Rafe Mendoza is 53, makes his living restoring vintage typewriters out of the cinder block garage behind his bungalow in west Asheville, and hasn’t attended a neighborhood block party in 11 years. The last one he went to, three months after his ex-wife moved out, he’d gotten drunk enough to rant to a group of retirees about how she’d taken the good coffee maker and half his collection of 1960s Underwood parts, and he’s avoided the events ever since out of equal parts embarrassment and stubbornness. The only reason he’s here now is his daughter, who called him that morning and threatened to sign him up for a senior singles bowling league if he didn’t leave the house for something that didn’t involve a screwdriver and a can of machine oil.
He’s leaning against the dented metal beer cooler, half-hidden by a stack of folding chairs, nursing a Pabst that’s already getting warm in the late August humidity, the label peeling off from condensation and sticking to the pad of his thumb, when she steps up next to him. He doesn’t recognize her at first, not until she reaches past him for a black cherry seltzer, her bare arm brushing the sleeve of his flannel shirt, and the scent of lavender dog shampoo and bonfire smoke hits him. She’s Lila, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, the one he’d only met once, at his wedding 24 years prior, when she’d been a scrawny college kid carrying a feral kitten in her jacket pocket. She’s 49 now, he remembers, works at the local animal shelter, moved into the blue bungalow three houses down from him three months prior, and he’s gone out of his way to avoid her every time he’s seen her in the yard, stupid old rule about not talking to anyone connected to his ex still lodged firm in the back of his head.
He tenses up like he’s been caught stealing, already planning to mumble a greeting and bolt for the exit, but she turns to him with a half-grin, holding up the seltzer, and says she’s been meaning to knock on his door for weeks. She found a beat-up 1954 Royal Quiet De Luxe at a thrift store last month, she says, got it cleaned up but can’t get the carriage to stop sticking, and a neighbor told her he’s the guy who fixes every typewriter within a 20 mile radius. The annoyance he’d been carrying since he walked through the party gates melts a little, against his will, and he finds himself asking her what she’s already tried to fix it.
They move to a splintered pine picnic bench a few feet away, out of the path of a group of teens hauling a keg of hard seltzer to the back yard, and their knees bump when they sit down. The denim of her cutoffs is rough under his khaki pants, and he can feel the heat of her leg through the fabric for a full two seconds before she shifts, like she didn’t even notice. The bonfire crackles 20 feet away, the sound of kids screaming on the slip and slide down the block mixes with a 90s country song playing from a portable speaker, and she leans in close when he explains how to adjust the carriage rails, her shoulder pressed to his so she can hear him over the noise. He can see flecks of silver in her dark, curly hair, a thin scar curling around her left wrist from a pit bull she’d rescued back in March, and when she laughs at his dumb joke about how typewriters never ghost you the way people do, her laugh is rough and warm, like she smokes a cigarette every now and then when no one’s looking.
Part of him is screaming that this is wrong, that he’s breaking some unspoken boundary he set for himself after the divorce, that if anyone from his ex’s family sees them sitting this close they’ll talk, that he’s an idiot for even entertaining the idea of talking to her for more than five minutes. But the other part of him, the part that’s been eating frozen dinners alone on the couch every night for three years, the part that hasn’t had anyone ask him about his work for fun in longer than he can remember, is leaning in too, asking her about the 12 foster cats she’s got in her house right now, telling her about the 1920s Remington he’s restoring for a college student who writes poetry.
She checks her phone when the sun dips below the oak trees lining the street, the golden hour light turning her tiny silver star earrings pink, and asks him if he wants to come back to her place to look at the Royal. She shrugs, like it’s no big deal, like she doesn’t notice the way his breath catches for half a second, and says she’s got cold IPA in the fridge if he doesn’t want to drink the sad warm stuff they’ve got at the party. He hesitates for one long, stupid second, thinking about the half-finished typewriter on his work bench, the grudge he’s carried for 11 years, the way his ex would probably cackle and tease him for weeks if she found out he was hanging out with her cousin. Then he stands up, crumples his empty beer can in his hand, tosses it in the nearby trash can, and says yeah, that sounds good.
They walk down the sidewalk side by side, their hands brushing twice as they pass the house with the overgrown rose bushes, no one paying them any attention because everyone’s too wrapped up in the cornhole tournament and the s’mores line. Her porch light is on when they get there, a tabby cat with a single white paw pressed to the screen door meowing loud enough to hear through the glass. She unlocks the door, turns to him with that same lazy half-grin, and tugs his wrist gently to pull him across the threshold.
