Ray Voss, 58, retired power lineman, leans against a splintered pine picnic table at the township fire department’s end-of-summer fundraiser, half-empty can of Pabst sweating in his left hand. The calluses on his right palm are still raw from patching the Johnson kid’s treehouse that morning, a favor he traded for a half gallon of dill pickles. The air smells like fried bologna, burnt cotton candy, and the sharp green tang of fresh-cut grass off the adjacent baseball field. He’s been avoiding his old line crew by the cornhole pit for 45 minutes, not in the mood to rehash 90s job war stories or answer nosy questions about why he still lives alone in the ranch on the edge of town. He knows what they say behind his back: grumpy bastard, still hung up on the ex who left him for a car salesman seven years prior. They’re half right. He’s definitely grumpy. He’s just not hung up anymore, just tired of people assuming he’s lonely.
He spots Lila first, weaving through kids swinging neon glow sticks, faded denim overalls slung over a plain white tee, work boots caked in garden mud, a plastic cup of pink lemonade in one hand. He recognizes the gap between her two front teeth before she says his name, the same quirk he’d only seen once before, at his wedding to her older sister Janice 31 years prior. She was 21 then, fresh out of college, covered in tattoos he’d pretended not to stare at, off to Portland to do landscape design. Now she’s 52, streaks of silver running through her dark wavy hair, the rose and sunflower tattoos on her forearms faded but still sharp.
He tenses when she stops in front of him, half ready to make an excuse and bolt. For seven years he’s avoided every member of Janice’s family like they carry the flu. But she laughs, low and warm, and leans her hip against the picnic table edge, close enough that their elbows brush when she sets her lemonade down. “I know you probably hate all of us,” she says, nodding at his beer can. “Fair. Janice was an idiot to leave you. She still complains none of her boyfriends know how to fix a leaky faucet.”
The tension in his shoulders eases a little. He snorts, takes a sip of beer. “She never could be bothered to learn how to turn a wrench herself.”
Lila snorts, leans in closer, the scent of lavender laundry detergent and cut clover rolling off her. “She once paid the 12-year-old next door $20 to take her trash out when you were on that two-week job in Toledo. Said the can was too heavy.”
He laughs, loud enough that a couple nearby glance over. He hasn’t laughed that easy in years. They talk for 20 minutes, the fundraiser noise fading to static. She tells him she moved back two months ago to care for her mom, who has early stage dementia, bought the old cottage three blocks from his house. She complains about the cottage’s water heater dying every other week, about her mom hiding car keys in the cookie jar, about local handymen blowing off her calls assuming a single woman her age won’t spot overcharging. He notices the scrapes on her knuckles, the callus on her thumb from pruning shears, the way she tucks hair behind her ear when she’s thinking—a mannerism she shares with Janice that for the first time doesn’t make his stomach twist.
The first firework cracks deafeningly, painting the sky bright red, and the crowd cheers. Lila flinches a little, steps closer, her shoulder pressing firm into his bicep. She doesn’t move away when the next burst goes blue, lighting up her face. He looks down at her, and she’s already looking up, no shyness, just a small knowing smile. “I asked around about you,” she says, voice just loud enough to cut through the noise. “Everyone says you’re a grumpy old bastard, but you’ll fix anything if someone brings you Pabst and doesn’t ask stupid questions.”
He freezes for half a second, old conflict flaring. This is Janice’s sister. Half the people in this tent know it. Gossip will run for months, Janice will scream at him over the phone, the hardware store guys will make lewd jokes for a year. He should say no, make an excuse, walk away right now. But then her hand brushes his when she grabs a piece of popcorn from a kid’s abandoned bucket on the next table, her skin warm and rough, and the conflict melts away. He’s spent seven years letting his anger at Janice box him in. He’s tired of it.
“Your water heater,” he says, nodding at her. “I’ll look at it tomorrow. 10 a.m.”
Her grin widens, the gap between her teeth showing. She pulls a sparkly purple pen from her overalls pocket, scribbles her number on a crumpled fried bologna stand napkin, shoves it into the front pocket of his flannel shirt. Her hand lingers on his chest for a beat, warm through the thin fabric. “Two six packs,” she says. “And a peach pie. I remembered you had three slices at the wedding. Said it was the best part of the whole day.”
She winks, picks up her lemonade, and walks off through the crowd to where her mom sits in a folding chair by the cotton candy stand. He stands there for another 10 minutes, watching the last of the fireworks burst over the baseball field, the napkin crinkling under his fingers where he’s pressed his hand to his shirt pocket. The beer in his hand is warm and flat now, but he takes a sip anyway, doesn’t even mind the bitter taste. A breeze picks up, carrying the faint smell of lavender over to him, and he tucks his other hand into his jeans pocket, already mentally running through his toolbox to make sure he has all the parts he’ll need.
