Rico Marquez, 62, wiped the thin sheen of honey off his calloused thumb onto the thigh of his frayed Carhartts, shifting his weight from one scuffed work boot to the other at the Jackson County Summer Honey Festival. He hadn’t entered the contest in eight years, not since the last time his wife Lila had stood next to him, passing out sample spoons and cracking jokes about how his tupelo honey was sweet enough to rot a bear’s teeth from 100 yards out. His 12-year-old granddaughter had begged him to enter this year, holding up a jar of his honey she’d snuck from his pantry and saying all the old guys who won every year made honey that tasted like tap water mixed with sugar, so he’d caved, even if it felt like he was breaking an unspoken rule he’d set for himself the day Lila died.
The hum of the crowd buzzed like a full hive in his ears, kids chasing each other with honey sticks, old farmers swapping stories about bear break-ins, the faint tang of fried oreos mixing with the thick, sweet smell of hundreds of jars of honey lined up on folding tables. He was just about to sneak out early, ribbon or no ribbon, when a woman stepped up to his table, and he froze. She was probably late 50s, silver streaks running through her dark braid, work boots caked in mud, a faded county extension agent polo stretched across her shoulders. She didn’t give him the soft, pitying smile everyone in town did when they saw him, the one that said I know you’re still grieving, take all the time you need. She just nodded at the jar of tupelo honey in front of him, picked it up, twisted the lid off, and leaned in to smell it, her face so close to the glass her eyelashes almost brushed the rim.
“This doesn’t look like the stuff everyone else around here grows,” she said, her voice low, a little rough, like she spent half her time yelling over wind in apple orchards. He told her he kept a handful of hives down near the Rogue River, tucked between tupelo groves most people didn’t even know existed, and she hummed, dipping a plastic sample spoon into the jar. When she lifted it to her mouth, her eyes closed for half a second, and he felt something hot curl in his chest, something he hadn’t felt since Lila was alive. She swallowed, nodded, and set the spoon down, her elbow brushing his forearm when she reached for the contest entry slip next to his jar. The contact was light, only a split second, but he felt it all the way down to his fingertips, like a static shock. He flinched back, and she laughed, not unkind. “Sorry. I’m used to working in tight spaces with farm hands who don’t care about personal space.” He mumbled that it was fine, wiping his arm off on his jeans like he could scrub the feeling away, hating himself for the way his heart was hammering.
He left the contest table after that, wandering over to the beer tent, chugging a lukewarm Budweiser so fast his nose burned. He told himself he was being stupid, that Lila had been gone eight years, that wanting to talk to a woman who didn’t treat him like a broken glass figurine wasn’t a crime, but the guilt sat heavy in his gut anyway, like he was cheating. He was just about to head to his truck when she found him, holding a bright blue first place ribbon in her hand, holding it out to him. When he reached for it, her fingers wrapped around his for a beat longer than necessary, her palm warm, a little calloused at the edges from holding shovels and soil samples, he guessed. “You won by a mile,” she said, holding his eye contact, no pity there, just something warm, curious. “I’m Elara, by the way. Just moved here from eastern Oregon three months ago. I’m heading to The Hitching Post down the street later, if you want to come. The county’s rolling out a native pollinator grant program, and I’d love to pick your brain about local hive sites. No pressure, though.”
He told himself he’d say no. He told himself he’d go home, heat up a frozen burrito, watch an old western, go to bed at 9 like he always did. But he said yes before he could think better of it. The Hitching Post smelled like peanut shells and old beer, the jukebox in the corner playing Merle Haggard on low, only a handful of regulars scattered at the bar. They slid into a booth in the back, and for the first hour, they talked about bees, about the way tupelo trees only bloom for two weeks a year, about the time a bear broke into his hive when he was 38, stung him 17 times, stole 12 full jars of honey. She laughed so hard at that story she snort-laughed, and he found himself grinning, not forcing it, not thinking about Lila or the guilt or the rules he’d set for himself. When she leaned across the table to point at a bee tattoo peeking out from under the cuff of his flannel shirt, her knee brushed his under the table, and she didn’t move it away. The warmth of her leg against his seeped through his jeans, and he didn’t move his leg either.
He told her about Lila, eventually, voice quiet, staring at the condensation on his beer bottle. Told her he’d shut everyone out after she died, that he’d sold almost all his hives, that he’d thought he’d never care about anything other than his grandkids and the few hives he kept again. “I feel like I’m betraying her, even being here with you,” he said, the words heavy coming out of his mouth, like he was admitting a sin. Elara didn’t say it was okay, didn’t give him some sappy speech about Lila wanting him to be happy. She just nodded, took a sip of her beer, and said, “Grief doesn’t get to tell you how to live the rest of your life. Wanting to feel alive doesn’t make you a bad person.” She reached across the table, rested her hand on top of his, and he didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away. Her hand was warm, a little sticky from the honey roasted peanuts they’d been sharing, and he laced his fingers through hers, slow, like he was scared she’d pull away.
They left the bar an hour later, the air cool now that the sun had gone down, crickets chirping in the grass along the sidewalk, the distant sound of the festival’s fireworks going off over the fairgrounds. He walked her to her beat up old Ford pickup, and she paused before she opened the driver’s side door, leaning in to kiss him soft on the cheek, her lips tasting like cherry lip balm and the honey wheat beer she’d been drinking. “I’ll call you Tuesday,” she said, pulling open the door, climbing in. “We can drive down to your hives, talk about the grant. Maybe bring a picnic.” He nodded, standing there on the sidewalk, watching her pull out of the parking lot, waving when she honked the horn as she turned onto the main road. He reached into his pocket, curled his fingers around the crumpled first place ribbon he’d stuffed there earlier, the fabric still a little sticky from where he’d spilled honey on it earlier that day. He didn’t feel guilty, not even a little.
