Manny Rios, 59, has restored 72 vintage camper vans in the eight years since his wife left, and he’d rather spend 12 hours prying rust off a 1968 Dodge A100’s wheel well than make small talk at Boise’s monthly downtown food truck rally. He only showed up tonight because his buddy Jake, who runs the brisket truck, begged him to bring his fully restored 1972 VW Westfalia for the vintage vehicle pop-up, and Jake owes him three free tune-ups for his work truck. He’s leaning against the van’s dented rear fender, sipping a cold hazy IPA, ignoring every stranger who stops to ask how much he’d sell the Westfalia for, when he sees her.
He recognizes her immediately, even with the copper streaks in her dark hair that weren’t there 15 years ago, when he sat next to her at his wedding dinner, listening to her rant about how his then-wife had picked the worst possible caterer in the state. Clara, his ex-wife’s younger cousin by marriage, the only person in that entire chaotic extended family who’d ever asked him about his work instead of how much money he made. He tenses up, half ready to duck into the van and lock the door, but she’s already walking toward him, a paper tray of smoked brisket and elote in one hand, a smear of BBQ sauce on her left thumb, a grin that makes the corners of her eyes crinkle.
She leans against the fender right next to him, close enough that he can smell lavender lotion mixed with the hickory smoke curling off Jake’s food truck, and nods at the Westfalia’s custom wood dash. “I’ve been following your Instagram for two years. That 1970 Chinook you finished last spring? I must have rewatched the walkthrough video six times. I’ve been looking for a small camper to take up to the national forests on weekends, never had the nerve to reach out, figured you’d block anyone with my last name.” Manny’s throat goes dry. He spent eight years deliberately cutting every tie to his ex’s life, even unfriending a dozen people he actually liked just to avoid any chance of running into her or hearing updates. He should brush Clara off, make an excuse about being busy, leave early. But she takes a bite of elote, gets a crumb of cotija cheese on her chin, and laughs when he points it out, and he can’t remember the last time someone’s laugh didn’t feel like a chore to listen to.
They talk for 40 minutes, the crowd around the food trucks thinning as the sun dips lower, painting the foothills pink and orange. When he passes her a second IPA from the cooler in the van’s back, their fingers brush, and he feels the rough callus on her index finger from years of turning library book pages—she’d told him 10 minutes prior she just moved back to Boise to work part-time at the county library branch, finalized her divorce from her college sweetheart six months ago. She doesn’t flinch away. She leans in a little closer, her shoulder brushing his bicep, when he tells her about the 1969 Ford Econoline he’s currently rebuilding for a retired schoolteacher in Meridian. He’s hyper aware of every point of near contact, the way her knee brushes his when she shifts her weight, the way her eyes lock on his for a beat too long when he jokes about how his ex once tried to paint the Westfalia neon pink, the way she bites her lower lip when he says he’s got a secret overlook above the city where no one ever bothers him.
The conflict sits heavy in his chest for a full minute, half of him screaming that this is a terrible idea, that anyone tied to his ex is nothing but trouble, that he’s spent eight years building a quiet, drama-free life and he’s stupid to risk it for a pretty smile and a shared love of rusted old vans. The other half of him is buzzing, the same thrill he got when he was 16 and snuck out to drive his dad’s old pickup down back roads at 90 miles an hour, the kind of quiet, forbidden excitement he’d thought he’d outgrown. He nods at the van’s passenger door. “Wanna head up there? I got a blanket in the back, we can watch the sunset. No pressure. If you hate it, I’ll have you back down in 20 minutes.”
She doesn’t even hesitate. She tosses her empty food tray in the nearby trash can, climbs into the passenger seat, and runs her hand over the custom wool upholstery on the seat like she’s touching something sacred. The drive up takes 15 minutes, the radio playing old 90s country low, neither of them talking, the hum of the van’s engine drowning out the distant sound of traffic from the city below. He pulls into the dirt pull-off at the overlook, grabs the frayed wool blanket from the back, and spreads it out on the patch of dry grass overlooking the valley.
They sit shoulder to shoulder, watching the sun dip below the foothills, the street lights of Boise flickering on one by one below them, the air cooling enough that he can see his breath when he exhales. She leans her head on his shoulder for half a second, then pulls back like she’s embarrassed, but he rests his hand on her knee, his calloused work fingers brushing the worn denim of her jeans, and doesn’t say anything. He feels the warmth of her leg through the fabric, and for the first time in almost a decade, he doesn’t feel the urge to run.
