Ray Voss, 52, makes his living patching dents, re-caulking window frames, and rewiring the finicky AC units of vintage campers for clients across the Southeast. He’s worked alone out of his cinder block shop outside Asheville for eight years, ever since his ex-wife left for a guy who sold high-end timeshares and never came home covered in aluminum shavings. His worst flaw, the one he’ll never admit out loud, is that he assumes anyone who’s nice to him unprompted wants a free repair or a place to crash for a week without paying rent. He’s gotten good at turning people down, sharp enough that most folks don’t bother asking twice.
He’s set up a temporary workbench at the fall Smoky Mountains camper rally, half to fix a dented rear panel on a friend’s 1964 Scotty Sportsman, half to get away from the constant stream of texts from a client who keeps demanding he upgrade their camper’s Wi-Fi for free. The air smells like campfire smoke and fried dough from the food truck at the front of the field, and the bluegrass band on the main stage has been running through the same Johnny Cash cover on loop for 45 minutes. He’s mid-tug on a rivet gun when a shadow falls over his work.
The woman in the spot next to his leans over the edge of the table, her faded red flannel sleeve brushing the hair on his forearm. She smells like pine and orange blossom hand cream, and there’s a smudge of dirt on her left cheekbone that matches the ones crusted under her fingernails. She runs a mobile succulent shop out of her beat-up 1972 Airstream, he’d noticed her hauling planters out earlier that morning, hauling more weight in one trip than most guys half her age could manage. She holds eye contact for two beats longer than polite when he looks up, no fake smile, just a half-amused quirk of her eyebrow. “That rivet set’s the exact one I’ve been trying to find for three months. Guy at the hardware store in Knoxville swore they didn’t make ’em anymore.”
He’s halfway to saying it’s not for sale before he catches himself. He nods at the Airstream behind her, the one with the bent metal bracket holding the rear step on, he’d clocked it when he pulled in the night before. “That bracket on your step’s gonna snap before the weekend’s over if you don’t tighten the bolts. The road up here tore up half the rigs I saw pull in.”
She snorts, leans back on her heels, and crosses her arms. He notices the tattoo of a cactus wrapped around her wrist, ink faded at the edges like it’s 10 years old at least. “I know. Been avoiding asking for help. Every guy at this rally’s already offered to fix it, then immediately asked if I’m traveling alone and if I want company for dinner.” She pauses, nods at the pile of rivets scattered across his workbench. “Figured you’d be the only one who’d charge me fair and not try to slip me his number halfway through the job.”
He’s surprised enough that he laughs, a rough, rusty sound he doesn’t use much outside of talking to his old hound dog at home. He grabs his socket set from under the table, jerks his head toward her Airstream. “C’mon. Won’t take 10 minutes. I don’t give out my number, and I charge 20 bucks and a jar of that spiced cider I saw you selling earlier.”
She grins, and he feels something tight in his chest loosen, the kind of feeling he’d convinced himself he was too old to have anymore. They crawl under the back of the Airstream together, the dirt cool against his jeans, and when they both reach for the 10mm socket at the same time, her shoulder presses firm into his chest. He can feel the heat of her through his thick work shirt, and she doesn’t move away immediately, just looks up at him, her eyes crinkling at the corners when he doesn’t pull back either. She laughs, low and raspy, like she smokes a cigarette every once in a while after a long day, and grabs the socket, passing it to him. “You’re not as much of a grouch as everyone in the vendor group chat said you were.”
He tightens the bolts, double-checks the bracket to make sure it won’t budge, and by the time they crawl back out, the sun’s dipping low over the mountains, painting the treetops pink and orange. She hands him a mason jar of cider, still warm, spiked with a little bourbon he can taste on the first sip, and they sit on the edge of her picnic bench, watching a group of kids chase each other with glow sticks across the field. The bluegrass band has switched to slower songs now, the fiddle soft enough that it carries across the grass without being loud. She leans in a little, close enough that he can smell that orange blossom cream again, and brushes a fleck of black metal dust off his cheek with her thumb. Her skin is calloused, rough from hauling planters and digging in dirt, and the contact is light, but it makes his skin prickle like he’s 17 again, fumbling with a girl’s hand in the back of his dad’s pickup.
He doesn’t pull away. He tells her about the old 1968 F100 he’s restoring in his shop, the one he’s had since he was 19, and she tells him about the time she drove her Airstream all the way to Maine last summer, got stuck in a snowstorm on the way back, and had to camp out in a rest stop for three days with only her plants and a case of beer for company. For the first time in eight years, he doesn’t feel the urge to make an excuse to leave, doesn’t feel like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, for her to ask for something more than he’s willing to give.
She stands up after a while, wipes crumbs off her jeans, and nods toward the door of her Airstream. “I got a rare miniature pitch pine I’ve been holding onto for months. Would look perfect on the dash of that F100 you’re talking about. Wanna come see?”
He stands up, sets his empty mason jar on the picnic bench, and follows her up the step of her Airstream.
