Javi Mendez is 52, runs a custom commercial sign fabrication shop out of a converted two-car garage in West Asheville, and has not voluntarily attended a neighborhood event since his wife filed for divorce eight years prior. His only part-time employee, a 19-year-old art student named Lila, practically frog-marched him to the fire department’s annual chili cook-off that Saturday, saying if he spent one more weekend holed up sanding cedar planks and restoring 1970s first baseman’s gloves he was going to turn into a piece of shop dust himself. He’d showed up in the same work boots he’d worn all week, caked in sawdust and spray paint overspray, a faded Braves hoodie pulled over his flannel, and planned to eat one bowl of chili, make polite small talk with the fire chief, and bolt in under 45 minutes.
That plan fell apart 12 minutes after he arrived, when he leaned over the picnic table to grab a paper napkin and a woman’s elbow knocked hard against his bicep. He looked up, and it was his new next door neighbor, the one he’d actively avoided for the three weeks she’d lived in the blue bungalow beside his. The neighborhood grapevine had already delivered a full dossier: 38, traveling ICU nurse, left a husband in Portland to move east alone, “the kind of woman who brings drama wherever she goes,” per the retired teacher who lived three houses down. Javi had nodded when he heard that, told himself he had enough drama to last a lifetime, and had crossed the street to his truck more than once when he saw her out watering her front yard tomato plants to avoid having to introduce himself. Now she was standing six inches from him, her wavy auburn hair pulled back in a messy braid, a smudge of chili powder on her left cheek, holding a paper bowl piled high with cornbread. She smelled like coconut sunscreen and peppermint gum, sharp and sweet against the smoky chili and charcoal fumes hanging over the field.
“You’re Javi, right?” She held eye contact longer than most people did, no polite dart away after two seconds, just a half-smirk like she knew exactly how hard he’d been working to ignore her. “I got a package of yours delivered to my porch last week. Some kind of specialty wood stain? I’ve been meaning to bring it over, but you seem to vanish every time I step outside.” He felt his neck heat up, cursed himself for being so obvious. He mumbled an apology, said he’d been swamped with a rush order for three new signs for the brewery district downtown. She laughed, a low, warm sound that cut through the yells of the kids playing tag and the firefighters arguing over whose chili had the best heat level. “I figured. I see the lights on in your shop until 10 most nights. You work harder than anyone I’ve met around here.”
He could feel half the people at the picnic tables glancing over, knew what they were thinking: the reclusive sign guy talking to the new woman with the messy divorce. For half a second he wanted to make an excuse, walk away, avoid the gossip that would be circulating by Sunday morning. But then she shifted closer, her shoulder brushing his, and tapped the thin, silvery scar running down his left forearm, the one he’d gotten three years prior when a sheet of 16-gauge aluminum slipped off his work table and sliced through his flannel and skin. “How’d you get that?” she asked, her fingers light against his skin for just a beat before she pulled her hand back. He told her the story, and she listened, actually listened, no half-hearted nods while she scanned the crowd for someone more interesting. When he finished, she said she had a matching scar on her calf from a car accident her senior year of college, and hiked the hem of her jeans up an inch to show him, the pale line snaking just above her ankle boot.
By the time the fire chief announced the chili winner, Javi had forgotten he’d planned to leave early. They’d wandered to the edge of the field, away from the crowd, leaning against the split-rail fence while they finished their cornbread. She told him about working in ICU during the worst of the pandemic, why she’d left Portland, how she’d bought the bungalow sight unseen because she’d always wanted to live somewhere where the trees turned red in the fall and people didn’t pretend their lives were perfect. He told her about the divorce, about the minor league team he’d worked for right out of high school, about the collection of 27 vintage ball gloves he kept on shelves in his living room.
When the sun started to dip below the tree line, she said she had to head home to feed her rescue cat. Before she turned to leave, she asked if he’d be willing to make a small custom sign for the spare bedroom she was turning into a plant nook, said she’d pay him double his usual rate. He told her she didn’t have to pay him, that he had enough scrap cedar in the shop to make half a dozen signs, she just had to bring coffee the next day when she came to pick out the stain color. “Extra cream, no sugar, right?” she said, and he blinked, he had no idea she’d noticed his coffee order at the general store the week prior. She winked, turned, and walked back toward the neighborhood, her braid swinging over her shoulder. He stood there for another five minutes, leaning against the fence, watching the last of the cook-off crowd pack up their coolers, and didn’t care a single bit about whatever gossip the neighborhood might cook up. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, deleted the alarm he’d set for 6 a.m. to get a head start on the brewery signs, and decided he’d sleep in 30 minutes the next day.
