Ronan O’Malley, 62, spent four years avoiding small-town community events like the annual coastal Maine chili cookoff like they were a net full of jellyfish. The only reason he’d showed up this time was his old deckhand Mike had threatened to drop a load of rotting herring on his garage workbench if he didn’t get out of the house for once. He leaned against a splintered pine picnic table, paper plate of habanero-heavy chili sweating through the bottom in one hand, cold IPA sweating through the label in the other, and told himself he’d leave as soon as he finished the beer.
She spotted him before he could duck behind the group of retirees arguing about chili seasoning. A slow, teasing grin spread across her face as she walked over, and he noticed the silver hoop earring in her left ear he’d never seen before, the way her flannel was unbuttoned just enough to show the thin gold chain around her neck. “Thought you swore you’d never come to one of these things,” she said, stopping so close he could smell pine soap and cinnamon gum on her, the faint, sweet scent of the lavender hand lotion Eileen used to buy her for Christmas.
She reached for the IPA in his hand without asking, and their fingers brushed when she took it. He felt the rough callus on her index finger, the same one she’d had since they were all in their 20s, from turning thousands of book pages a day. She took a long sip, made a face, and handed it back. “Still drinking that bitter garbage, I see. Eileen always said you had the taste buds of a cod.” The mention of Eileen’s name sent a sharp, familiar twist through his chest, half guilt, half a weird, warm relief that someone was talking about her like she was a real person, not a fragile ghost to tiptoe around.
She sat down on the picnic table bench next to him, her knee brushing his denim-clad thigh, and she didn’t move away. He could feel the heat of her leg through the fabric, and he stared down at his chili so she wouldn’t see the flush creeping up his neck. For 20 minutes they talked: about the bookshop, about the fishing boats that had been coming into the harbor lately, about the way Eileen used to cheat at the cookoff’s pie contest by adding a splash of bourbon to her apple filling. He kept waiting for the guilt to overwhelm him, for the voice in his head that screamed he was betraying his wife to get loud enough to make him leave. It didn’t. Instead, he found himself leaning in when she talked, just to hear her over the band, just to get another whiff of that pine soap.
A group of kids screaming and throwing water balloons came barreling past the table right as she admitted she’d driven all the way out just because she’d heard from Mike he was going to be there. “I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to ask you out for coffee for three months,” she said, voice soft enough only he could hear, her eyes fixed on his like she was waiting for him to yell, to get up and walk away. For half a second he almost did, almost mumbled an excuse about net repairs he had to get back to, almost locked himself back in the cottage where nothing could hurt him, where he didn’t have to feel the way his chest was tight with a desire he’d thought was long buried.
Then a neon green water balloon hit the edge of the picnic table, bursting open right next to her hip. She yelped and lurched forward, pressing her shoulder firm to his chest, and he could feel her heart beating fast through the flannel. His arm came up around her waist automatically, holding her steady so she didn’t fall off the bench. She didn’t pull away. She looked up at him, her face inches from his, and he could see the flecks of gold in her brown eyes, the faint scar above her eyebrow from when they’d all gone cliff jumping in 1992.
“Got a fresh pot of French roast back at the cottage,” he said, before he could talk himself out of it. “Baked Eileen’s shortbread last night. Don’t have anyone to eat it with.”
Her grin got wider, and she stood up, brushing the water off her jeans. She grabbed his free hand as he tossed his half-eaten chili in the trash, lacing her fingers through his, the calluses on her hand fitting perfectly against the rough knots of scar tissue on his from 40 years of tying net knots. The band switched to a slow Johnny Cash love song as they walked toward his beat-up Ford F-150 parked at the edge of the field, and he didn’t let go of her hand when a group of his old fishing buddies waved and whooped from the next picnic table over.
