Ray Mendez, 52, has restored 127 vintage outboard motors in the eight years since his wife passed, each one sanded, rewired, and tuned with the kind of deliberate care he doesn’t extend to the rest of his life. He’d been dragged to the annual Lake Texoma Spring Festival that Saturday only because his 19-year-old niece begged him to haul her jam booth tables in the bed of his dented 1998 F150, and he can never say no to that kid. He’d planned to hide by the truck for three hours, sip the sweet tea he’d brought in a dented Yeti, and avoid talking to anyone who might bring up the 1993 bass race he’d lost to Lila Cole’s older brother, the one that left him calling her a cheat and storming off before she could explain her brother had tampered with his carburetor mid-race.
The smell of fried catfish and funnel cake curls through the air when he spots her, carrying a stack of plastic crates stacked with peeping baby wood ducks, headed for the bird rescue booth she’s run for 18 years. Her auburn hair is streaked with thick bands of silver, pulled back in a messy braid, and she’s wearing cutoff jean shorts, scuffed work boots caked in mud, and a faded hoodie for the wildlife rescue she founded. She trips over a rolling cooler someone left by the curb, and he moves before he thinks, grabbing her elbow to steady her before she faceplants into the asphalt. His palm wraps around the corded muscle of her forearm, and he feels the rough callus on her wrist from years of hauling bird cages, the faint smell of cedar and lavender hand salve clinging to her skin. She freezes, tilts her head up, and her hazel eyes lock onto his, holding for three full beats before a half-smirk tugs at the corner of her mouth, the same one she used to give him back in high school when she knew she was about to win an argument.
He lets go of her arm like he’s been burned, mumbles an apology, and she laughs, the sound low and warm, cutting through the twang of the bluegrass band playing off by the dock. “Still as jumpy as you were when you snuck into the community pool after hours senior year, huh Ray?” she says, setting the crates down on the curb to brush off her shorts. He snorts, leans back against the truck bed, and they fall into easy banter, teasing each other about old high school gossip, the way the lake’s been overrun with zebra mussels the past two years, the terrible craft beer the festival is selling for nine dollars a can. His niece yells over from the jam booth that she’s got it covered for an hour, go walk around, and before he can talk himself out of it, he’s following her down the gravel path to the floating dock.
Their shoulders brush every other step, the rough fabric of his flannel shirt scraping against her bare arm, and he doesn’t move away. She tells him about the red-tailed hawk she rescued two weeks prior, hit by a pickup on the highway, and she holds out her thumb to show him the thin, pink scar where the bird had sunk its talon into her skin. He tells her about the 1957 Evinrude he’s been restoring for six months, the one he found sunk at the bottom of the lake last winter, and he pulls his phone out to show her photos, their heads tilted close together, his shoulder pressed firmly against hers. He admits, halfway through telling her about the carburetor rebuild, that he never actually thought she’d cheated at that 1993 race. He’d just been mad, he says, because he’d worked three months of after-school shifts at the bait shop to save up for the motor he lost in the bet, and he’d been too proud to admit he’d figured out her brother had messed with his engine later that night. She laughs, shakes her head, and says she knew that. She’d found the proof in her brother’s truck the next day, she says, and she’d never cashed the title to his old motor, still has it tucked in a junk drawer in her kitchen, waiting for him to stop being stubborn enough to take it back.
The breeze off the lake picks up, blowing a strand of her loose hair into his face, and he reaches up without thinking, tucking it behind her ear. His thumb brushes the soft skin of her cheek, and he doesn’t pull his hand away, not even when she leans into the touch just a little, her breath catching so quiet he almost misses it over the sound of the water lapping at the dock posts. All the old stupid grudge, the years of avoiding her, the guilt he’d carried for calling her a cheat, melts away so fast he feels dizzy for half a second. She looks up at him, the smirk gone now, her eyes soft, and she says she’s been watching the videos he posts to his shop’s Facebook page for years, loves how he talks about the motors like they’re old friends, how he takes the time to explain every step of the rebuild for the kids who write in asking for tips. He tells her he’s been stopping by her adoption events at the farmers market every other Saturday for the past year, just standing in the back watching her talk about the birds, never had the guts to walk up and say hi, too scared she’d still be mad at him for the fight.
She reaches up, wraps her fingers around his wrist where his hand is still resting on her cheek, and squeezes gently. “Wanna come over for dinner tonight?” she says, nodding toward the small cabin she owns on the other side of the lake. “I’ll make grilled catfish, and I’ve got that old motor title in the drawer, you can take it home with you. And if you’re nice, I’ll even let you hold the baby ducks later.” He grins, the first real, unforced grin he’s had in months, and nods. He slips his hand down from her cheek to lace their fingers together, calluses catching against each other, and they walk back up the dock toward the festival, neither of them letting go.
