Javi Ruiz, 53, has restored vintage outboard motors out of his cinder block shop off Mobile Bay for 22 years. His biggest flaw? He’s hidden from every community gathering within 20 miles since his wife Linda died of breast cancer four years prior, convinced any enjoyment he might feel is a betrayal of the 27 years they had together. His niece practically shoves him through the gate of the annual coastal seafood cookoff on a humid October Saturday, says if he spends one more Saturday polishing 1960s Evinrudes alone he’s going to turn into a barnacle himself.
He loiters by the gumbo tent 10 minutes later, holding a sweating plastic cup of Abita Amber, already mentally running through the list of motors he could be working on, when he turns too fast and knocks a stacked bowl of boiled snow crab legs off the edge of the folding table. A woman’s hand shoots out, catches the bowl mid-tip before more than one claw clatters to the ground, and when they both reach for that stray claw their knuckles brush. He looks up, recognizes Maeve O’Connell, 48, the new county marine extension agent, and Linda’s old college roommate. He’d forgotten she moved back to the area six months prior, after her ex-husband left her for a yoga instructor in Boulder.
Her hands are calloused from hauling net samples and adjusting oyster farm lines, her cuticles stained faint black from engine grease, and she smells like citrus hand soap and brine. She laughs, loud and warm, no trace of annoyance, and says he’s still as clumsy as he was when he fixed her broken outboard mid-storm on her first anniversary trip 20 years back, when her ex was too drunk to get off the boat’s cabin floor. The memory hits him sharp, how he’d thought back then she was too bright, too quick to laugh at bad jokes, too willing to get her hands dirty, to be stuck with a guy who’d rather get wasted than watch the sunset over the bay with her.
He’s flustered, suddenly too aware of the way his flannel sticks to his back under the October sun, the fact he hasn’t had a conversation with a woman who wasn’t his niece or the checkout lady at the grocery store that lasted longer than 30 seconds in four years. A part of him twists with guilt, sharp and ugly, like he’s doing something wrong just standing there talking to her, just noticing the silver streaks running through her auburn braid, the way her freckles spread across her nose when she grins. He almost makes an excuse to leave, but she nods at the empty picnic bench tucked behind the tent, away from the noise of the zydeco band and the kids chasing each other with crab claws, and he sits before he can talk himself out of it.
They lean in toward each other when they talk, to hear each other over the crowd, and her knee brushes his under the table 10 minutes in, warm through the faded denim of her overalls and his work jeans. He doesn’t move away. She tells him about the new oyster restoration project she’s running in the bay, complains about the county council cutting her budget for the third quarter, and he finds himself telling her about the 1957 Johnson he just finished restoring for a kid whose grandpa left it to him, how the kid cried when he fired it up for the first time. He hasn’t told anyone that story, not even his niece.
The sun dips low, painting the sky pink and orange over the water, when she admits she’s been driving past his shop twice a week for three months, too nervous to stop, because she heard he kept to himself, and she didn’t want to overstep. She has a 1972 Evinrude sitting in her garage, she says, the same one he fixed all those years ago, that hasn’t run right since she moved back. He tells her he’d look at it for free, if she brings a six pack of Abita and a container of the gumbo she made that’s sitting on the table behind her, the one he’d been eyeing all afternoon.
She grins, leans in even closer, so he can smell spearmint gum and boiled shrimp on her breath, and her hand rests on his forearm for half a second, warm and firm, before she pulls back. She says she can bring pecan pie too, if he’s not in a rush to get her out of the shop once the motor’s fixed. He doesn’t say anything for a second, just looks at her, at the way her gold hoop earrings catch the last of the sun, and for the first time in four years, the guilt in his chest doesn’t feel like the only thing there.
He gets to his feet, holds out a hand to help her up, and when she takes it, her palm fits against his like it’s supposed to. He drives her to her place to pick up the motor that night, instead of heading home to his empty house.
