Elio Ruiz, 53, makes his living restoring vintage neon signs for diners, dive bars, and tiny coastal towns up and down the Pacific Northwest. His hands are perpetually smudged with phosphor dust and solder residue, the nails chipped from prying cracked glass tubes free from rusted metal frames, and he’s got a thin, pale scar snaking across his left knuckle from a 1960s bowling alley sign that exploded on his workbench last winter. He’s lived in the tiny Oregon coast town of Neahkahnie for 8 years, ever since his divorce, and he avoids community events like they carry a contagious strain of small talk he’s not vaccinated against. The only reason he’s at his sister’s summer block party now is because she threatened to cut off her weekly Sunday tamale drop if he bailed again.
He’s leaning against the splintered wooden post of the beer tent, sipping a hazy IPA that’s warmer than he likes, when he feels a light brush against the toe of his scuffed work boot. He looks down, sees a strappy leather sandal, painted toenails the color of ripe blackberries, then follows the line of tanned calf up to a faded linen sundress, then to the face he’s only ever seen through the fogged front window of the town library. Clara Marlow, 49, the new librarian who moved to town three months prior, who he’d dropped off a refurbished “READ” neon sign for a month back, who he’d avoided making eye contact with the entire time he’d hung it, too flustered by the way she’d laughed when he’d tripped over a stack of picture books by the door.
She’s holding a plastic cup of rosé, her hair pulled back in a loose braid that’s got a few stray strands stuck to her sun-warmed forehead, and she’s standing close enough he can smell coconut sunscreen and the faint, sharp scent of cedar, the same kind he uses to line the boxes for his finished signs. “You’re the neon guy, right?” she says, holding his gaze longer than polite small talk calls for, the corner of her mouth tugging up in a smirk like she knows he’s been avoiding her. He nods, stumbles over a greeting, his throat drier than it was five seconds prior. He’d spent the last three months convincing himself she was way out of his league, the kind of woman who reads literary fiction and goes to wine tastings, who wouldn’t give a guy who spends 12 hours a day covered in solder a second glance. Half the town calls her the “ice queen librarian” behind her back, says she never smiles, never hangs around after events, never flirts with anyone. That’s the thing about small towns, he thinks, everyone’s got a story they’ve decided is true before they ask a single question.
A light drizzle picks up out of nowhere, cold, sharp drops splattering against his bare arms, and the crowd around them erupts in yells, everyone scrambling for cover under tents and store awnings. Before he can think to move, Clara steps closer to him, their shoulders pressing together under the tiny, frayed beer tent awning, her bare arm warm against his. They both reach for the stack of paper napkins on the table next to them at the same time, their hands brushing, her fingers soft against his calloused palm. He tenses up for half a second, half disgusted with himself for even letting himself imagine this, half thrumming with a sharp, giddy excitement he hasn’t felt since he was 20 years old.
He mentions offhand that he’s got a half-restored 1950s “OCEAN VIEW” motel sign in his workshop, the glass tubes glowing pale pink and sky blue when he tests them at night, and her eyes light up, like he just offered her a first edition of her favorite book. “I’ve always loved old neon,” she says, leaning in a little more, her voice lower now, only loud enough for him to hear over the patter of rain on the tent roof. “No one’s ever offered to show me their workshop before.”
He hesitates for two beats, then asks if she wants to come back with him. He’s got cold horchata in the fridge, he says, and a stack of old photos of the signs he’s restored over the years. She nods immediately, grinning now, the kind of wide, unguarded smile no one in town has ever mentioned seeing.
The rain slows to a soft mist by the time they walk the three blocks to his workshop, his converted garage set back from the road behind a row of wild blackberry bushes. Her hand brushes his every few steps, light, intentional, not accidental this time. He fumbles with the lock on the door for a second, then pushes it open, flicking the switch that powers the half-finished motel sign. The pink and blue light spills out across the gravel driveway, gilding the edges of her braid, turning her sundress the color of twilight. She steps across the threshold before him, her shoulder brushing his chest as she passes.
