Moe Rovelli, 52, makes his living sanding dents out of aluminum camper siding and patching leaky rubber roofs, and he hasn’t attended a town block party in eight years. The last one he went to was two weeks before his wife left, right after he finished the full ground-up restoration of their 1968 Airstream, the one they’d planned to drive from Asheville to Big Sur for their 25th anniversary. He’d only shown up this time because his 72-year-old next door neighbor left a six pack of his favorite hazy IPA on his porch at 10 a.m. with a note that said if he didn’t come man the grill for 45 minutes she’d tell every little old lady in the knitting circle he was single and looking for a date.
The sun beats heavy on the back of his faded Johnny Cash tee, grease popping off the cast iron grates and leaving tiny pink burns on his bare forearms. He’s got three burgers left to flip, already mentally cataloging the list of repairs he needs to knock out on the 1972 Winnebago sitting in his shop bay, when someone’s hip bumps his hard enough to knock his spatula an inch off course.
He turns, ready to snap, and it’s the new neighbor who moved into the cottage three houses down two months prior. They’ve only waved over the split rail fence that runs between their properties, him covered in aluminum dust, her with smudges of watercolor paint on her wrists. She holds a jar of pickled okra in one hand, her other hand brushing a strand of sun-bleached auburn hair off her face, and she’s got a smudge of charcoal on her left cheekbone that she clearly doesn’t know is there. “Sorry,” she says, grinning, as a pack of kids screaming with water guns barrels past her. “Little heathens almost took me out.”
Moe grunts, flipping the last burger, and he’s about to mumble a generic reply and go back to counting down the minutes till he can leave when she nods toward his side yard, the one where he keeps the Airstream parked under a custom carport, covered in a breathable tarp when he’s not messing with it. “That the 1968 Sovereign I see peeking out from under that tarp every time I walk my dog? I’ve been ogling it for weeks. I just bought a beat up 1964 Scotty trailer, been trying to fix the leaky roof myself, and I’m this close to giving up and living in a tent instead.”
She leans in a little to hear him over the old Merle Haggard track playing on the beat up bluetooth speaker on the picnic table, her arm pressing against his through the thin cotton of his shirt. He smells jasmine and cedar in her hair, catches the edge of a faint scar across her knuckle, the kind you get from holding a paintbrush too tight for too many hours. He’s used to talking campers only with clients, only in short, transactional sentences, no extra chatter, but he finds himself telling her the story of the Airstream, how he spent six months working on it after his regular shop hours, how he hand stitched the upholstery himself because his ex-wife said she wanted fabric with sunflowers on it.
He doesn’t know why he tells her that. He hasn’t told anyone that in years. Part of him wants to clamp up, make an excuse, walk back to his shop and lock the door and pretend this conversation never happened. The other part can’t stop looking at the way her green eyes crinkle at the corners when she laughs at his dumb joke about how camper leaks are just built-in humidifiers for people who hate dry air, can’t stop noticing she’s wearing the same scuffed leather work boots he wears, the kind with steel toes and a thick sole that doesn’t slip on wet aluminum.
She mentions she’s a traveling botanical illustrator, that she moved out here to paint the rhododendrons blooming on the Blue Ridge Parkway this month, that she was planning to drive the Scotty up to a dispersed campsite next weekend but she’s terrified the roof will leak if the forecasted thunderstorms hit. Before he can think better of it, Moe blurts out that he’ll come fix her roof tomorrow for free, and if she wants, he’s got the Airstream fully stocked with a fold out desk and a mini fridge, he could drive up with her, she could use it as a studio if the Scotty gets too hot or it rains.
He freezes right after he says it, waiting for her to laugh, or tell him that’s way too forward, or make some excuse to leave. Instead she leans in even closer, her shoulder pressed fully to his now, and grins so wide he can see the tiny gap between her two front teeth. “I was hoping you’d offer,” she says, and her voice is lower than it was a second ago, warm enough that he feels heat creeping up the back of his neck. “I baked a peach pie last night, the kind with bourbon in the crust. I’ll bring that if you bring a couple of those IPAs you’re drinking.”
He hands her a burger he’s fixed exactly how she mentioned she wanted it two minutes prior, extra pickles, no onion, and their fingers brush deliberately when she takes the paper plate from him, not an accident this time. She tells him she’ll leave her back gate unlocked tomorrow at 10 a.m. so he can bring his ladder and his sealant over, then she turns and walks toward the picnic tables, her hips swaying a little in her cutoff denim shorts.
Moe takes a long sip of his IPA, cold and bitter on his tongue, and for the first time in eight years, he doesn’t feel the urge to rush back to his empty shop and hide from everyone. He wipes a smudge of grease off his cheek with the back of his hand, already mentally packing the extra blankets and the portable charcoal grill he keeps in the back of his truck for the parkway trip.
