Moe Ledbetter is 53, makes his living restoring antique typewriters out of a converted milkhouse behind his cottage in northern Ohio, and hasn’t attended a town community event in seven and a half years. The only reason he’s at the fire department’s annual pig roast now is because the fire chief, his high school football teammate, showed up at his workshop at 2 p.m. holding a six-pack of Moe’s favorite root beer and threatened to drag him there by his collar if he didn’t come voluntarily. Moe’s a rigid perfectionist who’s planned every hour of his day down to 15 minute increments since his wife left him eight years prior, fed up with him bailing on every anniversary trip, every spontaneous dinner, every chance to be messy just for the hell of it. He’s avoided unplanned interactions so long he’s forgotten how to make small talk with anyone who doesn’t need a key for a 1940s Underwood or a replacement ribbon for a Royal Quiet De Luxe.
He’s leaning against a splintered pine picnic table, holding a lukewarm can of Pabst, when he smells coconut shampoo before he sees her. She’s a few inches shorter than him, wearing high-waisted jeans and a paint-splattered white tank top, sun streaks in her dark brown hair, and when she grins and calls his name, he recognizes her halfway through her first step toward him. It’s Lila, his ex-wife’s youngest cousin, the kid who’d sat in the back of his truck eating popsicles at his ex’s family reunion 12 years prior, when she was 19 and still had braces. She’s 31 now, moved back to town two months prior to take the 4th grade art teacher job and care for her mom, who’s recovering from a stroke.
She leans in for a hug before he can think to step back, her shoulder pressing firm against his chest for two full seconds, and he can smell fried dough and charcoal smoke clinging to her shirt under that coconut shampoo. She holds eye contact when she pulls away, no awkward glance off to the side like most people do when they run into their cousin’s ex-husband, and she smirks, plucking at the frayed cuff of his Carhartt jacket, the same one he wore to that reunion all those years ago. “Thought you’d holed up in that workshop forever,” she says, and her voice is lower than he remembers, rough around the edges like she smokes a cigarette every now and then when no one’s looking.
He doesn’t know what to say at first, his brain short-circuiting between the automatic “don’t talk to ex-wife’s family” rule he’s lived by for eight years and the sharp, unexpected jolt of interest when she sits down on the picnic table bench next to him, their knees no more than two inches apart, even though there’s three feet of empty space on her other side. When she reaches across him to grab a stack of paper plates off the table behind his back, her forearm brushes his flannel sleeve, and he can feel the heat of her skin through the thin fabric, makes his ears go hot. He’s disgusted with himself for half a second, because this is Lila, she’s practically family, he’s old enough to know better, to not get caught up in something that’s so obviously off-limits, that’ll make his ex throw a fit if she finds out, that’ll get the gossips at the local diner chattering for weeks.
Then she starts talking about the 1951 Royal typewriter she found at a garage sale last week, beat up, missing a shift key, the carriage stuck, and she’s leaning in so close when she talks he can see the flecks of gold in her dark eyes, can hear the excitement in her voice over the roar of the crowd and the distant wail of a fire truck siren going off for a false alarm down the road. She teases him about his reputation as the town hermit who only talks to typewriters, and he finds himself laughing, actually laughing, something he hasn’t done around another person that isn’t the fire chief in months. He forgets about the rule, forgets about the gossip, forgets about his carefully scheduled day tomorrow that was supposed to be dedicated to reconditioning a 1930s Remington for a collector in Chicago.
She asks him if he can come by her place after school tomorrow to look at the Royal, and she bites down on her lower lip a little when she waits for his answer, like she’s nervous he’ll say no. He hesitates for half a beat, the logical part of his brain screaming that this is a terrible idea, that he’s opening a door he can’t close, that he’s gonna break his perfect streak of no unplanned, unstructured interactions. But then she slips her phone into his hand so he can put his number in, her fingers brushing his palm for a beat longer than necessary, soft and calloused at the tips from holding paintbrushes all day, and he types his number in faster than he’s ever done anything.
She tucks her phone back into her jeans pocket when he hands it to her, grins, and says she’ll text him her address when she gets home. She stands up, says she has to go say hi to a couple of her students’ parents who are over by the grill, and she squeezes his shoulder lightly before she walks away, waving over her shoulder when she’s halfway across the lawn.
He stands there for a minute, sipping his warm beer, watching her laugh as she hugs a woman with a toddler on her hip. He’s got that light, fizzy feeling in his chest he hasn’t had since he was a kid, sneaking out of the house to go to drive-in movies with his friends, the thrill of doing something he’s not supposed to, something that doesn’t fit on any of his color-coded to-do lists. He tucks his phone back into his jacket pocket, and for the first time in as long as he can remember, he doesn’t mind the sound of the rowdy crowd around him.
