Moe Sorrentino, 62, retired linotype operator turned small-town letterpress shop owner, had spent 22 years perfecting the art of avoiding social events. He hated small talk, hated the way neighbors poked their noses into his business, hated that everyone in this upstate New York hamlet still treated him like the new guy three years after he moved. The only reason he was standing at a rickety folding table at the fire department chili cook-off was his 16-year-old granddaughter, who’d signed him up without asking, said his no-bean, three-meat chili was too good to keep locked up in his kitchen. The air reeked of cumin, wood smoke, and the sickly sweet cotton candy a local scout troop was selling off to the side, and his flannel shirt was already sticky with sweat from standing over the propane burner for an hour.
Lena Marquez set up her own station right next to his ten minutes after he arrived. 58, a vet tech who’d moved to town three months prior from Portland, she was wearing a faded Johnny Cash tee, work boots caked in cow manure from an early morning farm call, and chipped cherry-red nail polish. She dropped a stack of paper sample cups halfway to her table, leaned over to grab them, and her bare forearm brushed his. He caught a whiff of coconut shampoo mixed with smoked paprika, and she laughed when she pulled back, the sound rough like she smoked a pack a day (she did, only on farm calls where she had to deal with stubborn bulls and panicking horse owners). “Sorry about that,” she said, holding eye contact a full two beats longer than polite. He found himself smiling back, which he almost never did for strangers.
They bantered back and forth for the next two hours while they served samples to the line of people snaking through the parking lot. She teased him for his hardline “no beans in chili” rule, said he was being a snob about a dish invented for poor folks to stretch leftovers. He teased her for putting pineapple in her vegetarian chili, said she was committing a crime against every Texan who ever lived. When she passed him an extra jar of habanero hot sauce he’d mentioned needing, their fingers brushed for half a second, and he felt a jolt run up his arm that had nothing to do with the cold glass. He told himself he was being an idiot. He hadn’t felt that kind of spark for anyone since his ex-wife Carol had left him 22 years prior, cheated with his boss, taken half his retirement savings, and moved to Florida without so much as a note explaining why. He’d sworn he’d never let anyone get close again; the idea of being that vulnerable again made his stomach twist, but he couldn’t stop glancing at the way her dark hair fell over her eyes when she bent to stir her pot.
The contest wrapped up as the sun started to dip below the tree line. Moe took second place in the meat category, Lena took first in vegetarian, and they hauled their coolers over to an empty picnic bench tucked away from the last of the crowd. Her hip bumped his when they stepped over a pothole in the gravel, and she didn’t step back right away, stayed close enough that he could feel the heat off her shoulder through his shirt. She handed him a cold IPA from her cooler, and offhandedly mentioned she was originally from Queens, that her cousin Carol used to live there, married a linotype operator back in the 90s. Moe froze, beer halfway to his mouth. That was his ex.
He tensed, ready to stand up, grab his cooler, and leave without a word. The old anger bubbled up hot in his chest; he hated anything tied to Carol, hated that he’d even wasted two hours talking to someone related to her. But then Lena snort-laughed, took a sip of her beer, and said Carol had always been a selfish jerk, cheated on that linotype guy with his own boss, took half his money, never even thanked him for helping move her sick mom into a nursing home right before the split. Moe blinked. No one had ever said that to him before. Everyone who’d known them back in Queens had taken Carol’s side, said he was too stubborn, too focused on his work, too hard to love. “I’m that guy,” he said, quiet.
Lena didn’t look surprised. She said she’d figured it out as soon as he mentioned he was a linotype operator from Queens, just didn’t want to bring it up right away, knew he’d probably run. He admitted he had been seconds from doing just that, that the idea of being tied to Carol in any way made his skin crawl, but he liked talking to her, liked that she didn’t treat him like the grumpy shutoff everyone else in town did. She leaned in a little, her knee brushing his under the table, and said she liked talking to him too, liked that he didn’t pretend to be nice when he hated small talk.
They sat there for another hour, talking until the last of the string lights were turned off and the fire department crew was packing up the remaining folding tables. He asked her if she wanted to come by his shop the next morning, he had a set of vintage 1950s cat letterpress blocks he’d been meaning to turn into prints, he’d heard she fostered kittens for the local animal shelter, thought she might want to pick out some to hang in the clinic. She grinned, said she’d be there at 10, would bring the peach pie she’d baked the night before, extra crust, just how she liked it.
She stood up to heft her coolers into her beat-up silver pickup, paused when she walked past him, and squeezed his wrist gently, her calloused fingers rough against his skin from years of holding nervous dogs and trimming horse hooves. When she turned to climb into her truck and wave goodbye, he didn’t flinch, for the first time in 22 years.
