Javi Mendez, 58, makes his living breathing life back into cracked neon tubes, prying rusted metal casings off mid-century bar signs, soldering broken filaments until they glow pink and electric blue again. He’s lived outside Waco, Texas, his whole adult life, hasn’t so much as flirted with a woman since his wife Maria died of ovarian cancer seven years prior. His greatest flaw, if you ask his sister, is that he’s convinced any joy that doesn’t tie back to Maria is a betrayal, like he’s erasing the 32 years they spent together by letting anyone else get close.
He’s at the small town Fourth of July street fair on a Tuesday evening, still wiping solder flux off his jeans from hanging the restored “FIREWORKS 9PM” sign he donated to the town council. The air hums with the scratch of a local country cover band, smells like smoked brisket and burnt sugar and cut grass, and the beer he’s nursing from the pop-up beer garden is so cold it makes his knuckles ache. He’s lingering by the fence, because the beer garden butts right up against the public library’s book swap booth, and Elara Voss is running it.
He’s only talked to her twice before, both times dropping off boxes of Maria’s old books at the library. She moved to town three months prior, 49, widowed five years, runs the children’s reading program on weekends, has a streak of silver running through her auburn hair that she tucks behind her ear when she’s focused. He’d thought she was married until the librarian’s assistant mentioned her husband had been a park ranger who died in a wildfire. He’d felt a stupid, sharp jolt of something then, half guilt half longing, and had avoided the library for a month after that.
She looks up from stacking a pile of western paperbacks right then, catches him staring. She grins, wide, crinkles at the corners of her hazel eyes, and waves. He freezes for half a second, then lifts his own hand awkwardly, like he’s trying to swat a fly. She says something to the teen volunteering with her, wipes her hands on her high-waisted denim shorts, and walks over. She’s wearing a faded Willie Nelson t-shirt, scuffed white sneakers, and when she stops a foot away from him he can smell lavender hand lotion and the lemon Pledge she’d obviously used to wipe down the book tables.
Javi’s throat goes tight. He’d forgotten he’d written that. He nods, doesn’t know what to say. He’s used to talking about soldering tips, or the difference between 1950s and 1970s neon gas mixtures, not dead spouses and old books. “You got plans after your shift ends?” she asks, nodding at the booth. The teen is currently juggling three picture books for a group of laughing kindergartners. “I was gonna grab churros and head down to the lake to watch the fireworks. Was gonna go alone, but… company’d be nice.”
His first instinct is to say no. To make up an excuse about having a sign to finish, or his dog needing to be let out, even though his dog died two years prior. It feels wrong, like he’s sneaking around behind Maria’s back, like if he says yes he’s throwing all those years away. But she’s looking at him like she knows exactly what he’s thinking, and he finds himself nodding before he can stop himself.
Her shift ends ten minutes later. They walk side by side down the fair’s main drag, close enough that their arms brush every few steps, each time he flinches a little like he’s been burned. They buy a plate of churros covered in cinnamon sugar, split one between them, and when he passes her a napkin their fingers bump. He yanks his hand back so fast he knocks a crumb off the plate, mumbles an apology.
She stops walking, turns to face him, and leans in just a little, close enough that he can see the tiny freckles across her nose. “I get it, you know,” she says, soft enough that the band down the street almost drowns her out. “I went on one coffee date six months after Rick died. I left halfway through, sat in my car and cried for an hour, felt like I’d cheated on him. Like he was watching me, disappointed.”
Javi blinks. He’d never said a word about his guilt to anyone, not even his sister. “I thought I was the only one that stupid,” he says, and it comes out a laugh, rough and wobbly.
“Not stupid,” she says, and this time when she brushes her arm against his, she doesn’t pull away. “Just loyal. There’s a difference.”
They keep walking toward the lake, and he lets his arm stay pressed to hers. He buys her a cone of pink cotton candy on the way, and when she gets a smudge of it on her left cheek, he reaches up and wipes it off with his thumb, slow, doesn’t jerk his hand back this time. She smiles up at him, and he doesn’t feel that sharp twist of guilt in his gut anymore, just a warm, soft hum, like the neon tubes he works on right before they light up.
They spread out a faded quilt she keeps in her tote bag on the grass by the lake, sit down side by side. The first firework bursts overhead right then, bright red, painting the water and her face the same deep rose color. She laces her fingers through his, her hand soft from years of turning book pages, fitting perfectly against his calloused, scarred one from decades of holding soldering irons. He doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t want to.
The last firework fades to a wisp of silver smoke against the dark sky, and she turns to him, leans in, and kisses him. It’s soft, slow, tastes like cinnamon sugar and cotton candy and the cherry seltzer she’d drunk on the walk over. He wraps one arm around her waist, pulls her a little closer, and doesn’t feel like he’s betraying anyone at all. A kid yells somewhere down the shore, laughing, and somewhere a radio plays an old George Strait deep cut.
