Rafe Ortega, 52, has been repairing vintage arcade cabinets for 22 years, and he’d rather spend three hours soldering a busted Pac-Man circuit board than make small talk with strangers at the Travis County Fair. He’d planned to spend his Saturday tuning up a 1981 Galaga machine for a regular collector, but the carnival’s event manager begged him to come out, offered double his rate, said the Pac-Man stand was pulling in $800 a day and they couldn’t afford to have it down. He caved, showed up in his grease-stained Carhartt jacket, work boots caked in dust from his shop driveway, and had the machine running in 45 minutes flat.
He’s wiping solder residue off his knuckles with a frayed cotton rag when he turns around and bumps straight into someone holding a corn dog slathered in mustard. The corn dog tilts, about to fall face-first into the dirt, before his hand shoots out to catch the stranger’s elbow, his other palm pressing soft and firm to the curve of their waist to steady them. When he looks down, he’s staring into the hazel eyes of Lena Marquez, his ex-wife’s younger cousin.
His first instinct is to yank his hands away like he’s touched a hot stove. He hasn’t seen Lena in six years, not since his ex-wife’s 40th birthday party, right before the divorce papers were filed. She’s 40 now, he realizes, her dark hair streaked with a single silver strand at the temple, cut into a messy bob that falls just above her shoulders. She’s wearing a faded Willie Nelson t-shirt, cut-off jeans, scuffed white cowboy boots, and she’s laughing so hard a snort comes out, mustard dotting the corner of her mouth.
“Easy there, Ortega,” she says, wiping the mustard off with the back of her hand, her palm lingering on his bicep for three beats longer than is strictly polite. “You gonna take out every snack I buy today or just the first one?”
He’s flustered, which he never is. He’s got a rule, has stuck to it rigidly for eight years: no messes, no family adjacent drama, no women who know anything about his failed marriage. Lena fits all three of the no-go categories. He knows her mom lives three blocks from his shop, knows she used to drive two hours from San Antonio to bring his kids Lego sets for Christmas back when they were small, knows she once called his ex-wife an idiot for cheating on him, loud enough that the whole family heard it at the 2017 Thanksgiving dinner.
He mumbles an apology, starts to step away, but she hooks her thumb through the loop of his work jeans to stop him. She says her friend bailed on the fair that morning, she’s got two extra tickets for the ferris wheel and a cooler of cold Modelo in her truck parked out by the gate, asks if he’s got plans. The rational part of his brain screams no, tells him it’s weird, that people will talk, that he’ll have to deal with his ex-wife blowing up his phone if anyone sees them together. But then she smiles, the same lopsided grin she used to give him when she’d sneak him extra beer at family cookouts, and he says yes before he can think better of it.
They walk toward the beer tent first, their shoulders brushing every few steps, their hands knocking together twice before he tucks his into his jacket pocket, like he’s scared he’ll reach for hers if he doesn’t. She tells him she moved back to Austin three months prior, quit her corporate graphic design job to do freelance work for local bands, lives in a tiny bungalow east of the highway. He tells her about his shop, about the Donkey Kong cabinet he just finished restoring for a bar downtown, about how his kids are in college now, hardly ever call. She listens, really listens, leans in when he talks, doesn’t interrupt to ask about retirement plans or grandkids, the question every other woman his age has hit him with on the rare dates he’s forced himself to go on.
They skip the ferris wheel, end up sitting on a weathered picnic bench at the edge of the fairgrounds, away from the screaming kids and the blaring country music coming from the main stage. The air smells like fried dough, cotton candy, and diesel from the carnival rides. She leans in to point out a guy in a cowboy hat riding a mechanical bull, and her shoulder presses tight to his, her perfume mixing with the sweet, sharp scent of the cherry slushie she’s drinking. He notices the small tattoo of a pinball machine on her wrist, and she laughs when he points at it, says she got it after that cookout where he got drunk and tried to teach the whole family how to fix a 1970s pinball machine he’d dragged to the party.
He’s known her for 18 years, but he’s never really seen her, not like this. The voice in his head is still yelling that this is wrong, that it’s crossing a line he promised himself he’d never cross, but it gets quieter and quieter the longer they sit there, the more she teases him about the time he burned the turkey at Thanksgiving, the way her knee brushes his under the table.
When she turns to face him, her knee knocking his apart a little, her gaze steady on his mouth, he doesn’t look away. She says she’s had a crush on him since she was 20, thought he was the only person in that whole loud, chaotic family who ever saw her as more than the weird kid who drew on the walls. He doesn’t say anything, just reaches up to brush a strand of hair that’s fallen in her face, his thumb grazing the soft skin of her cheek. She kisses him first, slow, tastes like cherry slushie and lime from the Modelo she was drinking, and he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t overthink it, just kisses her back, his hand resting on the back of her neck.
They stay there for ten minutes, maybe longer, kissing like a couple of teenagers, ignoring the people walking past. When they pull apart, she’s grinning, her lipstick smudged a little, and he’s smiling too, the first real, unforced smile he’s had in months. He asks her if she wants to come back to his shop later, says he can show her the Donkey Kong cabinet, that he’s got a stash of cold Lone Star in the mini fridge out there. She says yes, stands up, tucks her hand into the back pocket of his work jeans as they walk toward the exit. He doesn’t look around to see if anyone they know is watching. A kid runs past them holding a giant stuffed teddy bear, yelling at his mom to hurry up, and Lena laughs, leaning into his side as they walk.
