Moe Sorrentino, 57, retired high-voltage lineman for Ohio Edison, hunches over his hazy IPA at the town beer garden, sweat beading at the edge of his worn Cleveland Browns cap. It’s the third night of the county fair, the air thick with the smell of fried green tomatoes, charcoal, and hay, the distant shriek of the Tilt-A-Whirl cutting through the hum of conversation. His coonhound Jax is curled under the picnic table, head on his boots, half-asleep, only lifting an ear when a group of kids runs past with cotton candy stuck to their fingers. He’d driven out here to drop his niece’s 10-year-old off with her friends, planned to head home right after, but the line at the gate was chaos, and the first sip of cold beer had felt too good to cut short.
He’d noticed Lena 20 minutes earlier, wiping down the counter of her barbecue pop-up across the lawn. He’s known her for three years, runs into her at the auto parts store every few weeks, where she picks up parts for the old Jeep Wrangler she drives. The guys at the parts counter talk about her nonstop: how she left her husband, the guy who used to own the feed store, for a female bartender back in 2021, how she moved back alone last spring, how she’s “too much trouble for any man to handle.” Moe’s always nodded along, kept his mouth shut, avoided making eye contact with her when they were in the same space, too stubborn to deal with the gossip that would come with even a casual conversation. He’s gone eight years without dating, not since his wife Karen passed from breast cancer, and he’s made it a point to stay out of everyone’s business so they stay out of his.
She looks up from wiping the counter, catches him staring, and grins. He freezes, like he’s been caught touching a live wire, and looks down at his beer, cheeks hot. Five minutes later, she’s walking over, holding a paper basket of fried pickles, wearing a faded Lynyrd Skynyrd tee, cutoff denim shorts, work boots caked in mud, a smudge of hot sauce on her left cheekbone. “Saw you turn down that kid selling cotton candy a minute ago,” she says, setting the basket down on the table, sliding onto the bench across from him so close their knees brush when she shifts. “Figured you’d prefer something salty. On the house.”
The pickles are crispy, coated in cajun seasoning, the brine bursting on his tongue when he bites into one. He thanks her, voice gruffer than he means it to be. She asks about the 1972 F-150 he’s been restoring, the one he towed into the parts store last month with a busted carburetor, and he blinks, surprised she remembers. She talks about her dad, who was a mechanic in Knoxville, taught her how to rebuild an engine before she could drive, and he finds himself leaning forward, listening, forgetting to glance over his shoulder to see who’s watching. When she reaches across the table to grab a napkin, her bare forearm brushes his, sunburnt and warm from working the grill all day, and he flinches a little, like he’s been zapped. She laughs, low and throaty, and says “Relax, Sorrentino, I don’t bite. Unless you ask.”
The tension is thick enough to cut with a knife. He can smell lavender soap mixed with smoke and barbecue sauce on her skin, see the faint freckles across her nose, the tiny scar on her right eyebrow from a dirt bike crash when she was 16, the way her eyes crinkle at the corners when she smiles. A group of his old lineman buddies walks past, heading for the beer tent, and one of them wolf whistles, yells “Finally taking a night off from fixing trucks, huh Moe?” Moe tenses, ready to make some excuse, say he’s just waiting for his niece, brush her off to avoid the gossip that will be all over town by morning. But then he looks at her, waiting, half-smiling, and he reaches out, rests his hand on her knee, squeezes gently, and yells back “Mind your own damn business, Miller.”
The buddy laughs, holds up his hands in surrender, and walks off. Lena looks down at his hand on her knee, then back up at his face, the smile softening into something warmer. “Didn’t take you for the type to make a scene,” she says, her hand covering his, her fingers calloused from working on cars, threading through his. He shrugs, says “I’m tired of caring what these people think.” He admits he’s been avoiding her for two years, scared of the rumors, scared of feeling something again after Karen, and she nods, says she gets it, she’s been avoiding half the town too, tired of everyone having an opinion on who she should or shouldn’t be with.
The sun dips below the mountain, painting the sky pink and orange, and the first firework goes off over the fairgrounds, bright blue, lighting up the whole beer garden. Jax whines under the table, scratching at his boot, ready to go home. Lena stands, brushes crumbs off her shorts, and hands him a crumpled paper bag with a leftover brisket sandwich inside, still warm. She grabs his empty beer coaster, scribbles her number on the back with a Sharpie, and slides it across the table. “I got a box of original Ford carburetor parts my dad left me in my garage,” she says, nodding at the number. “If you wanna bring the truck by tomorrow around noon, you can have ‘em. No charge. I’d even let you stay for a beer after.”
He tucks the coaster into the pocket of his flannel shirt, the paper warm against his chest, and nods, says he’ll be there. He clips Jax’s leash to his collar, stands, and walks toward his truck, glancing back over his shoulder once. Lena’s leaning against the counter of her pop-up, watching him go, waving, the next firework going off behind her, painting her face red. He gets in his truck, turns the key, and the radio cuts on, playing an old Charlie Daniels song he used to listen to with Karen on road trips. Jax curls up on the passenger seat, lays his head on the center console, and Moe grins, pulling out of the parking lot, already making a mental list of the tools he needs to throw in the bed of the truck before he heads over to her place tomorrow.
