Ray Voss, 58, retired electric lineman with 32 years on the job for Auglaize County’s rural co-op, sat hunched over a draft Pabst at The Rusty Plug, the only dive bar within 15 miles of his farmstead on the edge of Wapakoneta. His flaw was obvious to everyone who knew him: he’d shut down entirely after his ex-wife left him for a 30-year-old realtor eight years prior, writing off all romantic connection as a scam designed to drain his pension and leave him broke. He’d spent the day helping a former crewmate haul 120 bales of hay, so his jeans were dust-caked, his work boots caked in mud crusted hard enough to chip, and the scar across his left bicep from a 2018 line fire was peeking out from the sleeve of his faded work shirt.
The bar hummed with the usual post-farmers market chatter, but the dominant topic that evening was the school board’s 4-3 vote earlier that week to approve a drag queen story hour at the public library, a move half the town was calling “groomer garbage” and the other half was calling long overdue. A group of three farmers two stools over were yelling about the librarian who’d pushed for the event, calling her every crude name in the book, and Ray said nothing at first—he didn’t care much about town politics, figured people could do what they wanted as long as they didn’t mess with his property or his beer.
Then the door swung open, and the librarian walked in.
Clara Bennett, 54, had moved to town three years prior to take over the library system, and Ray had only ever seen her at town hall meetings, red-faced and yelling at board members who tried to cut the library’s budget to pay for a new football field. He’d written her off as a stuck-up east coast transplant with a chip on her shoulder, until that night. She had a sunburn across the bridge of her nose, her wavy auburn hair was frizzy from the 85-degree humidity, and she carried a stack of neon flyers for the story hour tucked under one arm. She slid onto the stool two down from Ray, and the bartender, Earl, snorted when she ordered a bourbon on the rocks. “Heard you got your way with the board, huh, freak supporter?” Earl said, wiping the bar with a rag that looked dirtier than Ray’s boots.
Ray tensed before he thought about it. He didn’t care about the story hour, but he hated bullies, always had, even when he was a kid getting picked on for being the only lineman’s son in his Catholic school class. “Pour the lady her drink, Earl,” he said, nodding at the glass. “On my tab.”
Clara looked over at him, surprised, her hazel eyes flecked with bright green catching the neon of the “Coors Light” sign above the bar. She was wearing a loose linen button-down, unbuttoned one notch lower than most women in town would dare, and a tiny gold owl charm on a thin chain glinted against her collarbone. She shifted one stool closer, the fabric of her khakis brushing Ray’s denim-clad knee under the bar, and a jolt shot up his spine he hadn’t felt since he was 16 and fumbling with his first girlfriend’s bra in the back of his dad’s pickup. “Thanks,” she said, her voice lower than he expected, rough around the edges like she’d been yelling all day. “I was half expecting him to spit in my drink.”
The bourbon arrived, and she took a long sip, sighing. She told him she’d been getting nasty handwritten notes tucked under her windshield wiper all week, that someone had egged her porch two nights prior, that her own neighbors wouldn’t wave at her when she walked her beagle down the street. She smelled like lavender hand lotion and fresh cut clover, and Ray could hear the exhaustion in her voice, the way she kept picking at a loose thread on her sleeve like she was used to having to defend herself every minute of the day. They talked for an hour, first about the town drama, then about their lives, and Ray was shocked to learn she’d grown up on a dairy farm outside Pittsburgh, that her dad had been a lineman too. She knew what it was like to wait up until 2 a.m. wondering if your dad was going to make it home alive after an ice storm, knew how linemen’s hands got so cracked in the winter they’d bleed through their work gloves, knew the stupid inside jokes guys on the crew told to pass the time on 12-hour shifts in the rain.
His ex had never cared about any of that, had called his work “dirty” and “beneath them” the whole 22 years they were married.
Clara laughed at his dumb story about the time he’d gotten zapped by a stray 120v line and singed off half his left eyebrow, and her hand landed on his forearm when she cackled, her palm calloused from turning thousands of book pages, her chipped pale pink nail polish catching the light. Ray leaned in without thinking, their faces now less than a foot apart, the group of yelling farmers long gone, the jukebox spitting out a slow Johnny Cash deep cut that rumbled through the floorboards under their feet. He was torn right down the middle: part of him was disgusted with himself for even considering getting tangled up with the most controversial woman in town, for being the subject of every gossip’s conversation at the grocery store come Monday, for risking the quiet, lonely routine he’d built for himself over eight years. The other part of him didn’t give a single shit. He hadn’t felt this seen, this alive, since he’d climbed his last pole and retired two years prior.
“You got plans after this?” he asked, his voice rougher than he meant it to be. “Got a bottle of Booker’s bourbon back at the house, the good stuff my old boss gave me when I retired. Got a hound dog named Mabel that’s nicer than 90% of the people in this town, too.”
Clara hesitated for half a second, then bit her lower lip and nodded, a small smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “I’d like that,” she said.
They walked out to his beat-up 2007 Ford F150 as the sun dipped below the cornfields, painting the sky streaks of tangerine and soft pink, the crickets chirping so loud they drowned out the distant hum of a combine out in the fields. The humidity had dropped just enough to feel nice on his sun-warmed skin, and when he opened the passenger door for her, she paused before climbing in, leaned up, and kissed him quick, soft, her lips tasting like bourbon and cherry lip balm. Ray tucked a strand of frizzy auburn hair behind her ear, his calloused thumb brushing the edge of her sunburned cheek, and she smiled up at him.
She climbed into the cab, and he shut the door behind her, walking around to the driver’s side and sliding into the worn leather seat. He turned the key, the truck rumbled to life, and the radio kicked on to an old Merle Haggard song he’d loved since he was a kid. He pulled out of the gravel parking lot, turned left onto the county road that led to his house, and for the first time in eight years, he didn’t dread walking through his front door.
