Clay Bennett, 58, retired power lineman, had held a grudge against the local arts council for five full years, ever since they blocked the fiber optic upgrade that would’ve brought high-speed internet to the west end of his small Ohio town. He’d called their lead councilwoman every name under the sun at that 2018 town hall, red-faced, work boots caked in mud from a storm call earlier that day, and had avoided any event they sponsored ever after. His only flaw, if you asked his buddies, was that he held grudges longer than he kept his work boots, and he’d had those same boots for 12 years. Widowed three years prior, he’d spent most of his free time fixing up his bungalow, volunteering at the local fire station, and pretending he didn’t notice the empty side of his bed or the quiet that settled over the house after 8 p.m.
He only showed up to the annual summer beer garden because his buddy Ron practically dragged him, swearing the new Dayton craft brewery was pouring a lager so good it’d make him forget he hated the arts council. The air smelled like cut grass, fried funnel cake, and hops, golden hour light gilding the edges of the oak trees lining the park, kids screaming on the tilt-a-whirl set up at the far end of the field. Clay leaned against a splintered picnic table, sipping the first lager Ron had handed him, when his eyes locked on the woman behind the bar.
It was Maren Hale, 54, the same arts council head he’d yelled at half a decade earlier. She was wearing a faded denim work shirt rolled to the elbows, silver hoop earrings catching the light, a smudge of beer foam on her left cheek, her dark hair streaked with gray pulled back in a loose braid. She didn’t look like the stuck-up city transplant he’d remembered, all sharp blazers and polished talking points. Her nails were chipped, no polish, calloused at the fingertips, and when she leaned down to grab a keg tap, he noticed she was wearing scuffed work boots just like his.
He figured he’d slip out before she saw him, but Ron yelled her name, waving her over before Clay could stop him. She walked over, slow, a half-smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, and stopped just close enough that he could smell lavender hand cream mixed with the sharp, sweet scent of hops on her clothes. “Clay Bennett,” she said, her voice lower than he remembered, no trace of the formal town hall tone. “Still wearing that beat-up Ohio State hat, I see. You wore that to the town hall meeting, too. I think you called me a ‘tree-hugging idiot’ that day.”
He felt his face heat up, the way it used to when he was a kid getting caught sneaking beer out of his dad’s fridge. He mumbled an apology, half-hearted, and she laughed, a rough, warm sound that made the back of his neck tingle. She leaned across the table to grab Ron’s empty pint, and her breast brushed his shoulder, light, accidental, but he felt the heat of it through his thin flannel shirt for minutes after she’d pulled back. He found himself asking her to stay, to have a beer with them, and Ron took the hint, making an excuse to leave and join his wife by the band stand.
They talked for an hour, first about the beer, then about the storm that had knocked out power to half the town the week before, then about the old oak grove on the west end, the one that had been the sticking point for the fiber upgrade. She told him she’d blocked the route because the grove was where her dad had taught her to hunt, where she’d taken her own kids camping before they moved away for college, and Clay felt the last of his anger melt away. That was the same grove he’d taken his son deer hunting every fall until he’d joined the army, the same grove where he’d scattered his wife Linda’s ashes three years earlier. He’d never bothered to ask why she’d blocked the upgrade, had just assumed she didn’t care about working folks who needed internet to run their businesses or talk to their grandkids overseas.
He was disgusted with himself, at first, for being attracted to the woman he’d spent five years badmouthing to anyone who would listen, for the way his heart sped up when she leaned in to hear him over the band, for the way he wanted to reach out and wipe that beer foam off her cheek. It felt like a betrayal, of Linda, of the grudge he’d carried so long like a security blanket. But then she told him she built custom birdhouses for the town’s nature center, that she’d seen the bluebird house he’d hung on the edge of the grove last winter, that she’d thought it was the best built one in the whole park.
The band switched to a slow, twangy 90s country track, the same one he’d danced to with Linda at their wedding, and Maren held out her hand. “You gonna dance with me, or are you gonna keep scowling like you’re still mad at me?” she asked, and he hesitated for half a second before he took her hand. Her palm was warm, calloused, same as his, and she stepped close enough that her head rested on his shoulder for a beat, her hair brushing his jaw. He could feel the warmth of her body against his, the faint thud of her heartbeat through her shirt, and when she whispered that she’d wanted to apologize to him for years but had been too scared he’d yell at her again, he told her he was sorry too, for yelling, for not listening, for being an idiot.
A few of his buddies glanced over from the other side of the park, eyes wide, and he felt that sharp, giddy thrill of doing something everyone would assume was stupid, something that was nobody’s business but his. When the song ended, they didn’t go back to the picnic table. They walked out of the park, down Main Street, streetlights clicking on one by one, fireflies flickering in the ditch beside the road. She stopped to pick a wild blackberry off the bush growing through the fence line, held it up to his mouth, and he took it, sweet tart juice running down his chin. She swiped it off with her thumb, then licked the juice off her own finger, slow, like she knew exactly what she was doing.
He asked her if she wanted to come back to his place, see the bluebirds that had moved into the house he’d built, and she nodded, lacing her fingers through his. The screen door of his bungalow creaked shut behind them, the faint trill of the bluebirds’ evening call carrying through the open kitchen window.
