Rafe Jimenez, 53, spent the last 8 years avoiding every community event within 20 miles of his small Tucson propeller repair shop. A retired air show stunt pilot, he’d built a comfortable routine of grease under his nails, classic rock blaring over the shop speakers, and zero small talk with anyone who didn’t need a prop balanced or a small aircraft engine tuned. His biggest flaw, the one he wouldn’t admit out loud, was that he still wore his late wife’s initials on a silver chain around his neck and refused to let anyone get close enough to ask about it. He only showed up to the local fire department’s annual cookout fundraiser because his 16-year-old part-time shop assistant begged him to donate his old 2017 stunt helmet for the silent auction, and he’d planned to slip out before anyone could corner him with the usual pitying questions about how he was holding up.
The mid-April sun sat low and golden over the park, the air thick with the smell of mesquite charcoal, grilled bratwurst, and citrus from the orange grove at the park edge. He leaned against the side of the steel beer cooler, one boot propped on the cinder block holding it level, sipping a cold Coors Banquet and ignoring the chatter around him when she leaned past him to grab a black cherry seltzer from the ice. Her cutoff flannel sleeve brushed his sunburnt bicep, her hip bumping his gently when she lost her balance on a patch of loose gravel. “Sorry about that,” she said, straightening up, and he recognized her immediately: Mara, the woman who’d moved into the cottage three houses down from his six weeks prior, who he’d watched haul 50-pound cacti into her driveway at 7 a.m. most weekends for her mobile plant nursery. He’d made a point of crossing the street to avoid waving every time they’d been out at the same time, too used to keeping people at arm’s length to bother with introductions.
She had sun-streaks in her dark wavy hair, dirt under her short fingernails, and a small scar curling across her left cheekbone that she didn’t bother covering with makeup. She nodded at the grease smudge darkening the cuff of his faded 2019 air show tee. “Prop shop guy, right? I bought a busted 1972 Cessna last month, been trying to get the engine running for months. My dad was a crop duster out in Yuma, I know just enough about small aircraft to be dangerous.” She leaned against the cooler next to him, close enough that he could smell the lavender and eucalyptus lotion on her skin over the smell of grill smoke, and he found himself talking before he could stop himself. He told her about the time he’d crashed a stunt plane during a practice run outside El Paso, about the way his wife used to bring him burritos to the shop every Saturday before she got sick, about how he’d almost sold the shop two years prior because he got tired of being alone all the time. He didn’t even realize he was oversharing until she laughed, a low, warm sound, and her knee brushed his when she shifted her weight.
Part of him twisted with disgust when he felt his chest light up, the way it hadn’t since his wife died. He’d spent so long convinced that wanting anything besides the quiet, lonely routine he’d built was a betrayal, that he’d forgotten what it felt like to talk to someone who didn’t look at him like he was one bad day away from falling apart. When the fire crew announced the cake walk, she grabbed his wrist, her palm wrapping around the spot where the permanent grease stain sat under the edge of his tee, and tugged him toward the roped-off area. “C’mon, my grandma taught me how to win these things. We’re getting the peach cobbler, I can already taste it.”
They won on the third round, the emcee handing her a dented tin of cobbler still warm from the oven, and she took a bite right there, a crumb sticking to her lower lip. He almost reached up to wipe it off before he caught himself, his hand hovering half an inch from her face before he pulled it back. She laughed, swiping the crumb off with her thumb and licking it off, holding his eye the whole time. “You don’t have to act like you’re not allowed to have fun, you know. I see you out in your shop every night, working until the lights go off. You don’t have to punish yourself forever.”
He stood there for a second, the warm cobbler tin heavy in his hands, the sound of kids yelling on the bounce house fading into the background. He asked her if she wanted to bring her Cessna’s engine schematics over to his shop the next morning, he’d walk her through what parts she needed to replace, and they could eat the rest of the cobbler with vanilla ice cream after. She nodded, squeezing his wrist one more time before she turned to drop her empty seltzer can in the recycling bin a few feet away. He leaned back against the cooler, taking a slow sip of his beer, and watched her wave at a group of kids running past, the golden sun catching the small silver hoop earring in her left ear.
