Ray Voss, 62, retired lineman, leans against a splintered wooden fence at the annual Maplewood Fire Department Carnival, cold Pabst in one hand, his grandson’s sticky cotton candy in the other, scanning the crowd for the dunk tank line he promised the kid he’d stand in. He’s avoided this carnival for three years straight, ever since he moved back to his northern Ohio hometown, specifically to steer clear of the pie stand run by Mara Hale, his ex-wife’s first cousin, the woman he’d blamed for 22 years for convincing his ex to leave him and take full custody of their daughter. His left knee aches from standing too long, a souvenir from the 2021 fall off a 40-foot utility pole that pushed him into early retirement, and he shifts his weight to his scuffed work boot, grinding a crumpled french fry wrapper into the gravel dust under his heel.
His 10-year-old grandson Jax tugs hard on the sleeve of his frayed navy flannel, begging for peach pie, swears all his friends say Mara’s peach pie is the best in the entire state. Ray’s jaw tightens. He wants to say no, to make up some excuse about the line being too long or the pie being too sweet, but Jax is already yanking him toward the white canvas tent strung with fairy lights, the hand-painted “MARA’S PIES” sign hanging lopsided across the front. The air smells sweeter the closer they get, warm baked fruit and cinnamon cutting through the usual carnival stench of fried Oreos and diesel fumes from the creaky old ferris wheel.
Mara looks up from restacking waxed pie boxes when they reach the counter, and a slow, familiar smile spreads across her face, the same one she had when she’d sneak him menthol cigarettes behind the gym during their senior year, before he married her cousin. She’s 58 now, thick silver streaks running through the dark hair she’s pulled back in a messy braid, a smudge of flour on her left cheek, her wrists dusted with the same white powder when she leans across the Formica counter to say hello. “Ray Voss. I thought you were still holed up in that cottage of yours, fixing old Fords and ignoring the entire town.” Her voice is lower than he remembers, rougher from decades of smoking and yelling over bakery mixers, and it sends a strange little jolt up his spine that he immediately tries to squash. He’s supposed to hate her.
He mumbles a gruff greeting, avoids her eye contact at first, orders a whole peach pie for Jax. When she slides the cardboard box across the counter to him, her fingers brush his, warm and calloused from kneading dough at 4 a.m. every day, and he can’t help but hold eye contact for a beat longer than he should. She doesn’t pull away, either, just tilts her head like she’s studying him, like she can see the anger he’s carried for two decades melting a little at the edges. Jax runs off to join his friends by the bounce house before Ray can say anything else, leaving him alone at the counter with her, the half-empty Pabst sweating in his grip.
They make small talk at first, about the record heat wave that’s been baking the region for two weeks, about the carnival’s new tilt-a-whirl that’s already made three kids throw up, about Jax, who she says she’s seen at the local IGA with his mom a handful of times. She brings up the divorce unprompted, when a group of rowdy teens walks away from the stand with a stack of apple pie slices. “I never should’ve taken Linda’s side, you know. She was 26, pregnant with your daughter, scared you’d leave her for that dispatcher you were working with back then. I told her to file first, before you could. I’ve regretted it every year since.” Ray’s throat goes dry. He’d never known that, had spent 22 years fuming over the insult while he hung off utility poles in the middle of thunderstorms, had ranted to his crew hundreds of times about how much he hated Mara Hale.
He leans against the counter, closer to her now, their elbows almost touching, the lavender perfume she’s wearing the exact same one she wore to their senior prom, when he’d been her last-minute date because Linda had come down with the flu. The roar of the carnival fades a little, the clank of the ferris wheel’s gears, the kids screaming on the slide, all background noise to the way she’s looking at him, no guilt, no awkwardness, just open, easy. She brushes a flyaway strand of hair off her face, and her arm brushes his, and he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away, doesn’t feel that spark of hot anger he’s carried for so long.
She says her shift ends in an hour, asks him if he wants to come back to her place, share the pie, catch up properly. He hesitates, the old, familiar disgust rising first, the voice in his head saying this is wrong, she’s your ex’s cousin, you’re supposed to hate her. But that voice is quieter than it was ten minutes ago, drowned out by the warmth of her hand on his wrist when she reaches over to tap it, waiting for his answer.
He says yes. She grins, that same snort-laugh he remembers from high school escaping when he tells her he still takes his pie with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream, no sprinkles, no chocolate syrup. She scribbles her address on a napkin dotted with flour, presses it into his palm, her fingers lingering longer than necessary. He tucks the napkin into the breast pocket of his flannel, turns to track Jax down by the dunk tank, the faint smell of lavender and baked peach clinging to his sleeve long after he’s walked away.
