Manny Rocha is 57, runs a tiny antique clock repair shop in a blue-collar Portland neighborhood, has spent the last 12 years perfecting the art of avoiding casual connection. His ex-wife left him for a spin class instructor the week their 10th anniversary trip to Cabo was supposed to leave, and he’d decided somewhere around the third month of eating frozen burritos alone above the shop that romance was a scam designed to waste perfectly good time he could spend adjusting gear trains. The only reason he’s at the block party on a sweltering August afternoon is his 16-year-old niece, Lila, begged him to help haul her bake sale stock, and he can never say no to that kid.
He’s leaned up against the dented white beer cooler, sticky with spilled soda and condensation, twisting the dented brass pocket watch his dad left him around his index finger, when the run-in starts. He reaches for a cold IPA, calloused work fingers brushing someone else’s at the exact same time. He pulls back fast, ready to mumble an apology, and looks up. The woman in front of him is wearing a loose linen button-down rolled to the elbows, scuffed brown work boots caked with book binding glue, and has a thin, pale scar snaking up her left wrist. She laughs, a low, warm sound that cuts through the noise of kids screaming and a neighbor’s terrible classic rock playlist. “Sorry,” she says, wiping a stray strand of gray-streaked auburn hair out of her face. “Guess great minds think alike when it’s 84 degrees out.”
They talk for 40 minutes straight, standing so close their shoulders brush every time one of them shifts. He tells her about the 1890 grandfather clock he’s been tinkering with for three weeks, belonged to a Cape Cod lighthouse keeper, gains 7 seconds every hour no matter how much he adjusts the pendulum. She laughs when he admits he’s started talking to the thing when he works late, calls it “you stubborn old bastard” under his breath. He’s so wrapped up in the conversation he doesn’t notice the group of 8-year-olds chasing a golden retriever straight for them until one slams into Lena’s back.
She stumbles forward, and he catches her on instinct, his palm flat against the soft fabric of her shirt at her waist, his other hand wrapping around her wrist to steady her. Her free hand lands on his forearm, fingers pressing gently into the frayed cuff of his work flannel, and for a second their faces are six inches apart. He can see the green flecks in her hazel eyes, the faint smudge of glue on her jawline, and every alarm bell in his head goes off. He’s spent 12 years avoiding this exact feeling, the tightness in his chest, the stupid, reckless hope that someone might actually get the weird, boring parts of him that care about gear ratios and chime timing. He’s half ready to pull away, mumble some excuse about having to get back to the shop, when she smirks.
“I don’t usually ask guys out first,” she says, not pulling away, her thumb brushing the back of his hand where it’s wrapped around her wrist. “But I have a 1930s pocket watch repair kit my grandpa left me gathering dust on my shelf. You bring that dented watch you keep twisting around, and we can polish that scratch off the back of it first, then take a look at my broken clock. I even have that peach iced tea you said you like.”
He hesitates for two full seconds, flashes of his ex-wife’s slamming suitcase, the empty anniversary tickets tucked in his junk drawer, running through his head. Then he smiles, the first real, unforced smile he’s had at someone who isn’t his niece in years. “Yeah,” he says. “That sounds good.”
They finish their beers, walk back to his shop first so he can grab the microfiber polishing cloths he uses for vintage brass. She holds the shop door open for him, her hand brushing his when he steps through, and he doesn’t flinch. When they get to her bungalow, she lights a cedar candle on the kitchen table, pulls the worn leather repair kit out of a cabinet, and slides a cold glass of iced tea across the table to him. He sets his dad’s pocket watch down on the wood, and for the first time in 12 years, he doesn’t feel like he’s waiting for something to go wrong.
