Rico Mendez is 59, has a scar snaking up his left calf from a 2018 lift fall that ended his 28-year career restoring antique firetrucks for museums, and a stubborn streak wide enough to fit the 1947 pumper he’s been tinkering with in his garage outside Lockhart, Texas, for the last 18 months. His wife of 27 years passed from ovarian cancer in 2017, and since then, the only social event he drags himself to is the monthly volunteer fire department potluck, mostly because the chief slips him free brisket and doesn’t bug him about dating again like his sister does every Sunday call.
He’s leaning against the splintered oak picnic table by the grill in mid-April, nursing a lukewarm Shiner Bock and rubbing his aching left knee through his grease-stained Carhartts, when she walks over. He’s seen her around town the last three weeks: Clara Bennett, 47, the mayor’s former daughter-in-law, moved back after ditching her corporate lawyer husband in Dallas, renting the old Craftsman on Main Street that her grandma left her. The town gossips have been buzzing nonstop about her, saying she left her husband for a paralegal, saying she’s too entitled to survive small-town life, but Rico doesn’t pay that noise any mind.
She stops closer than most people do, six inches away instead of the usual three feet everyone else gives him when he’s in his grumpy potluck mood, holding a chipped ceramic plate stacked with peach cobbler. Her boots are caked in mud from fixing up the old house, her dark hair is pulled back in a loose braid tied with a piece of twine, and she holds eye contact with him like she’s not intimidated by his default scowl. “I heard you fix old firetrucks,” she says, holding the plate out. When he reaches for it, their fingers brush, and he feels the chip in her pale pink nail polish, the callus on her index finger from painting houses in college, the warmth of her skin seeping into his cold, grease-stained knuckle. He flinches a little, like he’s touched a live wire; he hasn’t had any contact softer than a handshake from the fire chief in six years.
He grunts a noncommittal answer at first, tells her he’s not taking new jobs, that he’s got a backlog of museum work that’s already six months behind. She doesn’t push, just tells him the cobbler’s her grandma’s recipe, that she’ll drop by his shop tomorrow with photos of the truck she’s got, and walks away before he can say no.
She shows up at his garage at 10 a.m. the next day, holding a stack of faded polaroids, the smell of lavender laundry detergent mixing with the paint thinner and old rubber scent of his workshop when she steps inside. The photos are of her grandpa, a former Lockhart fire chief, standing next to a 1952 Ford pumper that’s been sitting in her grandma’s barn for 22 years, rusted out but fully intact, the same red and white paint job as the first truck Rico ever restored when he was 19. She leans against the frame of the 1947 pumper he’s working on to point out a dent on the passenger side of the truck in the photo, her shoulder brushing his bicep through his coverall, and he finds himself saying yes before he can think better of it.
He tells himself he’s only doing it for the story of her grandpa, that he’s not attracted to her, that it’s wrong to even think about anyone else this many years after his wife passed. That internal fight rages for the first two weeks they work on the truck together, after she begs him to let her help so she can learn the history of the pumper herself. She’s terrible at sanding rust, puts way too much pressure on the orbital sander until he teases her about sanding a hole straight through the wheel well, and she laughs loud, the sound bouncing off the cinder block walls of the garage, when he grabs her wrist to adjust her grip.
The turning point hits on a rainy Tuesday in mid-May. They’re kneeling on the concrete floor next to the pumper, working on prying a rusted lug nut off the back wheel, and her knee presses up against his bad left one, firm and warm, the pressure easing the constant throb he’s lived with for five years. She looks up at him, sawdust in her bangs, a smudge of rust on her cheek, and she doesn’t say anything before she leans in, kissing him slow, her hand coming up to cup the side of his face, calloused palm warm against his stubble. He doesn’t pull away. For the first time in six years, he doesn’t feel guilty for wanting something for himself, doesn’t feel like he’s betraying the wife he lost, just feels alive, the rain tapping against the garage roof, the hum of the space heater in the corner, the taste of the peppermint gum she’s been chewing on her tongue.
They finish the pumper three months later, in time for the Lockhart Fourth of July parade. He’s wearing his old fire department dress uniform, the one he hasn’t put on since his wife’s funeral, and she’s sitting next to him on the bench seat of the pumper, her hand laced with his on the gear shift, when they turn onto Main Street. The siren blares, kids on the curb wave tiny American flags and scream, and the old group of gossips sitting on the porch of the Main Street diner stop mid-conversation to stare. He squeezes her hand a little tighter, presses a kiss to the top of her head, and shifts the truck into second gear, the engine purring like it’s brand new.
