Rico Marquez, 52, makes his living restoring vintage camper vans out of a cinder block shop on the edge of Eugene, Oregon, and still has permanent crescent-shaped grease stains under his fingernails he can never fully scrub away. He’s been flying solo since his wife left him for a van life travel influencer eight years prior, spends most weekends either sanding fiberglass until his arms ache or losing $20 at poker with the guys from the local auto body shop. He’s at the annual Willamette Valley food truck rally only because his buddy begged him to bring the fully restored 1972 Volkswagen Westfalia he just finished for a client to display, and he figured free brisket and cold IPA was better than another night alone watching old John Wayne Westerns on his couch. The sun hangs low, painting the surrounding oak trees a soft burnt orange, the air smells like smoked meat and cedar, kids chase each other with glow sticks slung around their wrists, and he’s leaning against the Westfalia’s chrome bumper sipping his second beer when she slides into the empty spot next to him.
He recognizes her immediately. Lila Bennett, his next door neighbor’s daughter, the kid who used to climb over his backyard fence at 10 years old to steal cherry popsicles from his chest freezer, who he’d helped build a pinewood derby car for when her dad was deployed overseas. She’s 38 now, just moved back to town two weeks prior after a messy split from her fiance in Portland, he’d waved at her from his driveway a few times but they hadn’t exchanged more than 10 words until now. She’s wearing cutoff denim shorts and a faded 1998 Pearl Jam tour tee, her dark hair pulled back in a messy braid streaked with a single strand of silver at the temple, and she smells like coconut sunscreen and lime seltzer when she sits so close their shoulders brush. “You fixed that Westfalia even better than I thought you would,” she says, nodding at the van, and her voice is lower than he remembers, rough around the edges like she’s been laughing all day.
He cracks a joke about how the rust on the undercarriage was so bad he almost turned the job down, takes another sip of beer, and when a group of rowdy teens squeeze past the line for the brisket truck, she shifts closer, her bare thigh pressing against the worn denim of his jeans for three full seconds before she pulls back, cheeks pink, mumbles an apology. He tells her it’s fine, and his mouth feels dry all of a sudden. He’s spent eight years actively not looking at women like that, telling himself he’s too old for the mess of dating, that he’s better off with his power tools and his quiet, empty house. The thought that he’s noticing the way freckles stretch across her nose when she smiles, the way her fingers brush his knuckles when she passes him a crumpled napkin to wipe a smudge of barbecue sauce off his jaw, makes his stomach twist with a weird, hot mix of guilt and desire. She’s his neighbor’s kid, for Christ’s sake. He should be asking her how her mom’s garden is doing, not wondering what her peachy lip gloss tastes like.
They talk for another 45 minutes, and she tells him she just bought a beat up 1964 Airstream Sovereign she found on Facebook Marketplace, wants to fix it up to live in while she works her remote graphic design job. She leans in when he talks about how to patch the thin aluminum skin without warping it, her face so close he can count the individual pale lashes at the corner of her eye, and she doesn’t pull away when their knees knock together under the foldable plastic table they’re leaning against. “I have no clue what I’m doing,” she says, laughing, and he tells her he can come take a look at it tomorrow, give her a fair quote for the work. She grins, leans in to kiss his cheek like they’re old family friends, and he turns his head at the exact wrong (or right) time, their lips brushing for half a second, soft and sweet, the faint taste of cherry seltzer lingering on her mouth. He doesn’t pull back. Neither does she, for a single beat, before she pulls away, cheeks flushed bright, a small, knowing smile playing on her lips.
They lock in plans for 10 a.m. the next day at his shop, she tells him she’ll bring cold brew and glazed donuts from the old bakery downtown he loves, and she walks off to meet her mom by the taco truck, waving over her shoulder as she goes. Rico leans back against the Westfalia, finishes the last sip of his beer, touches his bottom lip with the tip of his finger, still feeling the ghost of her kiss. He’d spent years thinking the best parts of his life were behind him, that all he had left was sanding fiberglass and losing poker games to guys twice his age. He grins, wipes the last of the barbecue sauce off his chin with the back of his hand, and makes a mental note to sweep the sawdust off the shop’s couch before she shows up tomorrow.
