Rudy Galvan, 62, retired deepwater oil rig safety inspector, had skipped every town event in the three years he’d lived outside Bay St. Louis. His whole post-retirement routine revolved around his 1978 Boston Whaler, cold canned beer, and the unspoken rule that he didn’t owe anyone small talk, not after 32 years of checking harnesses and signing incident reports for crews that didn’t want to listen, not after his wife Linda died of ovarian cancer eight years prior. His biggest flaw, if you asked the next door neighbor who dropped off the crawfish boil flyer on his boat hull two days prior, was that he’d turned stubbornness into a personality trait, convinced any connection not related to engine parts or fishing lures was a waste of time. He showed up to the fire department fundraiser only because the neighbor had helped him haul a 115 horsepower outboard to his driveway three weeks prior, and he hated being in debt.
He stood in the back of the park pavilion, faded navy work shirt dotted with old grease stains, steel toe boots sinking a little into the damp grass, picking meat out of crawfish tails and ignoring the people who tried to wave him over to their tables. The Zydeco band blared from a makeshift stage at the front, the air smelled like cayenne, boiled corn, and cheap draft beer, and he was already planning his exit when he spotted the pecan pie on the dessert table.
He walked over, wiping his hands on the thigh of his jeans, and reached for the last slice on a chipped ceramic plate at the exact same time a woman with streaks of silver running through her dark brown hair did. Their knuckles brushed. Her hand was cool, smudged with black ink at the first joint of her index finger, a thin callus along the side from what he’d later learn was 20 years of turning book pages. He flinched like he’d touched a hot spark plug, but she didn’t pull away. She held eye contact, crinkles fanning out at the corners of her hazel eyes, and grinned. “You’re the guy who’s been sanding that Whaler in his driveway for six months straight. I drive past your place every morning on my way to the bookstore. I was starting to think you were gonna polish the hull straight through to the fiberglass.”
Her name was Marnie, 58, owned the used bookstore on Main Street, had lived in the area her whole life. She leaned against the edge of the table, her shoulder no more than six inches from his, and he fought the stupid urge to lean in closer, to smell the lavender and vanilla of her shampoo over the cayenne in the air. He mumbled something about the carburetor being a pain to source parts for, and she laughed, a low, raspy sound like she smoked one menthol a day after closing up shop. She told him her dad had the exact same model of Whaler when she was a kid, that they’d go out every weekend to catch redfish in the barrier islands, that she hadn’t been out on the water since he died 10 years prior.
For 20 minutes they talked, and Rudy alternated between giddy, lightheaded excitement that someone actually cared about his stupid boat project, and a sharp, twisting disgust in his gut that he was even enjoying talking to a woman who wasn’t Linda. He’d spent eight years convincing himself that any kind of attraction, any new connection, was a betrayal, that he was supposed to spend the rest of his life alone, tinkering with his boat and not bothering anyone. He kept waiting for an excuse to leave, for her to say something that would let him bow out and go back to his quiet driveway, but she didn’t. She kept asking questions, about the rig, about where he’d lived before, about the best lures for redfish this time of year, and he found himself answering, no snark, no deflection, just honest.
When a group of kids ran past, knocking into the table, she stumbled a little, and he reached out to steady her, his hand wrapping around her elbow for half a second. The fabric of her yellow sundress was soft under his palm, and he could feel the faint heat of her skin through the thin material, and when she looked up at him, her face a little flushed, she didn’t step back. “You gonna take that boat out anytime soon?” she asked, tilting her head, her voice just loud enough to hear over the band. “Or are you just gonna keep it as driveway decor?”
The question hung between them, and Rudy’s first instinct was to lie, to say the engine wasn’t ready, that he had too much work to do, that he didn’t take passengers. He opened his mouth to say it, but then he saw the way she was biting the corner of her lower lip, like she was nervous he’d say no, and the lie died in his throat. “It’ll be ready by Saturday,” he said, before he could overthink it. “I got the new carburetor in the garage. I can grab some beer, bring a cooler. If you wanna bring that pecan pie.”
She grinned, pulling her phone out of her bag to exchange numbers, and when she typed her contact info into his old flip phone, her hand brushed his again, intentional this time. He left the boil 10 minutes later, declining offers to stay for the raffle, his face hot under the brim of his baseball cap. He pulled into his driveway 15 minutes after that, parked his truck, and stared at the Whaler for a full minute, the carburetor he’d ordered three weeks prior still sitting in the passenger seat of the truck, untouched.
He grabbed his toolbox off the porch, pulled the shrink-wrapped part out of the truck cab, and knelt down next to the engine bay, already pulling the old, rusted part loose before he could even process how fast his heart was beating.
