin sent me last month I haven’t opened. You could come over, take a look at the map, have a slice. No pressure.”
He froze for two full beats, every self preservation instinct in his body screaming to turn her down, to say he had a stack of client work waiting that needed to be finished by the end of the week, to go back to his quiet house where the only sounds were Johnny Cash records and the hum of his dehumidifier. But then he looked at her, at the faint smattering of freckles across her nose, the way she was twisting the hem of her sweater like she was a little nervous too, and he said yes. It came out rougher than he meant it to, like he hadn’t used the word for anything other than confirming work orders in years, which he hadn’t.
The sun dipped below the oak tree line as they walked back toward their houses, the sound of the local cover band playing old Tom Petty covers fading behind them, the crickets just starting to chirp in the grass. She stopped at her front step, handing him the half-full cup of spiced cider she’d been carrying, her fingers brushing his again when she passed it over. “Give me an hour to get the cobbler crust in the oven,” she said, unlocking her front door, the golden retriever already barking inside at the sound of her voice. He nodded, walking to his own front door, fumbling with his keys for a second when he noticed he was smiling, the tight knot of grief he’d carried in his chest for eight years feeling just a little lighter. He unlocked his door, set the cider on the kitchen counter, and pulled his leather bound map repair kit out of the hall closet, his hands steady for the first time all week.
