Rico Marquez, 51, has restored 72 vintage travel trailers and campers out of his converted barn outside Pendleton, Oregon, in the last 18 years, and he’s avoided the town’s annual summer block party for 12 of them. He only showed up this year because his high school buddy Jimmie, who runs the main street general store, begged him to bring his newly finished 1972 International Scout as a draw for the classic car corner, promised him a case of free Coors Banquet and half a rack of ribs if he stuck around for an hour. He showed up 20 minutes late, planned to duck out before the potluck line even formed, leaned against the Scout’s dented chrome bumper, sipped his first beer, and let the smell of charcoal smoke and cut alder wash over him. The air is thick enough with 92-degree heat that he can see ripples coming off the asphalt, kids scream as they dart through a jury-rigged sprinkler strung between the feed store and the library, a bluegrass band plucks lazy versions of old Johnny Cash songs off the back of a flatbed trailer.
He’s halfway through his second beer, running a calloused finger over the custom oak paneling he installed in the Scout’s bed, when she walks up. He’s seen her around town before, the new county librarian who moved here six months ago from Portland, but he’s never spoken to her, never gotten close enough to even catch her name. She’s wearing a faded yellow floral sundress that hits her mid-calf, scuffed white tennis shoes, a silver hair clip holding back half her dark wavy hair, and he spots the tiny tattoo of a book spine curling around her left wrist when she lifts a cherry lollipop to her mouth. She stands close enough that he can smell coconut sunscreen and the sharp, sweet tang of the lollipop, closer than anyone has stood to him on purpose outside of a work transaction in years, and his first instinct is to step back, to put that safe three-foot buffer between them. He doesn’t, though, when she nods at the Scout and says her dad had the exact same model, used to haul her and her three siblings to camping trips at Wallowa Lake every summer.
Her arm brushes his when she leans forward to run a finger along the custom weld he did on the wheel well, and he flinches so hard he sloshes beer over the edge of his can onto his work boot. He mumbles an apology, his face burning, convinced half the town is watching, convinced they’re all snickering that the old hermit finally got caught gawking at the new librarian. Part of him twists with disgust at himself, at how quickly he’s fixated on the way the dress sticks a little to her shoulder where she’s sweated through the fabric, at how he can’t stop staring at the faint smudge of lip gloss on the lollipop stick between her fingers. He’s spent 12 years telling himself he’s better off alone, that he doesn’t need the hassle of small town gossip, of letting someone get close enough to hurt him again, and he’s half a second from making an excuse about a broken water line at the barn and bailing when she laughs at his dumb offhand joke about the Scout’s previous owner using the back to haul feral goats he trapped on his property. Her laugh is loud and unapologetic, she snorts a little when she laughs too hard, and she leans in even closer, her knee bumping his when they both crouch down to look at the custom floor mats he stitched himself out of old canvas tent fabric.
She holds eye contact with him when she asks how much he charges for full trailer restorations, doesn’t look away when he catches her staring at the scar on his right knuckle from when he dropped a camper frame on his hand three years back. He’s still halfway tangled up in that fight between the part of him that wants to run and the part of him that hasn’t felt this light, this seen, in over a decade, when a golden retriever belonging to the feed store owner bolts past them, knocks the sprinkler off its cinder block stand, and sends a cold arc of water straight for their legs. She yelps, grabs his forearm to yank him out of the way, and her hand is warm even through the thick worn denim of his work shirt. He doesn’t flinch this time. They both stand there, damp at the hems of his work jeans and her dress respectively, laughing so hard his sides hurt, and she lifts her thumb to wipe a drop of water off his cheek, her skin soft against the stubble he didn’t bother shaving off that morning. She says she’s been asking about him for weeks, that she inherited a 1968 Airstream from her aunt, that everyone in town told her he was the only guy within 100 miles who could do it right, that they also warned her he’d probably turn her down because he never talks to anyone.
He doesn’t turn her down. He digs a crumpled vintage camper parts receipt out of his back pocket, scrawls his cell number on the back with the pen he keeps tucked behind his ear, tells her he can drive out to her place on the edge of town tomorrow afternoon after he finishes a small repair job up in La Grande. She tucks the receipt into the neck of her dress, grins, says she’ll have cold lemonade and a plate of her famous chocolate chip cookies waiting, and that he can stay for dinner if the Airstream inspection runs late. He nods, doesn’t trust himself to say anything without sounding like an idiot, and watches her walk away, waving over her shoulder when she gets to the library steps.
He stays for the entire block party, doesn’t even check his watch once. He eats three ribs, talks to Jimmie about a new parts shipment coming in next week, even lets the bluegrass band’s fiddle player sit in the Scout’s driver seat for a minute. He’s halfway through his fourth beer, watching the sun dip pink over the wheat fields on the edge of town, when he feels his phone buzz in his pocket, a text from an unknown number that says don’t forget the cookies are homemade. He smiles, types back wouldn’t miss it, and takes a long sip of warm beer that tastes better than any he’s had in 12 years.