Rafe Sorenson, 59, has spent the last seven years avoiding small town events like the annual Bayfield County fish fry like they’re contagious. He only showed up tonight because his childhood buddy, the fire chief, begged him to donate a fully restored 1958 Evinrude as a raffle prize, threatened to stop dropping off free venison jerky if he bailed. He’s leaning against a splintered wooden picnic table by the beer tent, half-empty plastic cup of Pabst sweating in his hand, already mentally running through the list of gaskets he needs to replace on a 1964 Johnson when someone slams into his left side.
Iced peach tea sloshes over the rim of a plastic tumbler, soaking the cuff of his faded red flannel. He huffs, ready to brush off the offender and head straight for his truck, until he looks down. Mara Carter, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, is blinking up at him, cheeks flushed, holding a crumpled stack of napkins. She moved back to town three months ago to care for her mom, who’s recovering from a stroke, took the part-time evening librarian shift at the tiny downtown branch. He’s seen her twice in passing, both times across the grocery store produce aisle, and both times he’d hidden behind a stack of lettuce to avoid talking to her.
“Shit, I’m so sorry,” she says, stepping closer, dabbing at the wet spot on his sleeve before he can protest. Her fingers are cold from holding the iced tea, brush the raised pale pink scar on his forearm, the one he got last spring when a motor he was testing kicked back hard enough to send him into a workbench. She pauses for half a second, runs her thumb over the scar once, gentle, before she pulls back, tucking a strand of brown hair streaked with copper behind her ear. She smells like jasmine lotion and lake air, her pale sage nail polish is chipped at the edges, and she’s not looking at him like he’s the poor schmuck his ex left for a younger realtor, the look everyone else in town has given him for seven years.
He opens his mouth to say it’s fine, that he was just leaving, but the words stick. “No harm done,” he says instead, and he’s surprised at how rough his voice sounds, like he hasn’t talked to anyone other than his hound dog in a week, which he hasn’t, mostly. “You running from someone?”
She laughs, a low, warm sound, nothing like his ex’s high, tinkling giggle that always set his teeth on edge after a long day in the shop. “The mayor’s wife. She’s been trying to set me up with her nephew who sells insurance in Superior. Dude wears white leather loafers with no socks. I’d rather step on a nest of hornets.” She nods at the raffle table behind him, where the Evinrude is propped up on a sawhorse, polished to a shiny blue sheen. “That’s yours, right? I remember you working on those old motors when I was a teen, visiting my cousin at your place. You’d let me sit on the workbench and hand you tools when I got bored of listening to her talk about wedding stuff.”
Rafe’s throat goes dry. He’d forgotten that. He’d spent so long erasing every memory of his marriage that the small, good ones around the edges slipped away too. He’s suddenly hyper aware of how close she’s standing, their shoulders almost touching, the way the golden hour sun hits her face, freckles across her nose that he never noticed before. The logical part of his brain is screaming that this is a bad idea, that she’s his ex’s family, that every gossiping old biddy in the park is already staring, that if this goes anywhere the whole town will be talking about it for months, that his ex will raise holy hell. But the part of him that’s been cold and closed off for seven years is thawing, fast, and he can’t bring himself to step away.
They talk for 40 minutes, standing there by the beer tent, the sounds of fried walleye sizzling, kids screaming on the playground, the country cover band tuning up in the background fading into white noise. She tells him about the watercolor paintings she does of local shorebirds, sells them at the farmers market on weekends, shows him a photo on her phone of a loon she painted last week, the details so sharp you can almost see the water beading on its feathers. He tells her about the 1962 Mercury he’s restoring for a guy in Minneapolis, the custom paint job he’s doing, candy apple red with white pinstripes. She doesn’t ask about the divorce, doesn’t give him that pitying look he hates, just listens, nods, asks smart questions about carburetor adjustments that he never expects from anyone who doesn’t spend their days covered in motor oil.
When the sun starts to dip low over the lake, painting the sky pink and orange, she tilts her head toward the shoreline, empty of crowds this far from the main park. “Wanna walk down to the water? I brought a blanket in my bag, we can watch the sunset away from all the people trying to sell me raffle tickets.”
Rafe hesitates for half a second, glances over at the group of firemen who are already grinning and nudging each other, obviously watching them. Then he nods. “Yeah. That sounds good.”
They walk down the gravel path to the shore, their shoulders brushing every few steps, no awkward silence between them. She spreads the flannel blanket out over a patch of sand next to a half-buried piece of driftwood, sits down, pats the spot next to her. He sits, so close their thighs are touching, and she leans into his side a little, warm through his flannel shirt.
“I’ve had a crush on you since I was 17,” she says, quiet, like she’s admitting something she’s been holding onto for years, which she has. “I never said anything because you were married, and I didn’t want to be that person. But when I moved back, and I heard what happened, I figured I didn’t have anything to lose by not being a coward anymore.”
Rafe turns to look at her, and she’s staring right back, no shyness, no hesitation. He cups her face in his hand, calloused from years of working on motors, and kisses her slow, soft, tastes like peach tea and mint gum. He doesn’t care about the gossip, doesn’t care about his ex’s drama, doesn’t care about any of the stuff that’s been weighing on him for seven years, not right now.
They sit there until the sky turns dark purple, the first stars popping out over the lake, the sound of the fish fry band playing a slow country song drifting over the water. He stands up, holds out a hand to pull her up, brushes sand off the back of her jeans. “You wanna come back to my shop? I can show you that Mercury I was telling you about. Got a space heater in there, I can make coffee.”
She grins, laces her fingers through his, her hand small and warm in his. “Yeah. I’d like that.”
He holds the boathouse door open for her, the low hum of his old country work radio drifting out over the lapping waves as she steps inside.
