Silas Marlow, 59, made his living restoring antique maps, a job that required steady hands, endless patience, and a willingness to work 12 hour days alone in a windowless shop lit only by an LED light table and a string of fairy lights his niece had hung for him for Christmas three years prior. He’d built a rigid, predictable routine over the 12 years since his wife had left him for a kayaking guide in Bend, and he’d long since convinced himself any deviation would unravel the quiet, comfortable life he’d built. He only attended the neighborhood block party that Saturday because Mabel, his 7 year old beagle, had slipped her harness when he’d taken her out for her evening walk, and bolted straight for the table stacked with smoked brisket and potato salad at the end of the block.
The air smelled like charcoal smoke, citrus sunscreen, and the faint, sweet tang of burnt marshmallows from the fire pit set up outside the corner bodega. He grabbed a cold IPA from the volunteer manning the drink cooler, planning to corral Mabel and head home in 10 minutes tops, so he could get back to repairing the water damage on an 1872 coastal survey map of the Oregon coast a client had dropped off that morning. He was reaching down to grab Mabel’s collar when a woman bumped into his side, spilling a splash of cold rosé across the cuff of his faded gray flannel shirt.
She stepped immediately into his personal space, so close he could smell jasmine hand lotion and cut grass on her shirt, holding a crumpled paper napkin out to dab at the wet spot. “Shit, I’m so sorry,” she said, her hazel eyes locked on his, no trace of awkwardness in her smile. He froze, his throat going dry. He knew who she was: Lena, the new neighbor who’d moved into the rental two doors down three weeks prior, who he’d watched from his front porch every morning as she watered the tomato plants she’d set up on her porch rail, too much of a coward to wave. He’d spent the last three weeks telling himself he didn’t have time to make new friends, that getting to know anyone new would just take time away from his work, from his routine, from the quiet he’d worked so hard to cultivate.
She didn’t pull back when he didn’t move, her shoulder brushing his chest as she wiped at the rosé stain. “You’re the map guy, right? I saw the sign on your shop when I was walking to the grocery store last week.” She nodded at the faint smudge of iron gall ink on the wrist of his other hand, the kind he could never fully scrub off after a long day of restoration work. “I found an old map of the Columbia River Gorge in the attic of the rental, it’s all crumpled and has a big water stain down the middle. Was gonna stop by your shop sometime to ask if you could take a look at it.”
Mabel padded over to rub against her calf, and she laughed, bending down to scratch her behind the ears, her linen tank top riding up just enough at the waist to show a tiny, faded compass tattoo on her hip. Silas’s chest tightened. He worked with compasses every day, had a collection of 19th century surveyor’s compasses lined up on the shelf above his workbench. He was suddenly furious with himself for even noticing, for letting his mind wander anywhere outside the list of tasks he’d made for himself that weekend. He’d spent 12 years avoiding exactly this kind of messy, unplanned interaction, convinced it would only end in disappointment, in him having to put his life back together again.
Her hand was resting on the asphalt between them, her pinky finger brushing the back of his hand every few seconds, so light he almost thought he was imagining it. He didn’t pull away. “I saw you carrying Mabel up the stairs last week when she hurt her paw,” she said, turning to look at him, her face lit up by the string lights strung between the trees. “Thought about bringing over some of the peach cobbler I baked that night to ask if she was okay, but I was scared you’d think I was weird.”
He laughed, a quiet, rusty sound he hadn’t heard come out of his mouth in years. “I would’ve loved the cobbler. I’ve been staring at your tomato plants from my porch for three weeks, too scared to wave.”
She leaned in, her breath warm on his cheek, and kissed him slow. She tasted like rosé and the peach candy she’d been popping into her mouth while they talked, her hand coming up to rest on the side of his neck, her thumb brushing the scar on his jaw he’d gotten when he crashed his dirt bike as a teenager. He kissed her back, his hand resting on her waist, the stiff paper of the map repair instructions he’d stuffed into his pocket earlier crinkling against her side.
Mabel barked, yanking on her leash to chase a squirrel darting across the street, and they pulled apart, both grinning like idiots. He fished a scrap of the acid-free map paper he kept in his pocket for notes out of his flannel, scribbled his cell number and the address of his shop on it, and handed it to her. “Bring the Gorge map by Wednesday around 2,” he said. “I’ll take a look at it. And I’ll have extra peach cobbler. I picked some up from the farmers market this morning.”
She tucked the scrap of paper into the pocket of her jeans, squeezed his hand, and turned to walk off to say goodbye to a group of friends standing by the fire pit. Silas grabbed Mabel’s collar, tugging her gently away from the brisket table she’d snuck back to. The rosé stain on his flannel cuff was already drying, stiff and sticky, and he hadn’t thought about the 1872 coastal map in over an hour. He fished a crumpled peanut butter dog treat out of his pocket for Mabel, already counting the hours until Wednesday.
