Roland Voss, 57, makes his living restoring vintage typewriters out of his garage in northeast Portland, a job he fell into after 22 years running wildland fire crews across the Pacific Northwest. His biggest flaw? He hasn’t let a stranger get within three feet of his personal space for eight years, not since he lost a 19-year-old crew member on a 2015 blaze outside Bend, then came home to a half-empty closet and a note from his wife saying she couldn’t love a ghost. He avoids block parties, potlucks, any gathering where small talk is mandatory, only showed up to this one because his 72-year-old next door neighbor left a peach pie on his porch at 10 a.m. with a note scrawled in sparkly purple pen: “Help me move the beer pong table at 4, or I’m feeding your pie to the raccoons.”
He’s leaning against the gnarled oak at the end of the block now, half-empty IPA in one hand, faded Carhartt overalls dusted with machine oil, the thick, pale scar snaking across his left forearm on full display. The air smells like charcoal, grilled bratwurst, and the artificial cherry of the sno-cones the kids are dripping all over the sidewalk. He’s half considering bailing before anyone can ask him how work’s going when he sees her trip over a coiled garden hose, tray of pickled deviled eggs tilting so far he’s sure they’re going to splatter all over the grass. He moves before he thinks, catches the edge of the tray with one hand, steadies her elbow with the other. Their palms brush for a beat longer than polite, the skin of her wrist soft, smudged with navy ink right above her silver watch.
She laughs, a low, warm sound, and he smells iced tea and mint on her breath when she looks up at him. Her name’s Elara, she says, just moved into the blue bungalow across the street three weeks prior, runs the tiny used poetry bookstore over on Alberta. She’s wearing a navy sundress dotted with white daisies, scuffed white converse, a silver ring shaped like a quill on her index finger. She doesn’t make the usual awkward face people make when he doesn’t immediately jump into small talk, just leans against the oak next to him, close enough that her shoulder is two inches from his, he can catch the faint scent of lavender lotion over the smell of grill smoke. She asks about the scar on his arm first, no hesitation, no pity lacing her tone, and for some reason he doesn’t brush her off. He tells her about the 2015 fire, about the kid who’d just graduated high school, about quitting the crew six months later when he realized he couldn’t stand the sound of people asking if he was okay anymore. He tells her typewriters don’t ask questions. They either work, or you fix them, no drama, no expectations.
She nods, tells him she moved to Portland after her fiance died in a hit-and-run bike crash two years prior, opened the bookstore because it was the only thing they’d ever planned together that she could finish on her own. She says she hates small talk too, only showed up to the block party because her tabby cat slipped out the first night she moved in and half the neighborhood spent three hours looking for him in the oak trees. She says she found a 1952 Royal typewriter at an estate sale last weekend, needs a new platen, she’s been fiddling with it for three days and can’t get the keys to stop sticking. She asks if he’d mind taking a look at it, and for a second he’s frozen. He hasn’t let anyone step foot in his workshop in seven years, hasn’t let anyone see the stacks of half-finished typewriters, the framed photo of his old crew tucked on the shelf behind the parts jars. But she’s looking at him with hazel eyes flecked with green, her lower lip tucked between her teeth, and he can’t say no.
The sun is dipping below the rooflines by the time they walk back to his house, the sky streaked pink and tangerine, crickets chirping in the foundation plantings. He flips on the workshop light, the hum of the overhead fan mixing with the faint sound of country music drifting over from the block party. The air smells like machine oil, old paper, and the lemon Pledge he uses to polish typewriter cases. She sets the Royal on his workbench, and when he leans over next to her to pop the hood, their arms press together, he can feel the heat of her skin through the thin cotton of her dress. He shows her how to pull the platen free, how to sand the rubber just enough to restore the grip, their hands brushing again when he passes her the fine-grit sandpaper. When she’s done, she tests the keys, the sharp, satisfying clack of each letter ringing through the small space, and she grins so wide the corners of her eyes crinkle.
She reaches out before he can move, her fingers brushing the scar on his forearm slow, soft, like she’s memorizing the shape of it. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away, just tilts his head down until his face is three inches from hers, can feel her breath warm against his jaw. He kisses her first, slow, tentative at first, then deeper when her hand comes up to cup the back of his neck, she tastes like iced tea and mint and the salt from the deviled egg she ate half an hour earlier. They pull away after a minute, and she laughs, wiping a smudge of machine oil off his cheek with her thumb. She says she has a box of hand-typed poetry manuscripts from a 1970s Portland poet tucked in her trunk, typed on that exact Royal model, has been waiting to get the typewriter fixed so she can transcribe them and publish a small chapbook. He tells her he’ll help, any time, no charge.
She slings the canvas bag holding the Royal over her shoulder, pauses on his front porch step, leans in to kiss him again quick, sweet, before walking across the street to her house. He stands in the doorway for ten minutes, watching the lights turn on in her front room, the faint shadow of her holding the typewriter up to the lamp to check the platen. For the first time in eight years, he doesn’t feel like a ghost. He feels like the guy who fixed a typewriter, and caught a tray of deviled eggs, and might actually have something to look forward to tomorrow night, when she brings over that bottle of pinot noir she mentioned, and the stack of old poetry. He lifts the half-empty beer he’d left on the porch rail, takes a sip, and smiles.
