Clay Hargrove, 57, retired power lineman, leans against a splintered pine picnic table at the annual township fire department carnival, sweat beading at the edge of his faded Steelers cap. His left forearm bears a thick, silvery scar from the 2018 ice storm, when he’d hung off a 40-foot pole for eight hours in -2 degree windchill to get the local nursing home’s power back online. For 12 years, he’s avoided anyone connected to his ex-wife, who left him for a Tesla-driving luxury realtor in 2011, convinced every last one of her relatives thought he was a dumb, blue-collar schmuck who hadn’t been good enough for her. It’s his only real flaw, this stubborn, defensive grudge he’s carried so long it’s started to feel like a second skin.
He’s halfway through his second Yuengling, watching a group of teen boys argue over a cornhole score, when she steps up to the table. Her name tag reads MARA, the last name scrawled underneath the same as his ex’s, and he tenses, already moving to stand and leave before she meets his eye and grins. She’s 42, he figures, with sun-bleached auburn hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, a tiny silver nose ring, and chipped pale blue polish on her nails. He’d only met her once, at his wedding 22 years prior, when she was 20, waiting tables to put herself through nursing school, so quiet she’d barely said two words to him all night.
She holds out a paper napkin folded around a still-warm fried Oreo, powdered sugar dusting the edges. “Heard you’re the guy who fixes the carnival’s generator every year before it dies mid-fireworks,” she says, and when their fingers brush as he takes the napkin, he feels the rough callus on the side of her index finger, the kind you get from lifting IV poles and patient transfer chairs for decades. The scent of coconut sunscreen and fried dough rolls off her, warm and sweet, and she leans against the table a foot away from him, close enough that their shoulders almost brush when she shifts her weight.
Clay’s jaw tightens. He knows this is a bad idea, talking to her. Half the town’s here, half the town knows she’s his ex’s first cousin, and he’s spent more than a decade making sure no one could accuse him of stirring up drama with her side of the family. He wants to mumble a thank you and walk away, but then she pulls a crumpled pack of Camels from her cargo shorts pocket, raises an eyebrow, and he finds himself nodding before she even asks if he minds. He flicks his Zippo open, holds it out for her, and when she leans in to light the cigarette, her hair brushes his cheek, soft, smelling like lavender shampoo under the sunscreen.
She tells him she just moved back to town last month, after 10 years of travel nursing all over Florida, got tired of hurricanes and tourists who tried to tip her with Disney World tickets. She’s working the fried Oreo booth for the carnival as a favor to the fire chief, who’s her next door neighbor at the new rental she’s in on the west end of town. He finds himself telling her about the scar on his forearm, the 2018 ice storm, how he’d been so cold by the time he climbed down that he couldn’t hold a coffee mug without spilling it for two hours. Her eyes go wide, and she says she was working the night shift at that exact nursing home that night, remembers the residents panicking when the power flickered, how no one ever told her it was him who’d gotten the heat back on before any of them got hurt.
The first firework booms overhead, bright blue, painting the whole field in neon, and the crowd around them cheers, surging toward the grassy viewing area. They stay by the picnic table, the noise loud enough that she has to lean in closer, her mouth almost at his ear, to ask if he’s really been single this whole time, like the old ladies at the grocery store have been gossiping. Clay’s face heats up, and he admits he’s avoided anyone even tangentially connected to his ex for 12 years, assumed all of them hated him for not being rich enough, not being fancy enough for their family. She laughs, rough and warm, the sound cutting through the crackle of the fireworks, and says most of the family couldn’t stand his ex anyway, thought she was spoiled and selfish for walking out on a guy who fixed old ladies’ gutters for free and fostered coonhounds for the local animal shelter. She’d been asking about him for weeks, she says, ever since she saw him loading old refrigerators into a dump truck for the township’s cleanup day back in June.
The final firework bursts overhead, deep red, painting her cheeks pink, and she reaches up, brushes a fleck of powdered sugar off his stubble, her thumb lingering on his jaw for half a second. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away, the weight of that 12-year grudge feeling lighter than it has in years, like he could drop it entirely if he wanted to. He asks her if she wants to get coffee and pie at the diner off Route 8 once the carnival clears out, says they make apple pie with crust so flaky it crumbles all over your lap before you even take the second bite. She grinds her cigarette out under the toe of her scuffed work boot, nods, says she’d like that, as long as he doesn’t mind if she brings a whole bag of leftover fried Oreos for the ride.
He tucks the half-eaten Oreo she gave him into the pocket of his hoodie, already mentally mapping the back roads to the diner that don’t pass the dive bar where his ex usually drinks on Saturday nights.
