Rafi Mendez, 57, has run his vintage camping gear restoration shop out of his detached garage outside Asheville for seven years, ever since he shut down his whitewater rafting outfit after his wife’s cancer diagnosis. His biggest flaw? He’s turned down every invitation for coffee, every casual set-up from friends, every hint of connection since she died in 2015, convinced letting anyone new in would erase the 22 years they’d had together. Most weekends he sets up a stall at the River Arts District market, stacking restored 1970s coolers, waxed canvas tents, and down sleeping bags worn soft as old flannel on folding tables.
The October air bit at his cheeks the Saturday Lila Carter walked up, pine and fried apple pie fumes curling from the food stall two spots over. He recognized her last name stitched on the breast of her wool work coat first, then the gap between her two front teeth, the same one he’d teased her about when he taught her to skip stones at Lake Julian when she was 12. She was 38 now, just moved back to town after a messy divorce from a lawyer in Charlotte, and she didn’t hesitate to lean over his table, her elbow brushing the frayed cuff of his Carhartt shirt as she reached for a 1968 plaid sleeping bag. Their hands knocked when he reached to adjust the drawstring at the same time, the rough canvas scraping between their skin, and she held eye contact a full two beats longer than polite before she smiled.
He tensed up immediately, half flustered, half disgusted with himself for noticing how the low sun caught the auburn streaks in her dark hair, how her laugh sounded like the crinkle of a new campfire match. She was his best friend’s kid, for Christ’s sake. He’d watched her graduate high school. He’d sent her a graduation card with a $20 bill in it. But she didn’t act like that’s all he was, asking about the custom patch he sewed on every restored piece, the little stitched blue jay that had been his wife’s signature, laughing when he told her about the guy who tried to trade a baby goat for a vintage Coleman lantern three weeks prior. She stayed by his stall for almost an hour, even when rain started spitting, leaning in close so she could hear him over the bluegrass band playing at the end of the row, her shoulder pressed to his bicep when a group of kids ran past with dripping cotton candy.
By the time the market shut down, the rain was coming down steady, fat cold drops hitting the metal awning over his stall loud enough to make conversation hard. He was heaving a stack of tent poles into the bed of his beat-up 2004 F150 when he saw her leaning against the tailgate, hood pulled up over her hair, holding a sour cherry lollipop between her teeth. She said her roommate had bailed on picking her up, her phone was dead, and she didn’t feel like paying for an Uber all the way to her rental cottage in Black Mountain. He didn’t even hesitate to offer her a ride, his throat tight when she climbed into the cab, her jeans damp enough to leave a dark spot on the vinyl bench seat, her knee brushing his the whole 20 minute drive.
She touched his arm when he told her about the trip he and his wife had taken to the Smokies the summer before she got sick, her palm warm through the thin flannel of his shirt, and said she remembered that trip, remembered his wife bringing her back a jar of wild blackberry jam. She didn’t treat his wife’s memory like a landmine to avoid, the way every other woman who’d tried to flirt with him had, and that’s what cracked the wall he’d built up for eight years straight. When he pulled into the gravel driveway of her little blue cottage, she didn’t reach for the door handle right away, turning to face him, the dash light gilding the edge of her cheekbone. She said she’d had a crush on him since she was 17, when he’d helped her fix her first car after she’d crashed it into a ditch, that she knew it was messed up, that she didn’t care if he thought she was crazy.
He sat still for a full 10 seconds, fighting the voice in his head screaming that this was wrong, that he was betraying his wife, that his best friend would kill him if he found out. Then he reached over, brushed a wet strand of hair off her forehead, his thumb brushing the soft skin under her eye, and she leaned into the touch like she’d been waiting for it for years. He kissed her slow, the taste of her cherry lollipop mixing with the cinnamon hard candy he’d been sucking on all day, and when she pulled back to ask him if he wanted to come in for a beer, he didn’t say no. He turned off the truck, grabbed his jacket off the back of the seat, and followed her up the creaky wooden steps to her front door.
