Elias Voss, 52, makes his living repairing antique typewriters out of a cinder block workshop behind his bungalow in west Asheville. His biggest flaw is that he’s turned being a hermit into a competitive sport. Three years out from a divorce that ended when his wife ran off with a crossfit coach who sold essential oils on the side, he leaves the shop exactly twice a week: once for grocery runs, once for the Saturday farmers market, where he only buys tomatoes from the same white-bearded guy who grows heirlooms on a 10-acre plot outside town. He avoids small talk like it’s a telemarketer selling reverse mortgages, keeps his Carhartt jacket zipped up even when the September humidity hits 70 percent, and always has smudges of black typewriter ribbon under his fingernails that no amount of dish soap can scrub off.
This particular Saturday, the air smells like fried green tomatoes from the food truck by the entrance, wood smoke from the apple cider stand, and fermented pickles from the stall run by a group of college kids. He’s halfway through his usual loop, already holding a paper bag of cherry tomatoes, when he spots the last Brandywine on the table, fat, deep purple, perfectly soft to the touch. He reaches for it at the exact same time as another hand. Their fingers brush. His are calloused at the tips from prying stuck typebars loose and tightening tiny screws, hers are smooth but with a rough patch on the index finger, like she spends a lot of time cutting things with a sharp knife. He yanks his hand back like he touched a hot soldering iron, and when he looks up, he recognizes her immediately.
Mara. His ex-wife’s younger cousin. He hadn’t seen her since the divorce, when she’d showed up to help his ex pack up the kitchen and wouldn’t meet his eye. She was 19 at their wedding, wore a frayed denim jacket over her bridesmaid dress, and had asked him to fix her beat-up 1950s Royal typewriter for her college creative writing classes. Now she’s 38, has a tiny silver hoop through her left nostril, her dark hair streaked with a single strand of gray at the temple, and she smells like pine resin and wild honey. He feels a twist of something in his chest, half embarrassment, half something sharper, hotter, the kind of feeling he’d sworn he’d killed off three years prior. The taboo of it hits him first—ex-wife’s family, off limits, guaranteed drama if anyone finds out—followed fast by a jolt of annoyance that he’s even reacting this way.
He mumbles an apology, steps back, waves at the tomato. “It’s yours. I can grab one next week.”
She snorts, picks it up, turns it over in her hand. “Don’t be ridiculous. I only need half for salsa. We can split it.” She nods toward the cider stand. “C’mon, I’ll buy you a cup. They’re spiking it with bourbon today. I saw the guy pour a handle in the pot ten minutes ago.”
He hesitates. His workshop has a stack of six Underwoods waiting for repairs, a client coming by at 3 to pick up a restored Remington, and he’d planned on spending the rest of the afternoon listening to old jazz records and canning tomato sauce. But she’s leaning in a little, her shoulder brushing his bicep, and she’s grinning like she already knows he’s going to say yes. He nods.
They lean against the wooden rail by the cider stand, sipping the warm, spiked drink, while she rambles about running her herbal apothecary out of a converted Sprinter van, how she just moved back to Asheville after three years living in a cabin in the Smokies, how she still has that Royal typewriter he fixed, it’s on the counter in her van right now. He finds himself talking more than he has in months, telling her about the typewriter he just restored for a retired poet, how he once found a 70-year-old love letter tucked inside the carriage of a 1940s Smith Corona. When she laughs, her arm brushes his again, and he doesn’t pull away.
When they finish their cider, she tucks the tomato under her arm and nods toward the parking lot. “I’ve got fresh lime and cilantro in the van, and a bag of tortilla chips. We can make the salsa right now, split it. You don’t have anywhere to be, right?”
The thought of his ex finding out, of the family group chat blowing up, of all the stupid questions he’ll have to field if anyone sees them, flickers through his head. Then she touches his wrist lightly, her fingers warm through the frayed cuff of his jacket, and says, “You don’t have to be so careful all the time, Elias. I remember you used to be fun.”
He follows her to the van. The back is lined with wooden shelves full of glass jars of dried herbs, tiny bottles of tincture, a stack of worn poetry books, and that Royal typewriter, right where she said it was, on a fold-down counter. She chops the tomato on a small wooden cutting board, their knees brushing every time she turns to grab something off the shelf. He leans against the door frame, watching her, and when she gets a smudge of tomato juice on her left cheek, he reaches out without thinking to wipe it off with his thumb. She freezes for half a second, then leans into the touch, her eyes locking with his.
They finish the salsa ten minutes later, spicy, tangy, perfect with the salted chips. She hands him a small glass jar of pine salve for the cracked skin on his knuckles, says it works better than any drugstore lotion. He hands her a business card for his shop, tells her if the Royal ever breaks again, he’ll fix it for free, no questions asked. She leans in and kisses him on the cheek, soft, warm, and he can taste the bourbon and cider on her breath when she whispers that she’ll stop by the shop next week, maybe bring him a jar of her homemade salsa.
He walks back to his beat-up Ford Ranger, the half tomato in a paper bag tucked under his arm, the small jar of salve in his jacket pocket. The stack of Underwoods waiting for him in the workshop doesn’t feel like a burden anymore, for the first time in years. He turns the key in the ignition, rolls the window down, and grins when he sees her wave from the van’s open door as he pulls out of the parking lot.
