Manny Ruiz is 53, makes his living restoring vintage neon signs out of a converted two-car garage on the edge of Burns, Oregon, and hasn’t voluntarily attended a community event in eight years. His late wife, Lena, used to drag him to every chili cookoff, farmers market, and fire department fundraiser within a 30-mile radius, and after she dropped dead from a brain aneurism mid-grocery run, the whole town’s cloying pity made his skin crawl. He only showed up to this year’s cookoff because his best friend, the local fire marshal, promised him a $12,000 contract to restore the 1950s neon sign hanging over the town’s historic movie theater if he stayed at least an hour.
He’s leaning against a pine tree at the far edge of the park, picking at a bowl of three-alarm chili that’s making his eyes water, when someone’s elbow catches the faded canvas of his work jacket—right over the scorch mark left by a neon tube that burst on him two weeks prior. He curses under his breath, turns, and comes face to face with a woman he’s never seen before. She’s wearing scuffed work boots and denim overalls over a faded 1977 Fleetwood Mac tour tee, a thick streak of silver cutting through the dark bangs falling over her hazel eyes, and she smells like cinnamon gum and lemon Pledge. She holds up her own half-spilled bowl of chili, snorting a laugh, and says she’s the new county librarian, moved to town three months ago, still hasn’t figured out how to navigate crowds of overfriendly ranchers and retirees.
Manny freezes for half a second. He’s so used to people in town immediately asking him how he’s holding up, making sad eyes at the framed photo of Lena he keeps taped to his workbench, that the total lack of recognition on her face makes his shoulders relax without him meaning to. He mumbles an apology for bumping her, wipes a smudge of chili grease off the cuff of his jeans, and is already mentally rehearsing an excuse to leave when she nods at the neon sign pin he’s wearing on his jacket lapel—a tiny replica of the Blue Spruce Motel sign he’s been restoring in his spare time, propped against the side of his shop for months. She says she drives past his garage every morning on her way to the library, has been dying to stop and ask how he fixes the glass tubes without shattering them.
He finds himself talking for 20 minutes straight, which is more than he’s talked to anyone who isn’t a sign client in a year. He tells her about the time a 1960s diner sign exploded in his face when he was testing it, left a faint pink scar running up his left forearm, and she leans in, so close her shoulder presses against his bicep, to get a better look. A strand of her hair brushes his wrist, and he feels a hot, sharp jolt run up his arm, straight to his chest. He yanks his arm back like he’s been burned, immediately disgusted with himself—he hasn’t so much as looked at another woman since Lena died, feels like he’s betraying her, like the whole town is watching and judging him even though most people are clustered around the chili booths, paying him no mind.
She doesn’t push, just leans back, takes a sip of her root beer, and starts telling him about the old neon library sign she found tucked in the basement of the county building, cracked, half the tubes dead, has been trying to find someone to fix it for months. He’s already calculating the cost of replacement tubes, the time it would take to sand down the rusted metal frame, before she even finishes asking if he’d be interested in taking a look.
The fire department starts the raffle draw right as she’s telling him about the stack of old western paperbacks she’s been putting aside for anyone who comes into the library wearing work boots. Manny’s ticket is crumpled in his pocket, he’d forgotten he even took it, and when he pulls it out he sees it’s one number off from the one she’s holding. She laughs, says if either of them wins the grand prize cast iron grill, they have to split the first set of steaks cooked on it. He’s about to tease her for assuming he knows how to cook a steak worth eating when the announcer calls his number.
The crowd cheers, he walks up to grab the grill, his face hot, and when he comes back she’s still leaning against the pine tree, grinning. He tells her she’s got a standing invitation to his place next Saturday for ribeyes, he’s even got a fully restored 1950s “Cold Beer” neon sign he hung on his back porch last month that he can turn on for the occasion. She nods, pulls a crumpled napkin out of her overalls pocket, scrawls her number on it, and presses it into his palm. Her fingers linger for three full seconds, calloused from turning book pages, and he can feel the heat of her skin through the paper.
He leaves 15 minutes later, the grill strapped into the bed of his beat-up Ford F-150, the napkin tucked safely into the inner pocket of his jacket. He stops by his shop on the way home, flips the switch for the half-restored Blue Spruce Motel sign, and watches the bright blue letters flicker to life against the darkening desert sky. He pulls the napkin out of his pocket, runs his thumb over the faint smudge of blue ink at the end of her phone number, where her finger had dragged when she handed it to him. He pulls his cell phone out of his jeans, taps the number in, and hits call before he can talk himself out of it.
