Clay Bennett, 58, retired TVA lineman, had avoided every neighborhood block party for two years straight. The grudge stuck like pine sap to his work boots: the old HOA board had made him cut down the 12-foot deer stand he’d built at the edge of his 3-acre lot, called it a “safety hazard” even though the nearest house was 400 yards away. He only showed up this year because his 12-year-old granddaughter Lila had begged for a blue raspberry snow cone from the truck the association had booked, and he couldn’t say no to her.
He leaned against the dented tailgate of his 2018 Ford F-150, sweating through the cuffs of his plaid flannel even with the sleeves rolled up, a cold Pabst in one hand, Lila’s half-eaten bag of cheese puffs in the other. The air reeked of charcoal and sweet tea, kids screaming as they ran through the sprinkler someone had set up on the common lawn, cornhole boards thudding 20 feet away. He’d already ducked three attempts from former HOA board members to corner him about “community participation” and was half ready to load Lila up and leave early when she spotted her friend from soccer, took off running, and yelled over her shoulder that her mom would pick her up later.
He was debating whether to crack a second beer when she walked into his line of sight. Maren Hale, 56, the new HOA president who’d moved to town last fall, the woman whose name was printed on every annoying envelope he threw straight in the trash unopened. She was carrying a paper plate heaped with pulled pork and coleslaw, wearing cutoff denim shorts and a faded Alabama football tee, her auburn hair streaked with silver pulled back in a loose braid. She stepped wrong on a cracked section of the sidewalk, stumbled, and a dollop of barbecue sauce splattered right on the front of his flannel.
“Shit, I’m so sorry,” she said, leaning in immediately, dabbing at the spot with a crumpled napkin she pulled from her pocket. Her hand brushed his forearm through the thin fabric, warm and calloused, and he froze. She was close enough that he could smell coconut sunscreen on her skin and the faint tang of bourbon on her breath, the sun setting behind her gilding the edges of her hair. She didn’t flinch when he glowered down at her, just smirked, like she knew exactly who he was and exactly how annoyed he was.
“Figured you’d show up eventually,” she said, wiping the last of the sauce off, not stepping back yet. “I overturned that stupid deer stand rule last month. Sent you a letter. Guess you didn’t get it.”
Clay blinked. He’d thrown out every envelope with the HOA logo on it for two years, had a whole pile of them in the bed of his truck he was gonna burn this weekend. He grunted, not sure what to say, the spot on his arm where she’d touched him still tingling. He’d spent 10 months mentally complaining about this woman, imagining she was some stuffy retiree from Chicago who hated all things fun, and here she was, wearing a Bear Bryant hat tucked in her back pocket, barbecue sauce on her wrist, grinning at him like he was an old friend.
They talked for an hour, leaning against the side of his truck, him offering her a beer after she finished her barbecue, her telling him she’d moved down from Nashville after her divorce, bought the old Miller place because she wanted a big yard to garden and raise rescue chickens. She teased him about the stories she’d heard: the way he fixed old tractors for free for the widows on the block, the time he’d driven 45 minutes in a snowstorm last winter to change the battery for the 82-year-old woman who lived three streets over, the way he’d left a 50-pound bag of dog food on the porch of the local animal shelter last month without leaving a name. He didn’t know how she knew all that, and he didn’t care. He forgot to be mad at the HOA, forgot to check his phone to see if Lila was okay, forgot about the stack of unopened mail in his truck.
She sat on the tailgate next to him, her knee brushing his every time a group of kids ran past, her shoulder leaning into his when she laughed at the story he told about Lila trying to ride his old mule last summer and falling off into a patch of poison ivy. He found himself watching her mouth when she talked, the way she bit the corner of her lower lip when she was thinking, the freckles scattered across her nose that got darker the longer they sat in the sun. When she leaned in to point out the baby fox that had snuck out of the woods at the edge of the lot, her hair brushed his cheek, and he didn’t pull away.
By 8 p.m., most of the party had cleared out, the cornhole boards packed away, the snow cone truck gone, the smell of charcoal fading into the cool night air. She hopped off the tailgate, brushing crumbs off her shorts, and asked him if he wanted to walk back to her place. Said she was building raised garden beds along the side of her house, needed someone who knew how to set fence posts straight, and she’d heard he was the best in the county for that kind of work. He hesitated for half a second, thinking about the grudge he’d carried for two years, the way he’d told all his friends he’d never associate with anyone on the HOA board, the way he’d spent 7 years closing himself off to anyone who wasn’t his kids or grandkids. Then he nodded.
He grabbed the leftover plate of brownies she’d brought over to share, slung his flannel over his shoulder, and walked next to her down the sidewalk. Her hand brushed his every few steps, their fingers almost touching, and when she pointed out the orange stray cat that hung out on her porch, he smiled, a real one, the kind he hadn’t smiled for anyone who wasn’t family in years. When she turns to unlock her front door, the golden porch light catches the silver hoop in her left ear, and he realizes he hasn’t thought about the HOA once in the last three hours.
