Dale Rainer, 58, retired lineman with a scar zigzagging across his left bicep from a 2017 pole fall, had been dragged to the annual Maplewood Fire Department Chili Cookoff kicking and screaming. His 11-year-old granddaughter had begged him to enter his venison chili, the one he smoked over hickory for three hours every fall, and he’d caved, though he’d spent the first 45 minutes leaned up against the cinder block back wall of the fire hall, avoiding small talk, sipping a frosty Pabst, reminding himself he’d sworn off all community events after his wife Linda died four years prior. His biggest flaw, the one his kid gave him grief for every Sunday dinner, was that he’d rather rot alone in his hunting cabin than admit he might be lonely.
The air smelled like chili grease, charcoal, and cheap beer, the hum of 200-some locals bouncing off the exposed rafters, when Marnie Carter tripped over a kid’s neon skateboard half-buried in the sawdust on the floor. She was 54, ran the town’s animal rescue, had showed up to judge the contest with a stack of scorecards tucked under one arm and a plastic cup of iced sweet tea in the other, and she stumbled hard enough that her hip slammed into Dale’s denim-clad thigh, tea sloshing over the rim of the cup to soak a three-inch spot on his gray flannel sleeve. He grabbed her elbow on instinct, calloused fingers wrapping around the soft, sun-warmed skin just above her wrist, to keep her from face-planting into a stack of dented metal folding chairs.
He pulled his hand back fast, like he’d touched a live wire, already ready to brush her off and go hide by the beer cooler. She laughed instead, a low, throaty sound that didn’t grate on his nerves the way most small-town chatter did, dabbing at the wet spot on his sleeve with a crumpled napkin she pulled from the pocket of her frayed work jeans. “Shit, I owe you a new shirt and a beer, at minimum,” she said, leaning against the wall next to him, close enough that he could smell cedar and lavender dog shampoo on her own worn flannel, feel the heat of her forearm brush his when she shifted her weight to avoid a group of teens carrying a tray of jello shots.
Dale grunted, half annoyed, half off-balance. He’d not stood this close to a woman who wasn’t his daughter or granddaughter in four years, and some stupid, guilt-ridden part of him felt like he was cheating on Linda just by noticing how her silver hoop earrings caught the golden string lights strung across the ceiling, how the corner of her mouth tilted up when he admitted he’d entered the chili only because his granddaughter had threatened to hide all his hunting ammo if he didn’t. He told himself he should leave, that this was wrong, that people would talk, that he was too old for whatever this was, but his boots stayed glued to the sawdust floor.
They talked for 40 minutes, the crowd fading into fuzzy background noise. She told him about her senior hound, Red, who’d chewed through three sections of her split-rail fence the month prior and kept escaping to chase deer in the woods behind her property. He told her about the 12 miles of fence he’d fixed on his own land after Linda died, how he’d spent three weekends out there with nothing but his old Hank Williams Jr. radio and a post hole digger, working until his hands ached so bad he couldn’t hold a coffee cup the next morning. He didn’t talk about Linda to anyone, usually, but it came easy, no pressure, no pitying looks he hated so much.
When the emcee announced the winners over the crackling PA system, Dale wasn’t even paying attention, until he heard his name called for first place. The $500 feed store gift card pressed into his hand was nice, but when he turned around, Marnie was standing there holding a six pack of frosty Pabst, the exact brand he’d been drinking all night, tucked under one arm, grinning. “I grabbed this earlier,” she said, nodding at the beer. “Was gonna bribe you to come out to my place tomorrow to fix Red’s fence, if you didn’t win. You still get it, either way. I’ll make you my world-famous cheese fries to go with it, and you can bring your granddaughter, too. She’s the one who brought the chili in that sparkly pink crockpot, right? I gave her a bag of rescue dog treats earlier, she said she’s been begging her dad for a hound.”
Dale’s throat felt tight. The guilt was still there, quiet, niggling at the back of his head, but it was smaller now, overshadowed by the weird, light feeling in his chest he hadn’t felt since Linda was alive, the way Marnie’s eyes stayed locked on his, no awkward look away, no pushy small talk. He nodded, taking one of the beers from the six pack when she held it out, their fingers brushing for half a second, warm, electric, no pull-back this time.
He drove her home after the cookoff ended, Red greeting them at the door with a slobbery tennis ball, and he spent an hour sitting on her weathered wooden porch drinking beer, watching the hound roll in the clover, while she heated up leftover chili for him to take home to his granddaughter. He didn’t overthink it, didn’t stress about what the town would say, didn’t beat himself up for wanting to be there.
He showed up at her place at 8 a.m. the next morning, post hole digger rattling in the bed of his beat-up Ford truck, a Tupperware of his smoked venison jerky tucked under his arm for Red.
