Rafe Delgado, 52, has been a self-imposed recluse since his wife left him for a travel blogger seven years prior. He runs his antique typewriter restoration business out of a cinder block garage on the edge of Silverton, Oregon, only interacting with customers via email unless they absolutely have to drop off a machine. He’s got a habit of lying to his elderly next door neighbor about having plans to get out of community events, until she cornered him last week and threatened to stop bringing him homemade peach pie if he didn’t man the historical society booth for one hour at the annual summer street fair.
The booth next to his is Maren Hale’s tamale stand. He knows who she is, everyone in town does. She left the county sheriff, the guy who just won re-election by a 70 point margin, 10 months prior, and the whole town’s been whispering about her ever since, calling her selfish, saying she left him for a younger ranch hand, none of it true, but Rafe’s always avoided her because he hates drama, hates getting caught up in small town gossip cycles.
The booths are crammed shoulder to shoulder, per the fair’s janky layout, so every time he reaches for a photo album to show a tourist, his elbow brushes hers. She wears cutoff denim shorts and a faded 1998 Garth Brooks tour shirt, her dark hair pulled back in a braid streaked with a single strand of silver, a thin scar snaking across her left wrist from a barrel racing accident when she was 17. She keeps glancing over at him, snickering when he fumbles a stack of flyers for the historical society’s upcoming typewriter exhibit, because he’s so clearly out of place, his flannel sleeves rolled up to show forearms dusted with machine oil, his work boots still caked in mud from the garage.
A gust of wind picks up mid-afternoon, blows half his stack of flyers right into her booth, landing in a bowl of shredded pork she’s using to fill tamales. He leans over to grab them, his shoulder pressing firm against her chest for half a second, the smell of lime and smoked pork and coconut shampoo hitting him so hard he stumbles a little. She laughs, a low, rough sound, and hands him the flyers, wiping a smudge of pork grease off his cheek with the pad of her thumb before he can pull away.
He’s furious with himself for the way his face heats up, for the way his heart jumps. He’s spent seven years telling himself he doesn’t have time for this, that any relationship in a town this small comes with too much baggage, too many prying eyes. But she nods at the vintage Underwood pin stuck to his flannel pocket, asks if he fixes typewriters, says she’s got her mom’s old Royal sitting in her guest room, hasn’t worked since the 90s, she uses it to scribble down her tamale recipes when she can get the keys to move.
They talk for 20 minutes after that, while the line at her booth dies down, while the bluegrass band down the street plays a scratchy cover of *Folsom Prison Blues*. He tells her about the custom work he does for novelists and poets all over the country, about the 1920s Remington he just finished restoring for a guy in Brooklyn who writes hardboiled detective fiction. She tells him the gossip about her leaving the sheriff for a ranch hand is garbage, she left because he spent every night working, never remembered their anniversary, yelled at her for spending too much time on her tamale business instead of hosting campaign fundraisers.
When his shift at the historical society booth ends, he hangs around, buys three pork tamales, even though he told himself he’d go straight home and eat the leftover lasagna in his fridge. She slips an extra cheese tamale into the paper bag, writes her phone number on a napkin with a sparkly purple gel pen, says she’s off at 8, if he wants to bring his tools to her place after, she’ll make him homemade horchata with extra cinnamon.
He hesitates for ten full seconds, thinking about the town gossip, thinking about how everyone will stare if they see him leaving her place, thinking about the seven years he’s spent alone, eating frozen dinners while he works on typewriters late into the night. Then he tucks the napkin into his flannel pocket, nods, says he’ll be there.
He shows up at 8:15, his tool bag slung over his shoulder, a six pack of pale ale in his other hand. She’s sitting on her porch swing, waiting for him, barefoot, wearing a soft cotton sundress that hits her knees. They spend an hour at the kitchen table, him taking apart the Royal, her leaning over his shoulder, her hand resting light on the back of his neck while he explains what’s wrong with the carriage. The window over the sink is open, crickets chirping in the oak tree outside, the smell of cinnamon and vanilla lingering in the air from the horchata she left on the counter. He taps a key on the typewriter, it clicks loud and clear, no sticking, and she leans in to press a slow, warm kiss to his jaw.
