Elias Voss, 62, retired high school woodshop teacher, hasn’t set foot at a town community event since his wife Karen’s breast cancer funeral four years prior. He’d only caved this time when his 16-year-old grandson begged him to enter the local fire department’s annual chili cookoff, saying the batch he’d tinkered with every Sunday for six months was too good to keep hidden in the kitchen of their small western Pennsylvania town. He stood by a splintered pine picnic table now, calloused hand wrapped around a cold can of Yuengling, scuffing at crumpled brown oak leaves with the steel toe of his work boot, avoiding the pitying glances from neighbors who still asked how he was holding up like he was a cracked bird feeder waiting to fall apart. The air smelled like hickory smoke, cumin, and the faint tang of port-a-potty cleaner from the edge of the parking lot, a portable TV blaring a Steelers preseason game over the hum of chatter from the 40-odd people milling between crockpots lined up on folding tables.
Mara Carter spotted him first. 58, owner of the town’s only used bookstore, ex-wife of the high school football coach Elias had shared a teacher’s lounge with for 22 years, she’d had a quiet, unspoken spark with Elias back when both were married, the kind that showed up in lingering eye contact across the lounge, a quick laugh at a bad joke no one else found funny, the accidental brush of hands when she’d drop off lesson plans for her then-husband and stop to admire the custom cutting boards Elias sold for extra cash at the winter craft fair. She walked over now, faded red flannel tied around her waist, chili powder smudged on the curve of her left cheek, steel-toe work boots of her own caked in mud from her garden that morning. She didn’t lead with the usual pity line, just nodded at the dented crockpot sitting in front of him, the one Karen had gotten him for their 25th anniversary. “You finally stop hiding that chili from the rest of us? I heard you test batches on your grandson, and he says it’s hot enough to strip paint off a truck.”
She leaned in before he could answer, shoulder brushing his bicep through his gray work flannel, and he caught the scent of lavender shampoo mixed with the cinnamon she put in her own famous chili, a scent he’d unexpectedly thought about a dozen times over the past four years when he’d see her truck parked outside the bookstore on his rare trips into town. She grabbed a plastic sample spoon from the stack next to his crockpot, her fingers brushing his for half a second when she reached, and he felt a jolt run up his arm that he’d thought died with Karen. He tensed up immediately, half ready to make an excuse and leave, disgusted with himself for feeling anything other than loyalty to the woman he’d spent almost four decades with. He’d spent four years telling himself anyone who moved on that fast was selfish, that he didn’t deserve to feel that spark with anyone else.
Mara didn’t miss the shift in his posture. She leaned back against the picnic table, sipping the chili, nodding slowly, and didn’t push, just talked about the batch she’d entered, the one with venison her brother had hunted the previous fall, the stack of old woodworking manuals she’d picked up at an estate sale the week before that she’d been meaning to drop off at his house if she’d had the courage. She rested her hand on his forearm when she laughed at a story he told about his grandson gluing his friend’s phone to a woodshop workbench, her palm warm through the thin fabric of his shirt, and he didn’t pull away. He noticed her left thumbnail was chipped, same as it had been at the 2013 school holiday party, when she’d been nervous about giving a speech to the parent teacher association and bit it raw mid-sentence. He realized she was nervous now, too, her thumb rubbing small circles on the side of her beer can when he mentioned he’d seen her truck parked at the bookstore a dozen times but never had the guts to stop.
The emcee announced the winners an hour later. Mara’s venison chili took first, his took second, the crowd whooping when they walked up to get their cheap plastic trophies, the kind with a tiny chili bowl glued to the top. She grabbed his hand when they walked back to the picnic tables, lacing her fingers through his, and didn’t let go even when a few of the old teachers stared, wide eyed. She leaned in close enough that her breath brushed his ear, the hum of the crowd fading out for a second. “I’ve been asking your grandson about you for two years. Didn’t want to push. I knew you weren’t ready.”
He didn’t have a lie ready, so he told her the truth, his voice rough enough that only she could hear it. “I’ve been avoiding every single event in this town for two years because I was scared I’d run into you, and I’d ask you out, and I’d feel like I was betraying Karen.” He expected to feel sick saying it out loud, but he didn’t, just felt light, like he’d been carrying a cinder block in his chest for four years and finally set it down.
They skipped the post-cookoff bonfire, Mara grabbing both their crockpots and tossing them in the back of her beat-up Ford F-150, driving 10 minutes through the dark back roads to her bookstore, the windows glowing warm against the pitch black of the October night. She unlocked the back door, and the smell of old paper, vanilla candle wax, and coffee hit him the second they stepped inside, the shelves lined with thousands of dog-eared books, a stack of the woodworking manuals she’d mentioned sitting on the counter by the register. She pulled a bottle of bourbon from a shelf behind the counter, poured two glasses over ice, and leaned against the edge of the counter, watching him, the chili powder smudge still on her cheek.
He stepped forward, slow, like he was approaching a skittish deer, and brushed the smudge off her cheek with the pad of his thumb, his calloused skin catching on the soft curve of her jaw.
She lifted her hand to wrap around his wrist, holding it there, and smiled.
