Moe Petrov, 53, has built custom motorcycle frames for 22 years out of a cinder block shop off Route 30 outside Mansfield, Ohio. His only consistent flaw is that he’s turned down every invitation to a community event for 12 straight years, ever since his ex-wife packed her bags and left with a traveling heavy equipment operator, leaving nothing but a note and a half-empty carton of orange juice in the fridge. He only agreed to come to the county fire department rib cookoff because his 19-year-old apprentice Javi begged, said their shop’s sponsored rib team had a shot at the $500 grand prize, and Moe owed him for covering three back-to-back shifts while Moe recovered from a minor welding burn on his forearm.
The August air sticks to his skin like plastic wrap, thick with hickory smoke, the tang of vinegary barbecue sauce, and the tinny twang of a local cover band working through a rendition of “Mountain Music” so off-key even the stray dogs wandering the grounds are tilting their heads in confusion. He’s leaning against a splintered wooden picnic table, sipping a lukewarm Bud Light, half-watching Javi argue with the cookoff judge about their dry rub recipe, when something cold and sticky splatters across the toe of his custom tooled leather work boot, the one he spent three weekends carving a tiny wolf head into the side of.
He looks up, ready to snap, and stops. The woman standing in front of him is maybe 49, chestnut hair streaked with silver pulled back in a loose braid, wearing linen slacks that definitely don’t belong at a mud-caked cookoff, a faded Neil Young t-shirt peeking out under her unbuttoned flannel, a canvas tote slung over her shoulder printed with a line from a Mary Oliver poem. She’s holding a half-empty cup of pink lemonade, her mouth twisted in a half-apology, half-grin, and she doesn’t flinch when his gaze locks on hers. “Sorry about the boot,” she says, leaning in a little so he can hear her over the band, her shoulder brushing his thigh as she dabs at the lemonade with a crumpled paper napkin. “I tripped over a kid’s lawn chair. I’ll buy you a new one if it’s ruined. Though I gotta say, the wolf embossed on the side is a way cooler touch than I expected from a guy covered in welding slag.”
Moe blinks. He’s used to people making assumptions about him, that he only listens to death metal, that he can’t hold a conversation about anything that doesn’t have an engine, that he’s permanently grumpy. No one’s ever commented on the wolf carving before, not even Javi. He snorts, shifting his weight so she doesn’t have to bend so far, his forearm brushing the top of her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Leather’s been through worse. I once dropped a hot exhaust pipe on the same foot. Lemonade’s nothing.”
She stays, leaning against the picnic table next to him, close enough that he can smell lavender hand cream mixed with the smoke from the grills, close enough that when someone yells behind them and she flinches, her elbow knocks against his ribs. Her name’s Clara, she’s the new head librarian at the county branch, she moved here three months prior from Pittsburgh, she restores old Japanese motorcycles on the side. She pulls her phone out to show him pictures of a 1978 Honda CB750 she found rotting in a barn 20 minutes outside town, rusted all to hell but with a solid frame, and Moe finds himself leaning in too, their heads almost touching, pointing out spots where the frame is still salvageable, telling her what parts she’ll need to track down, laughing when she admits she tried to take the carburetor apart herself and ended up with three extra screws she couldn’t place.
He hasn’t laughed this easy in years, hasn’t talked to someone who gets both the joy of running a welding torch at 2 a.m. and the satisfaction of finishing a 400-page novel in one sitting, and for a second he’s annoyed at himself, at the voice in the back of his head screaming that this is too good, that it’ll end just like his marriage did, that he should say goodbye now before he gets attached. He’s halfway to making up an excuse to leave, to go back to his empty house and his half-finished frame project, when a group of drunk college kids barrel past, one of them slamming into Clara’s back hard enough that she stumbles forward straight into his chest.
He catches her by the elbows, his calloused hands wrapping around the soft fabric of her flannel, her hands flying up to rest on his shoulders to steady herself. They freeze for three full beats, the noise of the cookoff fading out for a second, her hazel eyes locked on his, the faint sweet tang of cherry lollipop on her breath when she speaks, so quiet he almost doesn’t hear it. “I was gonna ask you if you wanted to skip the rest of this and come look at the CB tonight. I got cold beer in my fridge, and I could use a second pair of eyes on that carburetor mess.”
Moe doesn’t even hesitate. He nods, grabbing his worn canvas work jacket off the picnic table bench, waving off Javi’s whoop and exaggerated winking when he sees them walking away together. They head for her beat-up Ford Ranger parked at the edge of the field, the dry grass crunching under their boots, the cool night air starting to cut through the sticky daytime heat. He holds the passenger door open for her, and when she climbs up into the seat, her hand brushes his wrist for half a second, leaving a faint smudge of cherry lip gloss on his skin, bright against the permanent dark grease stains under his nails.