Moe Sorrentino is 59, semi-retired custom neon fabricator, lives in a creaky two-story outside New Castle, Pennsylvania, hasn’t voluntarily asked a woman out since his divorce finalized in 2011. His biggest flaw? He holds grudges so tight he can barely open his fist to shake a stranger’s hand, especially when the stranger is related to the county commissioner who’d tried to zone his backyard workshop out of existence six weeks prior. He’d spent three nights drafting protest letters, showing up to town halls, seething every time he saw the guy’s face on a yard sign or the local news.
He’s hunched over a paper plate of beer-battered cod at the VFW’s weekly Friday fish fry, plastic fork scraping the last of the crinkle-cut fries off the edge, when the bench across from him dips under the weight of someone sitting down. He looks up, ready to snap that the seat’s saved for his buddy who’s stuck running late, until he sees her. It’s Clara Voss, the commissioner’s wife, 20 years his junior, wearing a faded Steelers hoodie and scuffed white high-top sneakers instead of the tailored blazer and pearl necklace he’d seen her in at the zoning hearing. Her thigh brushes his under the table when she shifts to pull a plate of hushpuppies closer, and he feels the heat of it shoot up his spine, sharp and unexpected, like a jolt from the old wiring he works with every day.
She holds eye contact for two full beats before she smiles, like she knows exactly who he is and exactly how mad he is at her husband. “He’s an idiot,” she says, nodding at the framed photo of the county board on the cinder block wall behind Moe’s head, “I told him the zoning ordinance targeted small makers, he didn’t listen. Too busy worrying about donor money from the big box development crowd.” Moe grunts, poking at a cold piece of cod with his fork, still ready to grab his faded Carhartt jacket off the back of the bench and bolt. He doesn’t do small talk with the enemy’s family, doesn’t do anything that doesn’t involve bending glass tubing over a torch or rewiring old diner signs, not since his ex left him for a real estate broker who wore loafers without socks and couldn’t change a flat tire.
She leans forward to grab a crumpled napkin off the table, and the scent of lavender shampoo mixes with the smell of fried grease and cheap draft beer in the air, and he can’t stop staring at the freckles across her nose, the chipped mint-green polish on her nails, the smudge of tartar sauce on her thumb that she licks off slow, like she doesn’t even notice he’s watching. She laughs when he makes a dry crack about her husband’s terrible spray tan that’s so orange it matches the traffic cones on the highway, the sound loud and unselfconscious, no polished politician’s wife lilt to it. Her knee keeps brushing his under the table, and she never pulls away, just lets the contact linger, like it’s intentional, like she wants it there. He finds himself rambling about the 1950s neon sign he’s restoring for the old diner on Main Street, the way the pale pink glass glows when it’s powered up, the 12 hours he spent last weekend sanding rust off the dented metal casings.
He’s halfway through a story about a neon beer sign he fixed for a biker bar outside Youngstown, where the owner paid him in homemade beef jerky and a case of IPA, when she says, “I’ve been coming to these fish fries for three weeks hoping I’d run into you. I’m sick of listening to him talk about zoning variances and campaign fundraisers and schmoozing with guys who haven’t worked a real day in their life. I miss talking to people who actually make things instead of just talking about making things.” Moe freezes, fork halfway to his mouth. He’s torn between the sharp, hot burst of desire that’s been building in his chest since she sat down, and the residual anger at her husband, the loud voice in his head screaming that this is a terrible idea, that he’s going to get dragged into a messy public drama he can’t get out of, that he’s too old for this kind of chaos.
She slides her phone across the Formica table to him, her fingers brushing his calloused, torch-burned knuckles when she hands it over. “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t,” she says, and the edge of her mouth tugs up in a smirk that’s equal parts shy and bold, like she knows he’s going to say yes even before he does. He types his number in, his hands a little unsteady, and saves the contact under “Neon Guy” so she doesn’t have to explain his name to her husband if he sees her phone. He walks her to her beat-up Subaru in the gravel parking lot after they finish eating, and when she leans in to hug him goodbye, her chest presses against his, and he can feel her heart beating fast under the thick fabric of the hoodie.
He texts her his workshop address first thing Saturday morning, and she shows up an hour later, holding a six pack of that same IPA he’d mentioned the night before, like she’d already made a note of it. The workshop smells like burnt glass and mineral spirits and sawdust, the half-restored diner sign plugged in on the workbench, the pink light casting a warm, hazy glow over her face. She reaches out to touch the cool, smooth glass of the tubing, her hand resting next to his on the edge of the bench, and when she turns to kiss him, he doesn’t pull away. The neon hums soft and steady in the background, and for the first time in 12 years, Moe doesn’t give a single thought to the grudges he’s been carrying. He tangles his hand in her hair, the faint taste of cherry lip balm on her tongue cutting through the sharp, familiar scent of torch fumes in the air.
