Russell Hale, 62, spent 38 years disposing of hazardous waste from construction sites, highway crashes, and abandoned industrial facilities before he retired, and the only flaw anyone could pin on him was that he’d shut down hard after his wife left him for a Peloton instructor three years prior. He’d turned down every blind date his sister tried to set up, spent most weekends under the hood of his 1978 F-150, and only left the house for mandatory volunteer shifts at the county fair’s beer tent, the only commitment he’d kept from before the divorce.
The August air reeked of fried Oreos and diesel from the tractor pull when she leaned over the sticky folding table, and for a second he didn’t recognize her. Silver streaked the front of her dark hair, there were faint laugh lines fanning out from the corners of her hazel eyes, but when she grinned he placed her immediately: Mara, his ex-wife’s first cousin, the kid who’d babysat his boys when she was 16, who’d begged him to teach her to drive stick in that same F-150 back in 2008. She was 48 now, a traveling paramedic passing through for a high school friend’s wedding, she said, and when she reached for the lager he poured her, her forearm brushed his, calloused from gripping ambulance gurneys, warm even through the thin fabric of his work shirt.
He should have handed her the cup and turned to the next person in line. He’d cut off all contact with his ex’s side of the family the day the divorce papers were signed, had no interest in dredging up old memories or the inevitable gossip that would come with talking to her. But she stayed leaned against the table, sipping her beer, yelling over the roar of the Ferris wheel’s hydraulics to ask about the truck, about his boys, about the stupid prank she’d pulled at his 40th birthday party where she’d swapped his regular beer for non-alcoholic and watched him pretend to be drunk for three hours. He laughed before he could stop himself, and when she held out her hand for a free bag of the roasted peanuts the fair gave to volunteers, their fingers tangled for half a second, and he fumbled the bag so bad half the peanuts spilled onto the ground.
She laughed so hard she snort-laughed, and when his shift ended 20 minutes later she patted the empty stool next to her, already holding a fresh cold beer for him. She sat close enough that her knee pressed against his under the table, close enough he could smell citrus hand sanitizer and the faint, sharp scent of antiseptic clinging to the hem of her flannel shirt, left over from a call she’d run that morning. She mentioned she was staying at a cheap motel on the edge of town, had nothing to do until the wedding the next day, and asked if he’d take her for a ride in the F-150, like he’d promised he would when she was a teen, before life got messy.
He hesitated for three full seconds. He thought about his ex, who still left him snarky voicemails every time he forgot to forward her one of the boys’ college report cards, who would lose her entire mind if she found out he’d so much as said hello to Mara. He thought about the small town gossip mill, how everyone would have a take by the end of the weekend. But then Mara tilted her head up at him, and she was still the same kid who’d helped him fix a flat tire on the truck in the rain when she was 17, who’d never once taken his ex’s side in the screaming fights leading up to the divorce, and he nodded.
They walked through the fairgrounds together, her shoulder brushing his every few steps, and when they reached the truck she ran her palm over the newly polished cherry red paint, the same color it was when he bought it new. He opened the passenger door for her, and her shoulder pressed against his chest when she climbed in, warm and solid. He turned the key, and the engine rumbled to life, loud and familiar, and he pulled out of the fair parking lot, heading for the old dirt road that cut through the cornfields out to the bluff overlook. He didn’t turn on the radio. She didn’t talk about the divorce, or his ex, or any of the mess they were wading into. She just laced her fingers through his where they rested on the center console, and he didn’t pull away. The sun dipped below the corn rows, painting the inside of the cab tangerine, and he didn’t even think about the texts his ex would send if anyone saw them.
