Roman Voss, 53, has run his vintage motorcycle restoration shop out of a cinder block building outside Asheville for 18 years. He’s got grease under his fingernails that never fully washes out, a scar across his left knuckle from a 1978 Kawasaki kickback, and a rule he hasn’t broken since his ex-wife moved out eight years prior: no unscheduled detours, no unnecessary small talk, no letting anyone cross the line between customer and acquaintance. The only exception is the Tuesday night bluegrass jam at Mack’s Tap, the dive bar three miles from his shop, where he drinks one Pabst, eats a basket of salted peanuts, and listens to the old guys pick banjo and fiddle until 10 p.m. sharp, then drives home to his empty house and his half-restored CB750 in the garage.
He walks into Mack’s at 7:12 p.m. on a crisp late October Tuesday, the hem of his flannel still carrying the smell of workshop solvent and oak firewood, and stops dead. His usual stool, the one at the far end of the bar where the light is dim and no one tries to bother him, is taken. The woman sitting there is wearing well-worn Levi’s, a faded Dolly Parton tour shirt, and scuffed work boots, her dark hair pulled back in a loose braid that’s falling out at the temples. She’s swirling a draft beer in a frosty mug, her foot tapping in time to the fiddle player warming up, and when she glances up and catches him staring, she doesn’t look away. She smirks, lifts her mug in a tiny salute, and says, “Sorry, didn’t know this was claimed. The other stools were sticky.”
Roman almost turns around and leaves. That’s the easy move, the one that fits his routine, the one that means he doesn’t have to talk to a stranger. But then she shifts in the stool, and her knee brushes his under the bar, warm through the denim of both their jeans, and he pauses. The bar smells like roasted peanuts, old wood, and the faint, sweet lavender of her hand cream, cutting through the usual stale beer and cigarette smoke that lingers in the corners. He shrugs, pulls out the stool next to her, sits down. The bar is crowded, their shoulders are pressed so close he can feel the warmth of her arm through his flannel, every time she lifts her mug her elbow brushes his bicep, light and accidental, not enough to be an overt move, enough to make his skin prickle.
He learns her name is Clara, she’s 49, she just moved to the area three weeks prior to take over as the county’s head librarian, she drove down from Chicago in a beat-up pickup truck with a 1972 Honda CB350 strapped in the bed. She’d bought the bike at a yard sale for $300 before she left, she says, she knows how to change the oil and adjust the brakes but the carburetor’s shot and she can’t figure out why it won’t turn over. He finds himself talking before he can stop himself, telling her he’s got three CB350 carburetors on a shelf in his shop, that the 72 model has a common issue with the float sticking if it’s been sitting for years. She leans in when he talks, her eyes fixed on his, no phone in her hand, no half-glancing at the band behind him, she’s actually listening. When she laughs at a dumb joke he makes about bad DIY motorcycle repairs, her shoulder shakes against his, and he realizes he hasn’t laughed that easy in longer than he can remember.
For an hour he fights the voice in his head that’s screaming to leave, that’s telling him this is just going to end like the last time, that he’s better off alone with his bikes and his quiet house. Disgust warms his chest for a second, disgust at himself for being soft, for letting a stranger break through the walls he built so carefully. Then she reaches across the bar to grab a handful of peanuts, and her fingers brush his wrist, cold from holding her frosty mug, and the tension in his shoulders melts. She says she’s got the bike in her garage, if he wants to come take a look after the jam, no pressure, she’ll pay him for his time. He almost says no. He almost sticks to his 10 p.m. rule, almost drives home to his empty house, almost goes back to the routine that’s kept him safe for eight years.
But then she tilts her head, that little smirk back on her face, and he nods. The jam ends at 10, they walk out into the parking lot, the air sharp with fall chill, crickets chirping in the woods at the edge of the lot. She tucks her hand into the crook of his arm without asking, her palm cold through the thin fabric of his flannel, and he doesn’t pull away. He unlocks the passenger door of his old Ford F-150 for her, notices the scuff on the toe of her boot matches the scuff he’s got on his own from propping a bike up on its kickstand too many times. He turns the key in the ignition, the truck rumbles to life, and when she rests her hand on his forearm as he pulls out of the parking lot, he doesn’t even flinch.
