Ronan O’Malley is 57, has run his antique clock repair shop out of the front of his Portland bungalow for 21 years, and hasn’t attended the neighborhood summer block party since his wife, Maggie, died eight years prior. His only flaw, if you ask his niece Lila who’s crashing with him for the summer, is that he’s turned rigid as a 120-year-old oak clock gear, convinced any small joy that doesn’t involve tiny brass springs and worn pendulums is a betrayal of the life he and Maggie built. Lila dragged him to the party anyway, threatened to hide all his specialized screwdrivers if he bailed, so he’s leaning against the cinder block grill, holding a lukewarm Pabst, grease crusted under his fingernails from fixing a 1918 Seth Thomas mantle clock that morning, counting the seconds until he can slip back to his quiet workshop.
He’s halfway through mapping his escape route when Elara Marlow steps into his line of sight. She moved into the blue craftsman two blocks over six months ago, teaches botany at the local community college, and he’s caught himself staring through his shop window when she walks past with her golden retriever more times than he’d ever admit. She’s wearing a faded pearl snap linen shirt, cutoff denim shorts, scuffed leather sandals, a smudge of charcoal streaked across her left jaw from manning the veggie skewer station earlier. She’s holding a chipped ceramic plate piled high with pickled okra, and she’s walking straight toward him.
The okra is briny, just spicy enough to make his tongue tingle, and he’s so flustered he almost chokes when he responds, talking faster than he means to, explaining common issues with clocks left unheated in attics for decades, listing tools he’d need to troubleshoot. She leans in even closer, her eyes fixed on his, no polite glancing away, no idle small talk, just nodding like every word he says is more interesting than the band’s racket. He can feel heat radiating off her arm where it’s pressed to his, and a stupid, giddy part of him he thought died with Maggie is screaming this is wrong, that he shouldn’t enjoy this, that he’s supposed to stay holed up in his shop with his clocks and old Sinatra records forever.
A group of preteen kids sprint past chasing a water balloon, one slamming into Elara’s back hard enough that she stumbles forward. Ronan reacts without thinking, wrapping his palm around the warm, bare skin of her elbow to steady her, and she grabs his chest with her free hand to catch her balance, her palm flat against the cotton of his navy polo, he can feel the fast thud of her heartbeat through the fabric. She laughs, loud and bright, not embarrassed at all, the charcoal smudge on her jaw crinkling when she grins up at him. “Thanks,” she says, the way she says his name slow, like she’s been practicing it, making the guilty voice in his head go quiet for the first time all night.
She doesn’t move her hand from his chest for three full beats, not until the kids yell an apology from halfway down the block. “You can come look at the clock tomorrow, if you want,” she says, brushing a strand of wavy auburn hair out of her face, her fingers brushing his wrist when she pulls her hand back. “I make really good peach iced tea. Saw you humming Sinatra through your shop window last week, I’ve got his 1965 greatest hits spinning at my place half the time, my dad used to sing it to me as a kid.”
Ronan hesitates for half a second, thinks of Maggie’s old sunhat hanging by his front door, thinks of the clocks waiting for him in his shop, thinks of the eight years he’s spent closing every door that isn’t the one leading to his workbench. Then he nods. “Three o’clock works,” he says, and she grins so wide the corners of her eyes crinkle, scribbles her address on a napkin from the food table, shoves it in the pocket of his work pants, her knuckles brushing his hip when she does.
He leaves the party ten minutes later, Lila wolf-whistling when she sees the napkin sticking out of his pocket, and he doesn’t even complain when she teases him all the way home. He shows up at her house the next day at 2:58, his tool bag slung over his shoulder, a small jar of the pickled garlic Maggie used to make tucked in his pocket as a housewarming gift. She’s sitting on the porch swing, the iced tea pitcher sweating on the wooden rail next to her, Sinatra’s “The Way You Look Tonight” drifting through the open screen door. He brushes a stray bumblebee off the shoulder of her sunflower-printed dress before stepping over the threshold.
