Rafe Mendoza, 53, makes his living restoring vintage campers out of a converted tobacco barn on the edge of Andrews, North Carolina, and he’s avoided the town’s monthly fall flea market for three years straight. He hates the gossip, the way old ladies lean over folding tables to stare when he walks past, the nosy questions about why he still lives alone eight years after his wife packed a suitcase and left for a cruise ship bartender she’d known three weeks. He only showed up this Saturday because his client’s 1972 Airstream needed a specific deadbolt latch he couldn’t dig up on eBay or Facebook Marketplace, not even for three times the going rate.
The air smells like fried apple pies and cut oak, crisp enough that his breath puffs a little when he hunkers down in front of a dented metal bin full of rusted hardware, work boots crunching over crushed pecan shells scattered across the dirt. He’s elbow deep in corroded hinges and stripped screws when his shoulder bumps a denim-clad calf, warm through the fabric, and he yanks back like he’s touched a live wire, half-ready to snap at whoever’s hovering too close.
It’s Clara, the new part-time librarian he’s snuck glances at every time he’s dropped off donated travel books at the town’s tiny branch the past month. She’s holding a jar of wildflower honey in one hand, a crumpled paper bag of homemade fudge in the other, and she grins when he looks up, no polite small town fake smile, just a lopsided quirk of her mouth that makes his chest feel tight. He’s heard the gossip about her too, divorced last year after 20 years of marriage to a high school football coach who hated anything that didn’t involve Friday night lights and hunting trips, that she’s been looking at tiny camper listings for months, that the church ladies are already side-eyeing her for living alone and taking solo hikes on the Blue Ridge Parkway on Sundays.
She kneels down beside him before he can think of an excuse to leave, her knee brushing his through his heavy work jeans, the faint scent of jasmine lotion cutting through the smell of fried dough and rust. She says she’s been meaning to flag him down for weeks, asks if the beat-up 1968 Scotty camper parked by his barn is for sale, says she’s been saving up for a small rig she can fix up herself to drive the parkway on long weekends. He mumbles that it’s his personal project, not for sale, and he’s halfway to adding that he doesn’t have time to consult on amateur builds when she laughs, soft and low, and nods at the hardware bin. “Looking for that Airstream deadbolt you posted about in the town parts group last week? I saw the guy who runs this booth dig one up an hour ago, said he was gonna hold it for whoever asked first.”
His first instinct is to turn her down, make up an excuse about being late to a client meeting, hightail it back to his barn where the only company he has to deal with is his old hound dog, Mabel, and the hum of his power tools. He’s spent eight years building walls high enough that no one can get close enough to leave him again, and he knows how fast the town gossip mill spins, that if anyone sees them talking for more than five minutes they’ll be engaged by sundown according to the church ladies’ group chat. But she’s leaning in a little, elbows on her knees, her eyes don’t dart away when he holds her gaze, and he can’t remember the last time someone talked to him like he’s a person, not a cautionary tale about what happens when you don’t fight hard enough to keep your marriage together.
She reaches into the bin before he can reply, her hand closing around the rusted latch half-buried under a pile of drawer pulls, and their fingers brush when she passes it to him, warm and calloused at the tips, and neither of them pulls away for a beat, just long enough that he can feel the beat of her pulse through the skin of her knuckle. She says she’s got a cooler of spiked hard cider in the back of her beat-up Ford F150 parked by the entrance, asks if he wants to split a can, talk about where she can find a Scotty that doesn’t need a full frame replacement.
He hesitates for half a second, glancing over at the cluster of church ladies he can see staring from the pie stand two rows over, then nods. They walk to her truck side by side, their shoulders brushing every few steps, and sit on the tailgate, the cider cold and crisp against his throat, the sun filtering through the oak leaves to dapple the denim of her jeans. She tells him about selling her first camper when she got married, how her ex said it was a waste of money, that grown women don’t go gallivanting around the mountains alone. He tells her about his ex leaving, how he drove all night from Florida to North Carolina after she left, how he thought he’d never care about anything that wasn’t metal and fiberglass again. She leans her shoulder against his, warm through his flannel shirt, and doesn’t say anything, just passes him another can of cider.
They make plans to meet at his shop next Saturday, drive 20 minutes out to look at a 1967 Scotty a guy in Murphy is selling for $800, says it runs, only has a little water damage in the back. She drives off first, waving out the window, and he stands there holding the deadbolt latch, the faint scent of jasmine still clinging to the cuff of his shirt, Mabel wagging her tail so hard her whole body wiggles from the cab of his work truck. He tucks the latch into his flannel shirt pocket, pulls out his phone to cancel the solo fishing trip he’d planned for next Saturday, no hesitation.