Rafe Marquez, 53, vintage travel poster restorer, had shown up to the Astoria fall oyster roast only because his 72-year-old next door neighbor had left a lemon meringue pie on his porch with a sticky note demanding he help haul picnic tables for three hours. He’d planned to slip out the second the last table was bolted down, cold IPA in hand, and spend the rest of the night touching up the faded red ink on a 1968 Mount Hood ski poster he’d picked up at an estate sale the week prior.
He was leaning against a splintered fir table, wiping oyster brine off his calloused fingers with a crumpled napkin, when he heard the laugh. Loud, unselfconscious, a little rough around the edges, the kind of laugh that cut through the misty rain and the chatter of the crowd. He looked up, and his jaw tightened. It was Elara Voss, 48, the city councilwoman who’d spearheaded the commercial rent hike that was supposed to price him out of his shop of six years. He’d written three angry emails to her office, ranted about her to every customer who’d stepped foot in his store that month, even drafted a petition he’d chickened out of circulating.
She was wearing a faded gray Pendleton flannel over a black thermal, rain boots caked in mud from the wet field, her blonde hair pulled back in a messy braid stuck through with a sprig of fir someone had tucked there as a joke. She was balancing a paper plate piled high with grilled oysters and a paper cup of spiced pear cider, not looking where she was going, when she tripped over a cooler leg and stumbled straight into him.
Her free hand slammed flat against his chest, hard enough to knock a little air out of him. He could feel the heat of her palm through his thick work flannel, could smell cedar shampoo and spiced cider on her when she looked up at him, wide-eyed and apologetic. “Oh shit, I am so sorry, these boots have zero traction on wet grass,” she said, steadying herself, her fingers lingering on his chest for half a beat longer than necessary before she pulled them away.
He opened his mouth to snap at her about the rent hike, to tell her she ought to watch where she was going when she wasn’t voting to put small business owners out on the street, but the words died in his throat when she squinted at him, recognition clicking. “Wait, you’re Rafe, right? The poster restorer on Marine Drive? I’ve been meaning to stop by your shop for months, I have a 1972 Cannon Beach poster my mom left me that got water damaged in a roof leak last winter, every other restorer within 100 miles said it was a lost cause.”
He blinked, thrown. He’d pictured her as the kind of person who decorated her house with mass-produced canvas prints from Target, not someone who cared about 50-year-old travel posters. He grunted, leaning back against the table, taking a slow sip of his IPA. “Depends on how bad the water damage is. Most people give up on them too fast.”
She stepped closer, leaning in when he started explaining how he could lift faded water stains with a mix of gel solvent and acid-free blotting paper, her shoulder brushing his every time a group of kids ran past, her hazel eyes locked on his, no awkward glance away, no fake polite smile. She laughed at his dumb joke about the guy who’d brought him a poster that had been peed on by his golden retriever, snorting so hard cider came out of her nose, and he found himself laughing too, the anger he’d carried toward her for months softening at the edges, like sun melting frost off a window.
It started drizzling harder ten minutes later, the crowd scrambling to pack up tables and coolers, and she offered him a ride back to his shop, since he’d walked the two miles from his house. He hesitated for half a second, then nodded. Her old Subaru Outback smelled like dog hair and pine air freshener, the heat blasting so hard it made his cheeks warm. She reached over to adjust the radio, turning up a Tom Petty deep cut, and her hand brushed the top of his thigh, light and accidental, but it sent a jolt up his spine he hadn’t felt since before his divorce eight years prior.
“About the rent hike,” she said, glancing over at him at a stop sign, her voice quieter than it had been all night. “I know you’re mad. I pushed through a small business grant for historic storefronts last week, though. Your shop qualifies. It’ll cover 75% of your rent increase for three years. I was going to send you the paperwork tomorrow.”
He stared at her, stunned, all the remaining anger in his chest fizzling out completely. He’d been so ready to write her off as a villain, so convinced she didn’t care about the small businesses on the block, he’d never even stopped to ask her why she’d voted for the hike. “You didn’t have to do that,” he said, quiet.
She shrugged, pulling into the parking spot in front of his shop. “I like your store. It’s the kind of place that makes this town feel like home, not just another tourist trap.” She paused, biting her lower lip for half a second, the same nervous tick he’d always found endearing. “You mentioned you had a spare 1972 Cannon Beach poster in the back of your shop earlier. Can I see it?”
He nodded, unlocking the front door, flipping on the string lights strung across the ceiling as they stepped inside. The smell of gum solvent and old paper wrapped around them, warm and familiar. She stepped past him, her hand brushing the back of his as she moved toward the shelf where he kept the unframed posters, her fingers lingering for a split second. He reached over her shoulder to pull the Cannon Beach poster off the shelf, his chest brushing her back, and she tilted her head up to look at him, a small, slow smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.
