Clay Bennett, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service wildfire crew lead, leans his weight against the scuffed oak bar at The Pine Tap on a mid-July Tuesday, the faint scar snaking across his left forearm glowing pink under the neon Pabst sign. He’s lived outside Bend, Oregon, for 27 years, has avoided the bar’s annual First Responder Appreciation Night for the last decade on principle, only showed up tonight because his fridge was empty and the free fried pickles were too good to pass up. His biggest flaw, one he’d never admit out loud, is that he’s held a grudge against his ex-wife Linda so tight for 12 years that he’s turned down every half-hearted date invite from the widows at the local hardware store, every playful advance from regulars at the coffee shop, convinced any romantic entanglement would only end the same way: with someone leaving him for a shinier, younger version of what he used to be.
He orders his usual hazy IPA, keeps his eyes fixed on the baseball game playing on the mounted TV above the tap handles, until a glass thunks down on the paper coaster in front of him and a warm, citrusy scent hits his nose. He glances up, and his jaw tightens. Mara Carter, Linda’s 49-year-old younger cousin, the same woman who crashed on his and Linda’s couch for three months back in 2011 fresh off a messy divorce from a high school football coach, grins back at him, one silver hoop in her left ear, a tiny nose ring glinting in the low light. She’d moved to Bend three weeks prior, he’d heard through the grapevine, to be closer to her 19-year-old daughter who was studying horticulture at Central Oregon Community College. Back in 2011, he’d thought she was flighty, too loud, always leaving half-empty iced coffee cups on his coffee table and blaring Taylor Swift in the shower, so he’d spent most of her stay out on fire calls or in his garage working on his old 1987 Ford F-150, avoiding her as much as possible.
She doesn’t move away after setting his beer down, leans her hip against the edge of the bar, her bare calf brushing his jean-clad knee by accident. He freezes, can feel the heat of her skin through the thin denim, his throat going dry. “I knew that was you,” she says, her voice warm, over the hum of the bar crowd and the 90s Alan Jackson track playing on the jukebox. “I saw your truck parked out front, the one with the dented passenger door from that elk collision you had in 2010. Still driving that death trap?” He huffs a laugh, surprised she remembers. He’d hit that elk on the way home from a fire call, Linda had yelled at him for three days about totaling the “family car,” even though he’d only gotten a few scratches. Mara had snuck him a beer in the garage that night, he’d forgotten that, until now.
He tries to keep his responses short at first, half out of habit, half out of that sharp, twisting guilt in his gut that says talking to Linda’s cousin is wrong, that it’s some kind of betrayal even though Linda left him for a 32-year-old real estate agent 12 years prior, hasn’t spoken to him in seven. Mara doesn’t push, just pops back over between serving other customers, each time getting a little closer, her arm brushing his scarred forearm when she drops off a fresh bowl of pickles, her knee pressing against his for a beat longer each time she leans in to tell him a story about her daughter’s terrible first attempt at growing cannabis for a class project. She smells like coconut shampoo and lime seltzer, has freckles across her nose from working days at the local native plant nursery, and she laughs at his dumb jokes about fire crew mishaps like they’re the funniest thing she’s ever heard. No one’s listened to him talk about his old job like that in years, not even his old crew buddies who only want to talk about football and hunting now that they’re retired.
By 10 p.m., most of the crowd has cleared out, the only other people left are two regulars playing darts in the corner. Mara wipes down the bar in front of him, her hand resting on the wood two inches from his, her thumb brushing the edge of his beer glass. “I’m off in 10,” she says, not looking away from his eyes, her voice lower than it was before. “The sun’s setting over the Deschutes, it’s real pretty this time of year. Wanna walk the trail with me?”
His first instinct is to say no. To think about what Linda would say if she found out, what the gossips at the grocery store would whisper when they saw them together, how stupid it is to risk the quiet, boring life he’s built for himself for a woman who’s technically family, even if it’s by marriage that ended a decade ago. He looks at her, though, the way she’s biting her lower lip like she’s nervous he’ll say no, the way her fingers are tapping the bar just like they did when she was nervous back in 2011, and the resistance in his chest melts. He nods.
They walk the half-block to the river trail, the air warm against his skin, crickets chirping in the sagebrush lining the path, the sound of the river gurgling over the rocks mixing with the distant clink of beer glasses from the bar. She stops at a weathered wooden bench half-hidden by pine trees, sits down, patting the spot next to her. He sits, their shoulders brushing as he leans back against the wood. “I had a crush on you back then, you know,” she says, turning to look at him, the last of the sun gilding the edges of her hair. “I thought you were the only solid thing in that messy house. Linda never deserved you.”
He doesn’t say anything, just reaches over, laces his scarred fingers through hers, calloused from years of hauling hoses and chopping brush, against her softer ones, calloused from repotting plants and digging in dirt. The last sliver of sun dips below the Cascade peaks, painting the sky streaks of tangerine and pale lavender. Her hand fits in his like it was made to, and for the first time in 12 years, he doesn’t feel like running.
