Russel “Rusty” Mendez, 54, spent 28 years as an Atlanta TRACON air traffic controller before a mild heart attack and six years of unprocessed grief after his wife’s car crash pushed him to retire to his grandmother’s overgrown 10-acre plot outside Knoxville. He kept 12 hives of Italian honeybees, sold jars at the weekly farmers market for three hours every Saturday, and left the second his stock ran out, no chit chat, no bulk orders, no exceptions. He hated small talk, hated when strangers gave him pitying looks when they found out he was widowed, hated bending rules for anyone. He only showed up to the county fair’s agricultural contest because the local extension agent, a kid he’d gone to high school with, begged him to enter a jar of his prized sourwood honey, said the contest needed a real contender instead of the watered down grocery store adjunct stuff most people brought.
He’d been standing by the honey and jam exhibit for 10 minutes, counting the seconds until he could leave, when a woman tripped over a toddler’s red Radio Flyer wagon and stumbled straight into his chest. His half-drunk can of Pabst sloshed over the rim, splattering both his faded flannel shirt and her white linen apron dotted with flour and jam stains. Her hand curled around his forearm for three full seconds before she pulled back, steadying herself on the edge of the exhibit table, and he caught the warm, sweet scent of cinnamon and ripe peaches rolling off her, mixed with the faint tang of vanilla.
He recognized her immediately. Clara Bennett, 47, ran the Main Street bakery in town, had been chasing him down at the farmers market for three months trying to buy bulk honey for her famous honey butter biscuits. He’d turned her down every time, said he didn’t do bulk, didn’t have the time, didn’t want the hassle. She was grinning now, dabbing at the beer stain on her apron with a paper napkin, her dark hair pulled back in a messy braid, a smudge of peach jam on her left cheekbone, her cowboy boots caked in the same red clay mud that streaked his work boots.
“Look who finally dragged himself out of his bee yards,” she said, leaning in a little so she could be heard over the roar of the ferris wheel and the distant sound of a country cover band playing by the grandstand. Her shoulder brushed his, and he tensed up, half ready to make an excuse and leave, half curious why she wasn’t apologizing profusely like most people did when they bumped into him. “Thought you’d locked yourself up with the hives forever. I’ve been trying to corner you for weeks.”
He grunted, wiping beer off his jeans with the back of his hand. “I don’t do bulk orders. Told you that.”
“Who said I’m here about orders?” she said, nodding at his entry jar sitting on the table, its handwritten label scrawled in his messy cursive. “I’m one of the judges. Tasted your honey an hour ago. Blows every other entry out of the water. You’re gonna win blue ribbon, easy.”
He didn’t know what to say to that. No one had talked to him about something that wasn’t grief or his health or how quiet his property must be in years. He watched her flip through her stack of score sheets, her chipped, polish-free nails tapping the paper, and he felt something tight in his chest loosen, just a little. He’d spent so long building walls, convinced letting anyone in would be betraying his late wife Linda’s memory, that he’d forgotten what it felt like to talk to someone who didn’t treat him like a broken thing to be handled gently.
They stood there for 20 minutes, talking about bees, about the way sourwood honey tastes different depending on how much rain falls in July, about the time she’d tried to keep bees in her backyard and got stung 11 times in one afternoon. She leaned in when he talked, her eyes locked on his, no polite glancing away, no checking her phone, and when a group of kids ran past, she stepped closer to him, her arm brushing his, and he didn’t move away.
The announcer called the honey contest results five minutes later. Just like she said, he won first place. She cheered louder than anyone else in the crowd, grabbing his hand and lacing their fingers together to drag him up to the stage, and he didn’t pull away. The emcee handed him a blue ribbon and a $75 gift card to the local farm supply store, and when they walked back off the stage, he stopped, turning to her.
“I’ll sell you the honey,” he said, and her face lit up so bright he had to look away for a second. “But you have to come out to the hives next Saturday to pick it up. You can see how I keep the bees, make sure it’s up to your bakery standards. No exceptions.”
She smirked, tilting her head, and he could feel the heat rise up the back of his neck. “Deal. But I’m bringing fresh peach pie with me. You’re gonna eat a slice with me, no excuses, no rushing me out after I pick up the jars. I’ve got questions about how you infuse that hint of apple in your summer honey, and I’m not leaving till you answer them.”
He walked her to her beat-up old Ford F150 when the fair closed, the sky turning pink and orange over the fairgrounds, the smell of fried oreos and cut grass still hanging thick in the air. She pulled a warm biscuit wrapped in wax paper out of her cooler before she climbed in the driver’s seat, handing it to him, her fingers brushing his palm.
“For the road,” she said, winking. “Taste test. Make sure you think my biscuits are good enough for your honey.”
He nodded, tucking the biscuit into his jacket pocket, and watched her drive off, the blue ribbon crumpled in his other hand. He got in his own truck, unwrapped the biscuit, and took a bite, the buttery, sweet flavor bursting across his tongue, and he smiled, a real smile, the first he’d had in years, already counting down the days until Saturday.
