Elias Voss is 58, makes his living restoring antique typewriters out of the converted garage of his western Pennsylvania bungalow, and has not voluntarily attended a community event since his wife’s funeral six years prior. His only real flaw is a stubborn refusal to acknowledge he’s lonely; he’d rather spend three nights straight troubleshooting a 1920s Underwood than answer a text from a family member asking him to meet for coffee. His 19-year-old niece had all but dragged him to the annual Maplewood Street Fair that Saturday, guilt-tripping him into bringing half a dozen jars of the wildflower honey he keeps hives for in his backyard, to sell at her craft booth.
He’d bailed on the booth after 20 minutes, sick of fielding questions from strangers about whether his honey was “raw enough for their wellness cleanse,” and had planted himself by the volunteer fire department’s lemonade stand, sweat sticking his faded flannel shirt to his shoulders, the distant twang of a local bluegrass band mixing with the smell of fried Oreos and fresh cut clover. He was halfway through debating if he could sneak home without his niece noticing when he heard his name called, low and warm, over the noise.
He looked up, and his throat went dry. Mara Carter was leaning against the edge of a pop-up book booth 10 feet away, one boot propped on the lower support beam, sun-bleached blonde hair falling over one shoulder, a smudge of black ink on the curve of her left wrist. She was his younger brother’s ex-wife, he hadn’t seen her since their messy divorce 12 years prior, had only realized she’d moved to town three weeks prior when he’d waved at a stranger unloading moving boxes from a U-Haul two houses down, and had immediately recognized the scar above her left eyebrow from the time his brother had accidentally hit her with a baseball at a 2008 family cookout.
He’d spent most of her marriage to his brother feeling a dumb, guilty flick of attraction he’d beaten down every time it popped up; she was 9 years younger than him, sharp as a tack, had once quoted a Bukowski poem at a Christmas dinner that had made him snort beer out his nose, and he’d always felt like she was looking right past his gruff exterior to the part of him that still collected vintage comic books and cried at old John Wayne movies. He’d avoided her for years out of shame, convinced wanting anything to do with his brother’s ex was some kind of unforgivable betrayal.
She waved him over, and his feet moved before his brain could talk him out of it. The space between the booths was narrow, and when he stepped up next to her, their shoulders brushed, the soft cotton of her faded Tom Petty tee warm against his bare arm. She handed him a cold glass of lemonade she’d already poured for him, and their fingers brushed when he took it, a jolt running up his arm that made him fumble the glass for half a second before he got a grip.
They talked for 45 minutes, standing close enough that he could smell the coconut sunscreen she was wearing, could hear the edge of humor in her voice when she teased him about still wearing the same steel-toed work boots he’d worn to her wedding. She told him she ran a traveling pop-up bookstore that focused on out-of-print poetry and Western novels, had moved to town for the summer to test out opening a permanent location, had seen him tending to his beehives through the fence a few times and had been meaning to stop by and say hi. He told her about his typewriter restoration business, about the 1936 Royal he’d just finished fixing for a high school English teacher, and she laughed when he complained about people who brought in typewriters they’d left out in the rain and expected him to fix them for 20 bucks.
He kept waiting for the guilt to kick in, for that voice in his head to tell him he was doing something wrong, but it never came. All he could focus on was the way she leaned in when he talked, like she actually cared what he had to say, the way her eyes crinkled at the corners when she laughed, the way she’d tap his forearm when she made a joke, her fingers light against his skin.
When a group of kids ran between them chasing a stray cat, she stepped even closer to him to get out of the way, her chest brushing his arm for half a second, and she held his eye contact for three full beats, no smile, just a quiet, clear question in her gaze. She said she still had the 1950s Royal typewriter she’d asked him to fix for her back in 2010, the one he’d never gotten around to because he’d been too nervous to be alone in a room with her, and asked if he’d come over after dinner that night to take a look at it. She scribbled her phone number on the back of a dog-eared copy of a Raymond Carver collection, handed it to him, her thumb brushing his knuckles when he took it.
He said yes before he could overthink it.
He left the fair 20 minutes later, after his niece cornered him to gush about how well the honey had sold, the Carver book tucked under his arm, a jar of his best wildflower honey he’d set aside for Mara tucked in his jacket pocket. He walked down his street slow, the sun starting to dip below the oak trees, and when he passed her rental house, he saw her standing in the kitchen window washing dishes. She looked up, saw him, and waved. He lifted the jar of honey through the window, grinning, and she laughed, pressing her palm to the glass for half a second before she turned back to the sink.
He shifts the honey jar to his other hand, already mentally mapping the toolbox he’ll bring over after dinner, the small flathead screwdriver he keeps specifically for stuck Royal carriages tucked in the top slot.
