Ronan O’Malley, 58, spent 32 years running a commercial salmon fishing boat out of Astoria, sold the Ol’ Girl last spring after his rotator cuff gave out for the third time, now fixes nets for the younger fleet three days a week, spends the rest of his time avoiding people as much as he can get away with. He’s got a scar splitting his left eyebrow from a rogue crab pot, a habit of chewing on the end of unlit cigars when he’s nervous, and a firm rule against getting involved with anyone even tangentially attached to someone else. That rule was holding up fine until the Fourth of July block party, when the humidity hung thick enough to drink, the charcoal grills sent up plumes of hickory smoke that clung to his flannel shirt, and Maya Carter showed up in cutoff denim and scuffed white flip flops, a smear of cherry popsicle glistening on her left cheek.
He’s only spoken to her twice before, once when she brought over a peach pie the week he moved into the little bungalow two doors down, once when her golden retriever broke through his fence and chewed through half a spool of heavy-duty netting. She’s married to the town’s fire chief, 10 years younger than him, runs the independent bookstore on Main Street that stays open late on weekends even though it barely turns a profit. He’d noticed the sunflower tattoo curling over her left shoulder the first time they met, the way she bites the corner of her bottom lip when she’s thinking, the callus on the middle finger of her right hand from turning thousands of book pages. He’d told himself to keep his distance, that messing with the fire chief’s wife was the fastest way to get run out of the small coastal town he’d only just settled into.
He’s perched on a cinder block by the beer cooler, half hiding from the group of retirees who keep trying to rope him into the neighborhood cornhole tournament, when she ambles over, her dog trotting at her heels. She reaches past him for a lime seltzer from the ice, her forearm brushing his, the soft fabric of her shirt catching on the raised scar on his bicep he got from a winch accident 12 years prior. She doesn’t pull away immediately, just holds the contact for half a beat, looking up at him with that half-smile he’s been replaying in his head for weeks. “Heard you hung all the string lights for this thing,” she says, nodding at the fairy lights strung between the oak trees, her voice warm over the sound of kids screaming on the bounce house down the block. “Figured you’d be the one with the steady hands after all those years on the water.”
He grunts, takes a sip of his cheap lager, avoids her eyes at first. He wants to tell her to go back to her husband, who’s currently manning the grill, yelling about overcooked hot dogs to a group of volunteer firefighters. He wants to make an excuse about having to fix a torn gill net first thing in the morning, head home, lock the door, forget how warm her skin felt against his. But then she sits down on the cinder block next to him, her knee pressing against his denim-clad thigh, and she doesn’t move. She teases him about hiding from the trivia game, says she’s been asking around about his old fishing stories, that her husband only ever wants to talk about department budgets and the new ladder truck they’re getting next month. He finds himself talking before he can stop himself, telling her about the time he got stuck in a storm off the Aleutians for three days, about the way the northern lights look over the Bering Sea, bright enough to read a paperback by even at 2 a.m.
The sun dips below the water, painting the sky pink and tangerine, and the first firework goes off down by the pier, drawing a raucous cheer from the crowd. Everyone drifts toward the waterfront to get a better view, leaving the two of them alone by the cooler, the shadows stretching long around them, the air still thick with the smell of grilled hot dogs and cherry Kool-Aid. She leans in closer to tell him something, the scent of peach seltzer and mint gum on her breath, her hand brushing the edge of his flannel shirt where it’s unbuttoned at the collar. She tells him her husband forgot their 15th anniversary last month, that he’s been sleeping on the couch for two weeks because she caught him texting a female firefighter from the next town over. Ronan’s chest tightens, half with guilt, half with a stupid, reckless hope he hasn’t felt since his ex-wife left him for a real estate agent he used to drink with after fishing trips.
She pulls a crumpled scrap of grocery store receipt paper from her back pocket, scribbles something on it with a purple pen she keeps tucked behind her ear, and presses it into his palm. It’s the address of the back room of her bookstore, the time 7pm Thursday, a little lopsided heart scrawled in the corner. “My husband’s on a 48 hour shift that day,” she says, her voice low enough only he can hear, her eyes locked on his, no trace of the playful teasing from earlier. “I’ve got a whole stack of old fishing memoirs I’ve been meaning to read. You can tell me if they get anything right.” She tucks his fingers closed over the paper before he can say anything, stands up, whistles for her dog, and walks back toward the crowd where her husband is waving her over.
Ronan tucks the paper into the inside pocket of his flannel, presses his hand over it to make sure it doesn’t blow away in the coastal breeze. The finale of the fireworks show starts, bursts of red and gold lighting up the sky, reflecting off the calm ocean water. For the first time in four years, he doesn’t run through a list of excuses to leave early, doesn’t dread the next three days of quiet, empty hours in his bungalow with nothing but old fishing magazines and the hum of his window AC for company. He takes a last sip of his warm, stale beer, watches Maya laugh as her husband wraps an arm around her shoulders, and presses the crumpled receipt paper tighter against his chest through the fabric of his shirt.
