Moe Petrov, 59, has spent the last 17 years restoring vintage neon signs out of a cinder block shop on the edge of Silverton, Oregon, and he’s still mad enough about last week’s city council vote to spit nails. The booth he’s manning at the annual Main Street block party smells like soldering flux and warm beer, the 1962 Dairy Queen cone sign he’d spent three months rebuilding hums soft and steady above his head, casting pale pink light over the calluses crisscrossing his knuckles. He’d skipped the council meeting to fix a broken theater marquee two towns over, and by the time he got back, word had spread that the new clerk had cast the tie-breaking vote to replace half the downtown historic neon with cheap LED strips. He’d had half a mind to skip the block party entirely, but his neighbor had begged him to bring the display, said the kids loved the glowing signs. He’d not so much as had a coffee date since his ex-wife moved to Portland 12 years prior, had convinced himself any flutter of interest at his age was just dumb midlife restlessness, so he’d buried himself in his work, avoided any city events that might force him to make small talk with people he didn’t care about.
He’s twisting the cap off a second beer when she stops in front of his booth, close enough that the toe of her strappy tan sandal is an inch from his scuffed work boot, not close enough to be pushy. She’s wearing a faded denim shirt rolled to the elbows, silver hoops that catch the golden hour light, a stack of paper wristbands for the beer garden peeking out of her back pocket. He recognizes her immediately: Elara Voss, the new clerk, the one who’d supposedly stabbed the old neon signs in the back. She holds up a can of lime seltzer, nods at the humming cone above his head, and her smile is softer than he expected, no smug politician smirk he’d braced for.
He grunts, keeps polishing a length of curved glass tubing with a frayed cotton rag, doesn’t make eye contact. She doesn’t leave. She leans a hip against the edge of the folding table, and the breeze shifts, carrying the scent of lavender shampoo and the charcoal smoke from the brat grill three booths down right to him. “I know you’re mad at me,” she says, and her voice is low, not loud enough for the group of teens laughing past the booth to hear. “The mayor spun that vote hard. I voted for LED streetlights, not the storefront neon. I slipped the funding for restoring the old diner’s ‘EATS’ sign into the budget last week, no one noticed yet.”
Moe pauses, rag still wrapped around the glass, looks up at her. Her eyes are hazel, flecked with green, and she holds his gaze steady, doesn’t flinch. He lifts the length of glass, holds it out to her so she can see the thin layer of phosphor coating the inside, and when she reaches for it, her fingers brush his. He feels the rough callus on the side of her index finger, the same kind he has, from holding sharp edges too long. “Stained glass,” she says, noticing him staring at her hand, tucking a strand of silver-streaked dark hair behind her ear. “Hobby. I break a lot of glass.”
He snorts, sets the tubing down on the table, and for the first time all night, he’s not thinking about the council vote, or the stack of work orders on his shop desk, or the quiet of his empty house after he locks up for the night. He tells her about the time he dropped a 6-foot neon “OPEN” sign off a ladder, how it shattered into a thousand glowing shards that lit up his shop floor for 10 whole seconds before fizzing out. She laughs, loud and unselfconscious, leans in when he pulls up a photo of the diner sign on his phone, and her shoulder brushes his bicep, warm through the thin cotton of his work shirt. The hum of the neon above them mixes with the sound of a cover band playing Johnny Cash two blocks over, the asphalt under their feet still warm from the 82-degree day, sticky with spilled soda and melted ice cream.
Moe locks up his booth in half the time he usually takes, shoves the scrap of yellow neon tubing into a padded canvas bag, slings it over his shoulder. He falls into step next to her as they walk down the darkening street, the remaining neon storefront signs flicker red and blue and green on the sidewalk between them, the sound of their footsteps mixing with the distant chirp of crickets. She knocks her shoulder against his playfully when he makes a dumb joke about soldering irons being the only thing he’s ever been good at not burning himself on. When they reach her front porch, she turns to face him, stands close enough that he can feel the heat off her arm, and she reaches up to brush a fleck of old solder off his jawline, her finger warm against his skin. She pushes the front door open, pulls him inside after her, the faint glow of her unfinished stained glass sunflower peeking through the kitchen window right as the last of the block party’s string lights flick off down the street.
