Rafe Mendez, 52, has restored vintage outboard motors out of his cinder block garage on the edge of Traverse City for 21 years. His biggest flaw, if you ask his only remaining high school buddy, is that he’s hidden from every local community event since his ex-wife left him for a Grand Rapids real estate agent seven years prior. He swears he’s not bitter, he just hates the way the town’s gossip circle stares at him like he’s a broken motor they can’t wait to take apart for parts. He only agreed to help haul cast iron fryers to the fire department’s annual summer fish fry because his buddy promised him two free cases of his favorite homebrewed IPA as payment.
The air smelled like fried cod, charcoal lighter fluid, and cut grass when he showed up, wiping grease from a 1972 Johnson he’d been tinkering with that morning on the thigh of his faded Carhartt jeans. He grabbed a plastic cup of cheap draft beer, leaned against a pine tree at the edge of the lot, and planned to slip out as soon as the fryers were set up and he could collect his beer. That plan fell apart when Elara Voss walked up, barefoot, her strappy canvas sandals dangling from one hand, a can of blackberry seltzer in the other. She was his ex-wife’s younger cousin, the one who’d spent two weeks visiting every summer when she was a teen, the one he’d actively avoided since she moved into the old rotting cottage two lots down from his garage a month prior.
She stopped so close he could smell coconut sunscreen and the faint, sweet tang of the blackberry seltzer fizzing out of her can. She held his gaze for three full beats longer than polite, grinning like she knew exactly how uncomfortable he was. “I’ve been meaning to knock on your shop door,” she said, nodding at the grease smudge on his left jaw. “Found a 1968 Evinrude rotting in the boathouse behind the cottage. Figured you’re the only guy within 50 miles who wouldn’t charge me more than the motor’s worth to fix it.” When she handed him a paper plate stacked with a piece of crispy cod and two hushpuppies, their fingers brushed. The contact sent a jolt up his arm he hadn’t felt in years, and he fumbled the napkin he’d been holding, dropping it in the gravel at her feet.
She laughed, a low, warm sound, and bent to pick it up, her shoulder brushing the outside of his thigh as she stood back up. He glanced over at the table of retired fire department wives a few feet away, all of them staring right at them, whispering behind their paper plates. His first instinct was to make an excuse, grab his beer, and bolt. He didn’t need a new round of gossip about him hitting on his ex’s cousin, didn’t need the drama of his ex blowing up his phone at 2 a.m. screaming about family loyalty. But then Elara nodded at the hand-painted sign he’d hung on his shop door the year prior, the one that read “NO RICH GUYS WITH TOY SPEEDBOATS ALLOWED” in chipped neon orange paint, and said she’d laughed so hard when she saw it she almost drove her beat-up Subaru into a ditch.
He didn’t remember suggesting they walk down to the lake shore to get away from the noise, but suddenly they were tramping through the tall dune grass, the sound of the fry crowd fading behind them, crickets chirping loud enough to drown out the distant hum of traffic on the highway. The water was still warm from the July sun, and they waded ankle deep for a minute, watching the sun dip pink below the horizon. When she stepped on a smooth, slippery rock, she grabbed his bicep to steady herself, and didn’t let go even after she’d found her footing. “I know you’re avoiding me because of my cousin,” she said, soft enough that he almost didn’t hear her over the waves lapping at the shore. “I don’t care what she thinks. I’ve thought you were cute since I was 16 and you taught me how to water ski behind your old fishing boat. I just never said anything back then because you were married.”
He stared at her for a long time, watching the pink sunset glow catch in the streaks of auburn in her dark hair, and realized he didn’t care about the gossip, didn’t care about his ex’s temper tantrums, didn’t care about any of the stupid rules he’d made for himself after the divorce to keep himself safe. He asked her if she wanted to come by his shop at 10 the next morning, that he had a box of 1968 Evinrude parts in the back he’d been hoarding for years for no good reason. She grinned, fished a crumpled ticket stub from the pocket of her cutoff jeans, scribbled her cell number on the back in blue ballpoint, and shoved it deep into the front pocket of his Carhartts, patting his chest twice with her palm before she pulled her hand away.
They walked back to the lot together, and she waved at him over her shoulder as she climbed into her Subaru, her sandals still dangling from her rearview mirror. He stood there for five full minutes after she pulled out of the gravel lot, holding the crumpled ticket stub through the thin fabric of his pocket, while the distant sound of the fryer bell and crowd laughter drifted over the darkening water.
