Elwood Tharp is 63, spent 28 years restoring vintage travel trailers for a living before he sold his shop outside Zanesville, Ohio last spring, and he’s got a scar snaking across his left eyebrow from the time a 1968 Airstream’s awning bracket snapped and hit him square in the face. His biggest flaw, if you ask his next-door neighbor Marnie, is that he’s spent the eight years since his wife Linda passed treating any invitation that doesn’t involve bee hives or rusted trailer frames like it’s a request to rob a bank. He only showed up to the fire department’s annual pig roast because Marnie threatened to stop bringing him homemade peach pie every Sunday if he didn’t bring his famous smoked jalapeño cornbread.
He’d been leaning against a splintered pine picnic table for 45 minutes, nursing a lukewarm root beer and avoiding eye contact with everyone who tried to ask how retirement was going, when she stepped up next to him. She was mid-50s, jeans caked with mud at the cuffs, a faded flannel tied around her waist, silver hoop earrings catching the golden hour light as she reached for a paper napkin stacked next to his cornbread pan. Her elbow brushed his bicep when she leaned in, and he froze, because he hadn’t been that close to someone who wasn’t a hardware store clerk or a vet tech for his old hound dog in longer than he could remember. He caught the scent of cedar shampoo and faint, citrusy seltzer on her breath, and the part of his brain that had been on auto-pilot since Linda died kicked awake for the first time in years.
She nodded at the bee tattoo curling around his forearm, the one Linda had gotten him for their 25th anniversary, and said she was Clara, the new county apiculture agent. She’d spotted his hives when she was driving out to a farm west of town the week prior, wanted to ask if he’d dealt with varroa mite infestations this summer. Elwood grunted first, ready to brush her off the same way he brushed off everyone who tried to make small talk, but she laughed when he complained about the little parasites being “tiny, uninvited assholes” and said she’d spent three days last week dusting her own home hives with powdered sugar to fight the same problem.
The conversation stretched on, slow and easy. The air smelled like charcoal and pork fat and cut grass, the distant crackle of the bonfire mixing with the sound of kids screaming as they chased each other around the fire truck parked at the edge of the field. When she reached across the table to hand him a fresh, cold root beer, her knuckles brushed his, and the chill of the aluminum can mixed with the warmth of her skin sent a jolt up his arm that he hadn’t felt since he was a kid asking Linda to prom. He fought the urge to pull away, fought the quiet, stupid voice in his head that said enjoying talking to her was some kind of betrayal, that he was supposed to spend the rest of his life alone in his workshop, sanding rusted trailer panels and talking to his bees.
When the fire department announced the 50/50 raffle winner, Elwood barely heard them call his name. He walked up to get the envelope, counted the cash inside: $428, exactly. He didn’t want it. He walked back to Clara, held out half the bills, said it was for the small beekeeper grant program she’d mentioned 20 minutes earlier, the one that helped low-income farmers buy mite treatment for their hives. She stared at him for a second, then grinned, and before he could think about it, she leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, her lips warm against his sunburnt skin. He didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away.
He asked her if she wanted to come out to his place the next afternoon, said he’d show her his hives, and if she brought the 1972 Scotty she’d been complaining she couldn’t fix the plumbing on, he’d take a look at it for free. She nodded, pulled a crumpled raffle ticket out of her jeans pocket, scribbled her phone number on the back, and tucked it into the breast pocket of his flannel, her fingers brushing the thin cotton of his undershirt under the fabric for half a second.
She said she had to go talk to a group of organic farmers on the other side of the field, waved as she walked off. Elwood stood there for a minute, pressing his palm against the pocket where the raffle ticket was tucked, still able to feel the ghost of her fingers against his chest. He picked up a piece of his cornbread, took a bite, and watched the sun dip below the tree line, painting the sky pink and orange at the edges. His hound dog was curled up under the picnic table at his feet, snoring, and someone had turned on a country radio in the bed of a pickup truck nearby, playing a song he and Linda had danced to at their wedding. He pulled the raffle ticket out of his pocket, unfolded it, and typed her number into his old flip phone, his fingers only fumbling a little when he hit save.
