Rafe Mendez is 53, a vintage camper restorer based out of a cinder block shop on the edge of La Grande, Oregon, and his biggest flaw is he can’t say no to anyone. For eight years, since his ex-wife packed her bags for a 28-year-old weed farm hand who couldn’t change a flat tire, he’s filled every spare minute with other people’s requests: rush Airstream renovations for clients who need them for cross-country trips, free welding fixes for the local 4-H club, extra taco shifts at the farmers market when the teen he hires bails for soccer practice. He hasn’t gone on a date in longer than he can remember, hasn’t even let himself look twice at a woman who isn’t a client or a friend’s wife.
The VFW fish fry on Friday smells like fried catfish, hushpuppies dusted with cajun spice, and cheap lager that’s been sitting in a keg too long. The ceiling fans creak so loud they almost drown out the George Strait deep cuts on the jukebox, and the vinyl tablecloth under Rafe’s forearm is sticky with spilled orange soda from the family that sat there before him. He’s halfway through his second beer, wiping crumbs of hushpuppy off his worn work jeans, when he spots her, leaning against the bar in a crisp navy button-down, work boots caked in red Eastern Oregon dust, a lanyard with a county public health ID hanging around her neck. He recognizes her instantly: Elara Voss, the new inspector he’s scheduled to meet next week for his taco truck permit renewal. He’s already stressing about the cooler seal he’s been putting off fixing, terrified she’ll hit him with a fine he can’t afford, so he ducks his head, stabs a piece of salt-crusted catfish with his plastic fork, and prays she doesn’t notice him.
She notices him. Ten minutes later, she’s carrying a paper plate of food and a sweating glass of iced tea, heading straight for his table. “You’re Rafe, right?” she says, nodding at his work shirt emblazoned with his company logo, “Saw your truck parked out front. The one with the hand-painted Airstream decal on the door. I just bought a beat-up 1968 Scotty Sportsman, and I’ve been asking around for months for someone who knows what they’re doing with old tin.” She sits down across from him before he can stammer out an invitation, and when she shifts to cross her legs, her knee brushes his under the table. The fabric of her work pants is thin, and he can feel the warmth of her skin through his faded denim.
He’s torn so sharply it makes his chest tight. Half of him is screaming that this is the worst possible idea, that flirting with the woman who can shut down his most reliable side gig is the kind of stupid move he hasn’t made since he was 19 and crashed his dad’s pickup on the way to a Willie Nelson concert. The other half is fixated on the way she tucks a strand of silver-streaked dark hair behind her ear, the calluses on her fingers when she reaches across the table to grab a napkin, her forearm brushing his so he can feel the chill of her iced tea glass seeping into her skin. She smells like coconut sunscreen and peppermint gum, and when she laughs at his terrible joke about a client who tried to renovate a camper with nothing but TikTok tutorials and duct tape, her eyes crinkle at the corners like she actually means it.
She knows why he’s nervous. Teases him about it halfway through their conversation, leaning in so her voice is low enough only he can hear it, over the clatter of paper plates and the loud chatter of the old vets at the next table arguing about Vietnam deployments. “I pulled your file already, by the way. You’ve had zero violations in 12 years. That cooler seal you’re panicking about? You can fix it before I show up Tuesday, and I won’t even mention it.” He blushes so hard his ears burn, embarrassed she saw right through him, and when she grins, he can’t help but grin back. For the first time in years, he’s not thinking about what someone else needs from him. He’s thinking about how he wants to ask her to stay, wants to buy her another beer, wants to show her the Airstream he’s been restoring for himself, the one he’s been slowly fixing up for a cross-country trip he’s been too scared to plan.
He doesn’t overthink it, for once in his people-pleasing life. When she says she’s been dying to find decent street tacos since she moved to town from Portland three months prior, right after her daughter left for NYU, he says he makes slow-roasted carnitas tacos on the weekends at his shop, after he closes up for the day. Says he’s got a fridge full of homemade horchata, and the Airstream he’s working on has a working cassette stereo that plays old Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline tapes he’s collected for 20 years. She doesn’t even hesitate. Pulls a beat-up ballpoint pen out of her pocket, scribbles her cell number on a crumpled brown napkin dotted with hushpuppy grease, and tucks it into the breast pocket of his work shirt, her fingers brushing the old welding scar on his chest he got when he was 30, still rough and raised under the thin cotton.
She finishes her iced tea, stands up, slings her canvas work bag over her shoulder. “Text me tomorrow when you’re done with work,” she says, and winks before she turns and heads for the door, waving at a group of vets she recognizes on her way out. Rafe sits there for a minute, staring at the corner of the napkin peeking out of his shirt pocket, the last of his catfish going cold on the plate in front of him, the creak of the ceiling fans fading into the background. He pulls his beat-up Samsung out of his jeans pocket, opens a new text thread, and types her number in slow, double-checking every digit to make sure he doesn’t mess it up.
