Rafe Marquez is 59, has made his living restoring vintage outboard motors for 27 years, and hasn’t attended a neighborhood block party since his wife died of breast cancer eight years prior. His flaw? He’s spent so long clinging to the quiet, predictable routine of sanding carburetors and swapping spark plugs in his converted garage shop that he’s forgotten how to talk to anyone who doesn’t know the difference between a 1962 Evinrude Fisherman and a 1963 Johnson Sea-Horse off the top of their head. His next-door neighbor Marnie had all but dragged him out of his house that afternoon, saying if he spent one more Saturday alone covered in two-stroke oil he was going to turn into a rusted motor himself.
He’d been hovering by the rolling beer cooler for 20 minutes, half-empty can of PBR sweating in his grip, when he reached for a second and his knuckles brushed someone else’s. He pulled back fast, ready to mumble an apology, and froze. The woman in front of him was 50-something, sun streaks in her dark curly hair, a smudge of cobalt blue dust high on her left cheekbone, the same dust crusted under the edges of her short, chipped nails. She laughed, low and warm, and didn’t yank her hand away for a full two seconds, long enough for him to feel the callus on the side of her index finger, the kind you get from gripping a heavy tool for hours a day. “I was reaching for the seltzer,” she said, nodding at the cooler, “but I’ll let you cut the line if you tell me if that 1968 Evinrude you hauled into your shop last week actually runs.”
He blinked. He’d hauled that motor home at 7 a.m. the previous Saturday, before anyone on the block was usually awake. “You’re the one who bought the old Tate cottage three doors down,” he said, instead of answering her question. She nodded, held out her hand. “Lila Ruiz. I blow glass. Built a studio in the back shed.” Her palm was warm when he shook it, calloused all over, no frilly polish, no jewelry, just that same blue dust smudged on her forearm. She leaned against the cooler next to him, close enough that he could smell jasmine perfume mixed with the sharp, metallic scent of molten glass he’d only ever caught once at a county fair years ago. Her shoulder was three inches from his, no more, and every time she turned to look at him her eyes lingered, not the quick polite scan most people gave him when they saw his grease-stained jeans and work boots, but a slow drag up to his face, like she was cataloging every silver hair at his temple, every faint grease stain under his fingernail.
The conflict hit him square in the chest ten minutes into the conversation, when she mentioned her ex-husband, Jimmie Cole, the guy Rafe had been best friends with for 15 years until they’d had a blowout fight over a fishing boat they were restoring together, Jimmie running off with $12,000 of Rafe’s savings and vanishing off the face of the earth. Rafe’s throat went dry. He’d spent 20 years hating Jimmie, but some leftover, stupid sense of loyalty made him take a half step back, ready to mumble an excuse and leave. “I can’t do this,” he said, blunt as always. “Jimmie was my friend. This feels wrong.”
Lila snort-laughed so hard seltzer fizzed out her nose a little, and she wiped it on the back of her hand like she didn’t care who saw. “Jimmie left me for a 22-year-old bartender in Boise 12 years ago,” she said, leaning in closer now, close enough that her shoulder pressed fully against his, the heat of her skin seeping through his thin cotton work shirt. “And for the record? He stole that money from you, not the other way around. He bragged about it for years. Said you were too much of a soft touch to come after him.”
Rafe’s ears burned. He’d spent two decades wondering if he’d been the one in the wrong, if he’d pushed Jimmie too hard over the boat repairs, if he’d been unreasonable. All that guilt melted fast, replaced by something sharper, warmer, when Lila tilted her head up at him, the string lights strung between the oak trees catching the blue dust on her cheek, her knee brushing his when she shifted her weight. They talked for another hour, over the roar of kids screaming on the slip n slide down the block, the smell of grilled bratwurst and citronella candles drifting through the air, someone’s portable radio playing old Merle Haggard deep cuts. When the first set of fireworks went off over the bay a half mile away, Lila flinched a little, leaned into him fully, her hand landing on his arm for a second before she pulled it back, like she’d forgotten herself.
He didn’t even hesitate when she asked if he wanted to walk back to her cottage to see her studio, said she’d been working on a series of glass sculptures shaped like old outboard motor parts, the curves of carburetors and flywheels spun from cobalt and clear glass. He left his half-finished beer on top of the cooler, didn’t even stop to say goodbye to Marnie, his boots thudding on the sidewalk next to hers, her hand brushing his every few steps, neither of them pulling away. She unlocked the side gate to her yard, held it open for him, and the last thing he smelled before he stepped inside was jasmine and molten glass, the low hum of her studio furnace already drifting through the screen door.
