Moe Sorrentino, 67, retired US Forest Service fire crew supervisor, leaned his shoulder against the dented metal beer cooler at the annual Plumas County fire relief BBQ and debated bailing. He’d only shown up because the 28-year-old new crew chief had showed up on his porch two nights prior with a six pack of his favorite IPA and begged, said the new hires wanted to meet the guy who’d led the team that saved half of Greenville back in 2007. Moe hated crowds, hated small talk, had spent the last 12 years avoiding any event that didn’t involve splitting firewood or fixing his old pickup or fishing alone in the Feather River, ever since his ex-wife had packed her bags and left for a travel nurse she’d met at a physical therapy appointment, ever since his best friend and crew partner Jake had died in the 2018 Camp Fire, leaving behind a wife Moe had carried a quiet, unspoken torch for since they were all in their 20s.
The air smelled like charcoal and grilled tri-tip and pine, the kind of sharp, sun-warmed pine that only grows at 4,000 feet, and he could hear a local cover band tuning up their guitars a few yards away, the twang of a steel guitar cutting through the chatter of kids chasing each other with water guns. He’d just decided to slip out the back gate when he heard his name, loud and warm, and looked up to see Clara Hale waving at him from the chili booth. She was 59, silver streaks running through her dark brown hair pulled back in a loose braid, flannel shirt tied around her waist, jeans with a frayed hole at the knee, the same silver hoops she’d worn to her wedding to Jake 28 years prior. Moe’s throat went dry. He hadn’t spoken to her more than five minutes total since Jake’s memorial, had gone out of his way to avoid her, convinced that even being near her was a betrayal of the guy who’d saved his life twice on fire lines.
He couldn’t walk away now, not when half the people at the booth were looking his way, so he trudged over, boots crunching on gravel mixed with fallen pine needles. She leaned across the fold-out table, holding out a paper bowl of chili, and when their fingers brushed as he took it, he felt a jolt like static electricity run up his arm, the kind of stupid, giddy spark he hadn’t felt since he was a teenager sneaking into drive-in movies. “Extra beans, no onions,” she said, grinning, like that wasn’t a detail no one else had remembered about him in over a decade. “Figured you still hated the way raw onion burns the roof of your mouth.” Moe grunted, sat down on the folding chair across from her, and realized he didn’t have a single excuse to leave.
They talked for 45 minutes, first about the new crew, then about the 120 acres of oak tree saplings she’d planted on the land she and Jake used to run cattle on, then about how the town had rebuilt half the houses lost in the 2018 fire. She laughed at his story about the new recruit who’d tried to put out a campfire with a soda can last month, and when she leaned forward, elbows on the table, her knee brushed his under the table, and he didn’t move away. He spent the whole time fighting two conflicting urges: one to grab his keys and run for his truck, lock himself up in his cabin alone where he couldn’t mess anything up, couldn’t betray Jake, couldn’t get his heart broken again, and the other to lean in closer, smell the lavender lotion she wore mixed with the faint smokiness of the chili on her clothes, ask her how she’d been, really been, the three years he’d spent avoiding her.
The band started playing Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” first, then slowed it down to “I Walk the Line”, and Clara wiped her hands on the front of her jeans, stood up, and held her hand out to him. “C’mon,” she said, no hesitation, no shyness. “I know you can dance. I saw you at our wedding, remember? You stepped on Jake’s mom’s foot three times.” Moe stared at her hand, calloused at the fingertips from planting saplings and fixing fence lines, and felt that old tightness in his chest, the same one he got when he thought about Jake, thought about his ex-wife, thought about all the things he’d lost or walked away from. But he took her hand anyway.
She led him to the patch of worn grass by the band, and when he rested his hand on her waist, she stepped closer, close enough that her shoulder brushed his chest, close enough that he could count the faint freckles across her nose that only came out in the summer. “I know you’ve been avoiding me,” she said, quiet enough that only he could hear it, her breath warm against his neck. “Jake told me, once, right before that last fire, that if anything ever happened to him, you were the only guy he trusted to not be an idiot about me. Said you’d been carrying a torch since we were 22 and too dumb to admit you liked me more than a friend.” Moe froze, his thumb brushing the small of her back through the thin fabric of her t-shirt, and all the guilt he’d carried for 40 years melted like snow in spring. He didn’t have to say anything. She already knew.
They danced through the whole song, no fancy steps, just swaying back and forth, and when it ended, she didn’t pull away right away. She leaned back, looked up at him, the sun catching the silver streaks in her hair, and said she had a peach pie in her fridge, the kind Jake always used to beg her to make for Moe when he came over for Sunday dinners. Asked if he wanted to come over and split it, no pressure, no strings, just pie and maybe another beer. Moe nodded, no overthinking, no stupid excuses about having to get up early to split wood. He watched her walk back to the chili booth, waving at him over her shoulder, and he took a sip of his beer, the cold bitter taste sharp on his tongue, and smiled, a real smile, the first one he’d had that didn’t feel forced in 12 years.
