Ron Hargrove, 62, spent 31 years as an air traffic controller in Wichita before retiring to a tiny plot outside Lawrence three years back. He’d spent most of a decade convinced solitude was the only safe bet, after a 2011 tornado outbreak threw his tower into chaos, leading to a misdirected charter flight that made an emergency cornfield landing. No one got hurt, but the guilt ate at him, and his wife left six months later, saying he’d turned into a man who wouldn’t even risk ordering a new beer for fear it would taste bad. Now he fixes small engines for neighbors for pocket cash, keeps his fridge stocked with the same cheap lager he’s drunk since 22, and hasn’t so much as asked a woman out for coffee in 8 years.
He’s manning the community Fourth of July grill when she walks up, hem of her gingham sundress dusted with clover, half-empty pink lemonade cup in one hand. He’s seen her around: Marnie, 58, moved into the old Miller place three months prior, runs a mobile used bookshop out of a converted white van painted with sunflowers. The whole town’s gossiped about her, saying she left a Chicago corporate job after her husband died, moved to the country to start over. Ron’s gone out of his way to avoid her, crossing the street when he sees her unloading books, pretending he’s not home when she knocks to ask about lawn care. He told himself it was to avoid small town chatter, the inevitable questions about why a single guy his age was hanging around the new widow. Really, he was scared of the jolt he felt every time he caught her eye, the stupid, giddy nervousness he thought he’d outgrown decades ago.
She stops three inches from his side, close enough he can smell lavender soap and tangy lemonade over charcoal fumes and bratwurst grease. “Figured I’d beat the rush,” she says, holding out a paper plate, and her shoulder brushes his bare forearm when she reaches for tongs. Her dress cotton is soft against his sun-warmed skin, and he fumbles his spatula, dropping a brat into the coals. He curses under his breath, and she laughs, a low warm sound cutting through grill crackle and distant kid’s firecracker pops. “Looks like someone’s distracted,” she teases, and when he looks up she’s holding his gaze, brown eyes crinkling at the corners, a smudge of pink lemonade on her lower lip.
He mumbles an apology, grabs a new brat, and lies that he’s swamped with work this week, can’t help with her lawnmower like she asked last week. His schedule is actually empty save for re-watching old westerns and organizing his tool shed. She tilts her head, and he can tell she knows he’s lying. “C’mon, Ron,” she says, leaning in closer, and he feels her breath on his neck when she speaks. “I heard you fixed Mrs. Henderson’s weed whacker for a single batch of peach pie. I’ve got a case of that hazy IPA from the downtown brewery, the one that sells out every Saturday. Way better than pie.”
The part of him that’s spent years hiding from risk screams to make another excuse, to say he’s got a doctor’s appointment, to hide in his truck until the picnic ends. He’s disgusted with himself for even considering it, for wanting to throw away his safe quiet life for a woman he barely knows, for risking the hurt that left him sleeping on his couch for three months after his wife left. But then she passes him a crumpled paper towel to wipe ketchup off his jaw, her fingers brushing his skin light as a sparrow’s wing, and every rational thought vanishes.
The sky goes dark, and the first firework bursts over the treeline, red and gold, painting her face in warm light. The boom rattles in his chest, same as the turbulence he used to track on his tower radar. No one’s paying attention to them anymore, everyone wandered out to the field for a better view. He admits he’s been avoiding her, that he’s bad at this, that he hasn’t let anyone get close in so long he’s forgotten how to have a normal conversation that doesn’t involve carburetors or flight patterns. She nods, says she’s been avoiding him too, that she hasn’t talked to a man like this since her husband died, scared she’d mess up the first nice thing that’s happened to her since moving.
They stand shoulder to shoulder for the rest of the show, no space between them, heat from her body seeping through his thin work shirt. He doesn’t speak for 10 minutes, just watches colors burst over the horizon, listens to the crowd cheer in the distance, feels the steady rise and fall of her breath next to his. When the last firework fades to smoke, he turns to her, says he’s free Saturday morning to look at her lawnmower. If it’s an easy fix, they can crack open that IPA afterward, maybe sit on her porch and flip through some of her books.
She grins, gives his bicep a light firm squeeze, the callus on her thumb from turning book pages rough against his skin. “I’ll even throw in a batch of my famous chocolate chip cookies if you get it running on the first try,” she says. When she turns to walk back to her friends, he tucks the crumpled napkin she used to wipe his cheek into the pocket of his worn work jeans, already counting down the hours until Saturday.
