Clay Bennett, 57, retired U.S. Forest Service ranger, moved to Tampa 14 months prior after his wife Linda died of ovarian cancer. His biggest flaw is he’d rather wrestle a feral hog alone than ask a stranger for a hand, still sleeps with her faded plaid flannel shirt under his pillow, and avoids neighborhood gatherings unless they involve free food and minimal small talk. The VFW Friday fish fry is his only regular social outing, and he’s perched on the last bar stool, picking at a plate of crumbed catfish, ignoring the guy two stools over rambling about his golf handicap, when the stool next to him scrapes loud against the linoleum.
He doesn’t look up until her knee knocks his, hard enough to jostle his half-drunk beer. He recognizes her immediately: Maren, 52, the ex-wife of the prick two houses down who he’d screamed at three weeks prior for cutting down his live oak saplings to put up a six-foot privacy fence. The entire neighborhood has picked sides, most backing the ex, a local realtor who writes fat checks to the HOA, so talking to Maren is technically social suicide for the new guy. She smells like lavender hand lotion and fried hushpuppies, the hem of her denim skirt frayed at the edges, silver hoops glinting under the neon Pabst sign above the bar. She grins, says she watched the fence fight from her kitchen window, thinks her ex is a grade-A asshole who deserved every word Clay yelled.
He doesn’t reply at first, sipping his beer, half disgusted with himself for even noticing how her eyes crinkle at the corners when she laughs, half thrumming with the stupid, reckless thrill of doing something the whole block would side-eye so hard they’d sprain their necks. She orders a Bud Light, passes him a napkin when a drop of grease drips off his fork onto his scuffed work boot, her knuckle brushing the back of his hand when she hands it over. He hasn’t dated since Linda died, hasn’t even hugged anyone but his old hound dog in 26 months, and the faint contact makes the back of his neck feel hot. They talk about the community food bank he volunteered at for three days after Hurricane Idalia, how layoffs at the nearby citrus plant have pushed demand up 40% in the last two months, how the HOA refuses to approve a neighborhood donation drive because they claim it’ll “attract the wrong crowd” to their cookie-cutter subdivision.
She mentions she’s supposed to drop 12 cases of canned goods off at the rural satellite location 30 minutes west of town the next morning, her pickup’s transmission died two days ago, and her ex has refused to help even though he still owes her half the cost of the truck. Clay offers his F-150 before he can think better of it, immediately tenses up waiting for her to turn him down, but she nods, scribbles her address on a crumpled napkin, shoves it in the pocket of his work flannel. Her fingers brush his chest through the fabric, and he swears he can feel the heat of them through three layers of cloth. He drives home that night, staring at the napkin tucked in his cupholder, fighting the voice in his head that says he’s betraying Linda, that he’s going to start a neighborhood war, that he’s too old for this kind of stupid, impulsive adventure.
He kisses her before he can overthink it, pulls back immediately, his face burning, ready to mumble an apology and drive her straight home, but she grabs the front of his shirt, pulls him back in. For a second he’s frozen, fighting the urge to run, the cold coil of guilt in his gut warring with the warm, soft press of her mouth against his, the sound of rain hammering on the tin roof above them, the faint smell of her lavender lotion cutting through the sharp scent of wet dirt and citrus. She pulls back after a minute, tells him she saw the wedding ring he wears on a chain around his neck when he was lifting boxes at the food bank last month, that she’s not looking for anything permanent, that she just knows what it looks like when someone’s been carrying a weight too heavy for too long. The knot in his chest loosens, and he doesn’t pull away when she leans her head on his shoulder.
They wait out the rain for an hour, talking about nothing important, her hand resting light on his knee, before the storm passes and the sun pokes back through the clouds. They drive back into town, stop at a grungy roadside diner off the highway for coffee, the vinyl booth sticky under their damp clothes. He pulls the chain with the wedding ring over his head, tucks it into the inside pocket of his wallet instead of slipping it back over his neck, not ready to get rid of it, just ready to stop letting it hang around his throat like a shackle. The waitress drops a free slice of cinnamon apple pie on their table, winks, says they look like they’ve had a long day. Maren reaches across the booth, laces her fingers through his, her palm warm against his calloused knuckles. He picks up a fork, takes a bite of the pie, sweet and warm, and doesn’t look away when she smiles at him.
