Elias Voss, 57, makes his living restoring vintage travel trailers out of a drafty converted barn 12 miles outside Asheville, North Carolina. He’s stubborn to a fault, hasn’t accepted a casual social invite in the eight years since his wife packed her bags and moved to Portland with a whitewater rafting guide, convinced any deviation from his work-sleep-work routine will tank the small business he built from scratch. He only agreed to come to the town’s annual fall chili cookoff because his 19-year-old part-time employee, Lila, begged him for 20 minutes straight, saying she’d entered her late grandma’s Texas red recipe and needed a friendly face on the judging panel.
He’s leaning against a splintered oak fence post 20 feet from the main crowd, half-finished bowl of chili in one hand, when she walks up. She’s Marnie, ex-wife of his go-to parts supplier, the guy he drops $3,000 a month with for rare Airstream panels and vintage appliance parts. He’s spoken to her three times total, all quick waves across the counter at the parts shop, before she and her ex split last spring. She’s holding two cold IPA cans, steam curling off the collar of her well-worn buffalo plaid flannel, a smudge of chili powder on her left cheek. She holds one can out to him, and when he reaches to take it, their fingers brush. He feels the rough callus on the pad of her thumb, from the woodworking side hustle she runs out of her garage, and flinches like he touched a live wire—he hasn’t had non-transactional physical contact with anyone outside a quick hug from Lila in years.
The bluegrass band playing by the food trucks kicks up a louder tune, a group of drunk college kids barrels past between them, and she steps closer to avoid being knocked into a folding table full of cornbread. Her shoulder presses firm into his bicep, and he catches a whiff of cedar sawdust and vanilla shampoo, no cloying perfume, just something warm and lived-in. She teases him about hiding in his barn all the time, says she saw the 1962 Airstream he restored for her sister last summer, that the custom tile backsplash in the kitchen was the coolest thing she’d seen all year. He blinks, surprised he was on her radar at all. He mumbles a thanks, stares at the scuffed toes of his work boots for 10 seconds before he works up the nerve to look at her again. She’s still looking at him, holding eye contact longer than polite company calls for, no teasing smirk, just soft, amused interest. He notices flecks of honey gold in her dark brown eyes, the faint laugh line fanning out from the corner of her left cheek.
She mentions she bought a beat-up 1958 Scotty Sportsman trailer off a guy in Tennessee three weeks prior, tiny 13-foot thing, rotted floor, dented aluminum siding, that she’d been meaning to ask someone to help her fix it up, was going to ask her ex but they don’t speak unless it’s about their kid’s college tuition. She hesitates for half a second, then reaches out, brushes a fleck of ground beef off the front of his own flannel shirt, her knuckles brushing his chest through the thin fabric for a beat longer than necessary. She asks if he’d be interested in taking the job, no rush, pays double his usual rate, she doesn’t care if it takes six months to finish.
His first instinct is to say no. His parts supplier is petty as hell, would cut him off entirely if he found out Elias was working for his ex, would tank his entire business over a perceived slight. He feels that familiar twist of disgust at the idea of being the guy who causes drama, who messes up a good thing just for a little attention. But then she smiles, the little gap between her two front teeth showing, and he realizes he’s been starving for this, for someone to talk to him like he’s more than the trailer guy, like he’s a person who exists outside the four walls of his barn. He says yes before he can overthink it.
She grins, pulls a crumpled napkin out of her jeans pocket, scribbles her cell number on it in bright purple ink, tucks it into the breast pocket of his flannel, pats it once with her palm. She says she’ll call him Monday morning to talk through the specs, that she’s got a garage he can work out of if he doesn’t want to haul the Scotty all the way to his barn. She waves and walks back to her group of friends, glances over her shoulder halfway there and winks at him. He pulls the napkin out of his pocket, runs his thumb over the smudged ink, takes a long sip of the cold IPA she gave him. The beer is crisp, hoppy, perfect, and for the first time in eight years, he doesn’t dread the start of the work week.
