Rico Marquez, 62, spent 32 years as a commercial diver patching Gulf of Mexico oil rigs and pulling sunken sportfishing boats up from the silt, now runs a clapboard bait and tackle shop off Highway 98 outside Port St. Joe, Florida. He’d entered the annual Lions Club chili cookoff on a dare from his 16-year-old grandson, who’d teased him for weeks that his “old man spicy” chili was too hot for anyone but him to eat. The air smells like smoked paprika, burnt hot dog buns, and salt wind off the bay, string lights strung between pine trees fizzle a little when a gust hits, wooden folding tables creak under slow-moving crowds of retirees, high school kids manning the bake sale table, local sheriff’s deputies grabbing seconds between calls. He wears a faded 2010 dive team hoodie stained with fish slime and engine grease, work boots caked in mud from his stilt house driveway, his left hand missing the top knuckle of his ring finger from a 2007 cable snap that almost took his whole hand.
He’s just spooned a sample into a paper cup for a retired mail carrier when someone’s shoulder brushes his bicep, firm, warm, and he turns to find Elara Voss, his ex-wife’s younger sister, the woman he’s blamed for 18 years for tipping off Florida Fish and Wildlife about his unlicensed goliath grouper recovery gig back in 2005, the fine that ate through his savings and delayed his retirement by three years. He hasn’t seen her in 12 years, not since his ex-wife’s second wedding in Tallahassee. She’s 58 now, a thick silver streak cutting through her dark wavy hair, wearing high-waisted jeans and an oversized red flannel tied around her waist, scuffed white tennis shoes, no makeup except a swipe of pale pink lip gloss. She smirks, leans in a little to get a look at his chili pot, her knee knocking his when she balances on the edge of the curb, the smell of coconut shampoo and the peppermint hard candies she always sucked on hitting him sharp and familiar, like he’s stepped back 20 years in time. “Heard you entered the hot chili category,” she says, voice a little raspier than he remembers, like she’s spent years smoking or cheering too loud at college football games. “Figured I’d come judge for myself if you still burn everything you cook like you did at the 2003 family reunion.”
He bristles at first, crossing his arms, the old anger coiling tight in his gut, but then he notices she’s not smirking mean, her dark eyes crinkled at the corners like she’s genuinely amused, not taking a shot at him. He scoffs, spooning a heaping serving into the paper cup she holds out, their fingers brushing when she takes it, her skin soft against the raised scar tissue on his knuckle. He watches her take a big bite, her eyes widening a little, she coughs once, swallows, licks a smudge of chili grease off her lower lip, holding his eye contact for three full beats, no looking away, no awkward fidgeting. “Okay,” she says, fanning her mouth a little with her free hand, “you got better. Only moderately third-degree burn worthy.”
They banter back and forth for 10 minutes, him teasing her about the time she tried to water ski at the family lake house and crashed straight into a dock, her teasing him about the terrible perm he had in the 90s that made him look like a middle-aged poodle. He keeps waiting for the awkward lull, for one of them to make an excuse and walk away, but she leans in closer every time a group of people cuts between them, her shoulder pressed fully to his now, he can feel the heat of her arm through his hoodie, even through the thick fabric. Finally, he can’t hold the question in any longer, asks her straight out why she ratted him out back in 2005, why she threw him under the bus like that when they’d always gotten along before the divorce.
Her smile drops immediately, she blinks, looks confused for half a second, then laughs, sharp and bitter. “Rico, that wasn’t me,” she says, shaking her head, crossing her arms tight across her chest. “That was your ex. She was cheating on you with that real estate guy from Panama City, remember? She wanted the divorce settlement to lean her way, so she called FWC on you, said you were running unlicensed fishing charters too. Told me if I said anything to you, she’d tell the whole family we slept together at the 2002 New Year’s party.” He freezes, that memory hitting him hard, they were both three sheets to the wind, his ex passed out on the living room couch, they’d kissed in the laundry room, fumbled around for 10 minutes before panicking and agreeing to never talk about it again, he’d spent 20 years pretending it never even happened. “I moved to Georgia two weeks later because I couldn’t stand lying to you,” she says, voice softer now, looking down at her scuffed shoes for a second before meeting his eyes again. “I’ve been wanting to tell you for 18 years.”
The cookoff announcement blares over the loudspeaker, some guy from the fire department wins first place, the crowd cheers loud enough to make the string lights rattle, but he doesn’t care. The old anger melts away fast, replaced by something warmer, something he thought he’d buried after his second wife died of breast cancer 7 years ago. He nods, picking up the cooler of ice cold beer he brought for after the cookoff, jabbing his thumb toward the parking lot where his beat-up 2008 F150 is parked under a pine tree. “You got anywhere to be tonight?” he asks, trying to sound casual, can feel his face heating up a little like he’s 19 again asking a girl to prom. She grins, nodding, slips her hand into his, her fingers fitting perfectly between his scarred ones, her palm warm even in the cool October wind. They walk past the crowds, no one looks twice at them, the salt wind blows her hair against his cheek, he can still smell peppermint on her breath when she leans in to ask him if he still has that old 22-foot dive boat he used to take out on weekends. He says he does, pulls his keys out of his pocket, unlocks the passenger door for her, and when she climbs in, her flannel slips off one shoulder, revealing a tiny tattoo of a sea turtle he never knew she had.
