Elroy Voss, 62, spent 34 years climbing utility poles for the rural electric co-op before a bad fall shattered his left ankle and forced early retirement. These days he restores vintage glass and porcelain insulators, sanding off decades of grime, polishing them until they glow like scattered pieces of sky, selling them at fall craft fairs across western Pennsylvania. His worst flaw, as his only sister likes to remind him, is that he’s spent the eight years since his wife left for a Florida realtor treating any casual attention from women like a power line he’s sure is still live—he won’t go near it, no matter how many people tell him the breaker’s flipped.
The drizzle started at 10 a.m. that Saturday, light at first, then steady enough to bead on the edge of his booth’s canvas awning and leave dark splotches on the flannel shirt he’d layered under a waxed work jacket. Fair traffic was slow, most visitors huddled under umbrellas making a beeline for the fried dough booth or the indoor craft hall. He was sipping lukewarm gas station coffee, picking at a chip in the edge of a 1920s porcelain insulator, when she stepped under the edge of his awning to shake rain off her leather jacket.
He recognized her immediately, even with her streaked gray hair pulled back in a frayed knit scarf. Marnie Hale, 58, ex-wife of his old foreman, the guy who’d trained him his first week on the job, who’d once chewed him out for 20 minutes for forgetting his safety harness 80 feet up a pine. She ran the pepper jelly booth three rows over, he’d seen her when he set up that morning, had deliberately avoided walking past her booth all day. For 20 years while she was married to his boss, he’d let himself glance at her exactly once every time she brought lunch to the line crew, too scared anyone would catch him staring, too convinced she was way out of his league.
She leaned in to squint at a row of cobalt blue insulators lined up on his table, the shoulder of her jacket brushing his bicep for half a second. He could smell cinnamon gum and pine hand soap over the damp wool and fried dough wafting from the next booth. “Dale used to bring those home sometimes,” she said, nodding at the blue glass, her voice lower than he remembered, rough around the edges from years of smoking menthols he knew she’d quit three years back, because Dale had complained about it constantly. “Said you were the only guy on the crew who didn’t throw the old ones in the ditch when you replaced poles.”
Elroy nodded, his throat tight. He knew they’d gotten divorced two years ago, knew Dale had moved to Ohio to work for a different co-op, knew it wasn’t actually wrong to talk to her. But some old, ingrained part of him still felt like he was breaking a crew rule, like he’d get written up for even making eye contact longer than two seconds. He wiped his damp palms on the thigh of his work jeans. “They’re too pretty to throw away,” he said, and he was surprised his voice didn’t crack.
She laughed, a dry, warm sound, and leaned in a little closer, so her rain-damp sleeve brushed his hand when she pointed at a swirled milk-glass insulator on the top shelf. “That one’s my favorite. Looks like the marbles my kid used to collect when he was small.” Her eyes flicked up to his, held for three beats, four, and he didn’t look away. He noticed the tiny crinkles at the corners of her eyes, the smudge of chili powder on the side of her thumb from jarring jelly that morning. “I was supposed to meet my sister for lunch after the fair, but she bailed to go to her grandson’s soccer game,” she said, like she was thinking out loud, not really talking to him at first. “I got a jar of ghost pepper jelly I set aside this week, the good kind, not the watered down stuff I sell to tourists. You like spicy food?”
Elroy’s first instinct was to say no, to make an excuse, to say he had to pack up his booth and drive straight home, that he had plans he didn’t actually have. But the rain picked up, tapping hard on the awning, and she stepped even closer to avoid a splash from a kid running past in rain boots, her hip pressing against his for half a second. He felt a jolt he hadn’t felt since he was 20, sneaking into his girlfriend’s parents’ basement after curfew. “Yeah,” he said, before he could talk himself out of it. “I like spicy.”
The fair closed an hour later, the last of the visitors trickling out to their cars, the food booths turning off their grills. He helped her fold up her booth’s awning, carried her crate of leftover jelly jars to her truck, his knuckle brushing hers when he handed her the crate to set in the bed. She pulled the jar of ghost pepper jelly out of her cooler, held it out to him, and when he took it their fingers tangled for a beat, neither of them pulling away fast. “I always thought you were nicer than Dale,” she said, quiet enough that only he could hear it, even though there was no one else within 20 feet. “Quieter. Didn’t feel like you had to yell to prove you were good at your job.”
He stared at her for a second, the rain spotting the lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses, and admitted something he’d never told anyone, not even his sister. “I thought about asking you out for coffee a dozen times after you got divorced. Scared I’d get chewed out by Dale even though he lives three hours away now.”
She laughed again, leaning in to brush a wet strand of hair off his forehead, her palm warm against his cold skin. “Dale doesn’t get a say in who I go get dinner with,” she said, nodding toward the diner at the end of the fairgrounds, the neon sign glowing pink through the rain. “Their meatloaf’s supposed to be real good. You wanna split a piece for dessert after?”
He nodded, tucking the jar of jelly into the pocket of his work jacket, slinging the strap of his insulator tool bag over his shoulder. She linked her arm through his as they started walking, her head tilted up to smile at him, the rain soaking the ends of her scarf. The hem of her wool skirt brushed his calf with every step, and for the first time in eight years, he didn’t feel the urge to rush ahead alone.
