Elroy Voss, 62, spent 38 years as a backcountry trail maintenance foreman for the National Park Service before retiring three years ago to fix vintage manual typewriters out of his drafty garage in Missoula, Montana. His biggest flaw, per his only niece who’d flown in from Portland for the week, was that he’d turned avoiding other people into a competitive sport. He’d skipped every neighborhood barbecue, farmers market, and community fundraiser since his wife left him 11 years prior, convinced his gruff, calloused, ink-stained self had nothing to offer casual chit-chat. The niece had dragged him to the Saturday market that morning under threat of hiding all his typewriter repair tools, so he’d slung on his faded NPS work shirt, scuffed steel-toe boots, and scowled the whole three block walk.
He was plotting his escape around a booth selling overpriced homemade jam when he heard the laugh. Low, crinkly at the edges, the same one he’d heard echoing through park work potlucks 20 years prior, when he’d spend the whole night staring across the room at Mara Carter, wife of his notoriously short-tempered supervisor Tom, who’d written Elroy up twice for ditching trail clearing to rescue stranded off-trail hikers. He froze mid-step, and when he looked up, she was leaning over the edge of a hot honey stand, auburn hair streaked with silver pulled back in a frayed bandana, cutoff flannel sleeves rolled up to show the same constellation of freckles across her forearm he’d memorized back when he was 28 and stupid enough to think he ever stood a chance.
She spotted him before he could duck behind a stack of pickled vegetable jars, and waved so hard a jar of honey wobbled on the edge of her table. He had no choice but to walk over. She told him Tom had passed eight months prior from a sudden heart attack, that the hives he’d kept behind their house for 30 years were the only thing that had gotten her through the first few months of widowhood, so she’d started the stand to sell the honey and keep busy. He nodded, staring at the chipped forest green nail polish on her fingers, the same shade he’d used to paint trail blazes for three decades. When they both reached for the same sample jar at the same time, their knuckles brushed. His were crisscrossed with tiny scars from trail axes and typewriter springs, hers soft but dotted with tiny bee-sting scabs. The jolt that shot up his arm was sharp enough to make him flinch, and she didn’t pull her hand away for a full two beats, cheeks pink, before she laughed and apologized, holding out a wooden popsicle stick dipped in honey for him to try.
It tasted like clover and wildfire smoke, sweet at first then a slow, sharp burn at the back of his throat, exactly the way he’d felt every time he’d seen her with Tom’s arm slung over her shoulder, forcing himself to look away like he didn’t care. He was halfway to talking himself out of even being there, disgusted with himself for even entertaining a thought of his old boss’s widow, when she said she had her dad’s 1952 Royal sitting in her attic, hadn’t worked in 40 years, asked if he’d be willing to look at it. He meant to say no, meant to make up an excuse about being backed up on repairs, but he found himself scribbling his cell number on the back of a scrap of typewriter paper he had in his pocket, handing it over. She texted him that night, said she could bring it over the next afternoon if he was free.
She showed up at 2 PM the next day, the Royal wedged in the back of her beat-up Ford pickup, a jar of her hottest honey tucked under her arm as a pre-emptive thank you. They carried the heavy typewriter into his garage together, her shoulder pressing into his bicep the whole way across the driveway, and he could smell her perfume, cedar and wild lupine, exactly like the high alpine trails he’d spent half his life maintaining. He set the Royal on his workbench, flipped the case open, and she leaned in next to him to look, her hair brushing the side of his neck. He said the problem was just a stuck shift key, a 10 minute fix at most, and she sat on the stool next to his workbench to watch him work, saying Tom had always complained about how stubborn Elroy was, but had also admitted he was the best foreman the park had ever had, that he’d never once blamed him for stopping to help those hikers.
He looked up from the typewriter then, and their faces were six inches apart. She didn’t look away, her dark eyes warm, the sun slanting through the garage’s dusty window gilding the edges of her hair. He didn’t overthink it, didn’t talk himself out of it, just leaned in and kissed her. She kissed him back immediately, one hand coming up to rest on the side of his neck, fingers tangling in the gray hair at his nape, and he could taste the honey on her lips, that same slow, warm burn he’d carried around for 34 years finally settling right where it belonged.
They pulled away after a minute, and she swatted his arm playfully, laughing so hard her eyes crinkled shut, saying she’d been wondering how long it would take him to stop being such a stubborn jackass. He grinned, a real, unforced grin he hadn’t felt in over a decade, and said he’d had to wait until Tom wasn’t around to write him up for violating workplace fraternization rules. She stayed for dinner, they ate grilled burgers on his back porch, slathering hot honey on every bite, and she told him she’d been thinking about him since the 2008 park potluck, when he’d snuck her a piece of peach pie after Tom said she shouldn’t have seconds. He finished fixing the Royal after dinner, rolled a piece of plain notebook paper into the carriage, typed out one line asking if she wanted to stay for breakfast, and slid it across the workbench to her. She picked up the typewriter, fingers hovering over the keys for half a second before she typed back, the loud, familiar clack of the metal keys cutting through the quiet of the garage. He leaned over her shoulder to read her reply promising to stay, and laughed so hard he had to brace his hand on the workbench, the honey jar next to the typewriter glinting gold in the overhead light.
