Rudy Galvan, 62, retired high school woodshop teacher, had avoided the town’s annual fireman’s carnival for three straight years. His wife Linda had loved the stupid thing, had entered her peach pie every year until the cancer took her, and going without her felt like a punch to the gut he didn’t have the energy to take. He only showed up this year because his 10-year-old granddaughter Lila had called him three times in one week, begging him to watch her compete in the kids’ blueberry pie eating contest, and he never could say no to that kid.
The air clung thick with humidity, thick enough to taste the fried dough and burnt charcoal from the grill behind the beer tent the second he stepped through the gate. The Tilt-A-Whirl shrieked around its track, kids screaming loud enough to cut over the country cover band playing by the food trucks, and he stuffed his hands in the pockets of his faded Carhartt jacket, the same one he’d worn to his wedding 34 years prior, even though the temperature hovered at 86 degrees. He found a spot leaning against a splintered wooden post by the contest stage, and was half watching a group of teen boys chase each other with squirt guns when a voice pulled his attention away.
“Still wearing that ratty jacket even when you’re sweating through your t-shirt? Some things never change.”
He turned, and his throat went dry. Mara Carter, Linda’s younger cousin by four years, was leaning against the booth next to him, wiping honey off her forearm with a paper towel. She’d been 24 at his wedding, had caught the bouquet, and he’d spent half the reception trying not to stare at the way she laughed loud enough to make the whole table shake, like she didn’t care who was watching. He’d only seen her a handful of times since then, at funerals and holiday dinners, and he’d never once let himself admit how his pulse picked up every time she was in the room. She ran a beekeeping co-op down in Kentucky for years, he remembered, had gotten divorced seven years back, and he’d heard through the family grapevine she’d moved back to town six months prior. He’d actively avoided running into her.
She held out a wildflower honey stick, her fingers calloused at the tips from prying open hive boxes, and when he reached for it, their knuckles brushed for a beat longer than polite. He could smell clover and lemon lip balm on her, the faint sweet tang of raw honey clinging to her shirt, and she held eye contact, no smile at first, like she was waiting for him to run off. “Heard you quit doing custom woodwork after Linda passed. Shame. I saw the birdhouse you built for Lila posted on the neighborhood group last month. Was gonna reach out, ask if you’d build custom hive boxes for my co-op. Scared you’d tell me to go to hell.”
He laughed, surprised, and popped the end off the honey stick, the sweet floral taste bursting on his tongue. That old familiar guilt twisted in his chest, tight and hot, like he was doing something wrong just standing there talking to her, like Linda was watching from somewhere and shaking her head. But he couldn’t make himself walk away. He leaned in a little closer when a fire truck blared its siren right behind them, their shoulders pressed together for ten full seconds, neither of them moving to step apart, and he could feel the warmth of her arm through his shirt.
Lila came barrelling off the stage then, her face and shirt covered head to toe in blueberry pie filling, holding a plastic trophy that was almost as big as she was. “Papa! I won! You said you’d buy me ice cream!” She skidded to a stop next to him, then turned to Mara, her head tilted like she recognized her from family photos. “Are you coming too? They have rainbow sprinkles, I saw.”
Rudy froze, his mouth hanging open, ready to apologize, to tell Mara she didn’t have to, that Lila was just being friendly, but she wiped a smudge of pie filling off Lila’s cheek with her thumb, grinning so wide the laugh lines around her eyes crinkled all the way to her temples. “Only if your papa lets me pay for the sprinkles. I’ve got a major sweet tooth.”
The tight knot in his chest loosened, just a little, and he knew he was being stupid for feeling guilty. Linda had loved Mara, had always told him he needed to stop hiding in his garage and talk to people who got him, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this light, this seen, like he didn’t have to put on a brave face for anyone.
They walked to the ice cream truck side by side, Lila bouncing ahead of them, chattering about how she’d beaten the third grade boy who’d won last year. When Lila ran up to the window to yell her order, Mara brushed a piece of lint off his shirt, her hand lingering on his chest for a second, so light he almost didn’t feel it. “I’ve been hanging around this carnival for two hours waiting for you to show up, by the way. Lila texted me last week and told me you’d be here.”
He blinked, surprised, then laughed, loud enough that a couple walking past turned to look. That little troublemaker, he thought, and he didn’t even mind. They ordered their ice cream, vanilla for him, salted caramel for her, rainbow sprinkles all over Lila’s mint chocolate chip, and when they turned to take their first bites at the same time, their cones bumped, sticky vanilla and caramel oozing onto his wrist. Mara laughed, leaned in, and licked the sticky mess off his skin without even thinking, then winked at him like she knew exactly what she was doing.
He popped the last bite of his vanilla ice cream into his mouth, already making a mental list of the cedar lumber he’d need to pick up for her first set of hive boxes first thing tomorrow.
