Javi Mendez, 53, spent 18 years as a wildland firefighter before a 2017 Lolo Peak fire burn left him with a ropy scar snaking up his left forearm and zero patience for the risk that came with the job. He now runs a one-man firewood and forest thinning operation out of his 12-acre plot outside Missoula, keeps his social circle limited to old crew members who stop by to drink beer and split wood on weekends, and has not so much as flirted with anyone since his wife left him seven years prior, convinced the burn scar and his habit of going three days without answering his phone made him unfit for anything more than casual small talk. He’s perched on his usual scuffed vinyl bar stool at The Split Rail on a Thursday in early October, nursing a $3 PBR and picking at a basket of fried pickles, when the door jingles and she walks in.
He recognizes her immediately: Elara, 46, the woman who lives on the 10-acre plot adjacent to his, married to a smarmy real estate developer he’s spoken to exactly twice in the two years they’ve been neighbors. She’s wearing scuffed cowboy boots, high-waisted jeans, and a faded Fleetwood Mac tee, half her chestnut hair pulled back with a leather tie, loose strands sticking to the back of her neck from the unseasonably warm evening air. She scans the nearly empty bar, spots him, hesitates for half a second, then walks over, the toe of her boot brushing his ankle as she stops next to his stool. “This seat taken?” She nods at the empty spot beside him, her voice lower than he expected, like she’s been yelling over construction noise all day. He shakes his head, mumbles a no, and pushes the basket of fried pickles an inch toward her before he can think better of it.
She sits, and their knees brush under the Formica bar top. He tenses, expecting her to pull away, but she doesn’t, just flags down the bartender and orders a whiskey sour, then plucks a pickle from the basket and bites into it, crumbs of fried batter falling onto the paper napkin between them. “I saw you at the grocery store yesterday,” she says, turning to face him, her knee still pressed firm to his. “You were carrying six cases of baked beans under one arm and a bag of dog food under the other, looked like you were about to drop both. I almost offered to help, but you were already power-walking to your truck before I could stand up.” He snorts, rubbing the back of his neck, admits he’d forgotten his reusable bags and was too stubborn to ask for a plastic one. When she reaches across the bar to grab her drink, her knuckles brush the raised edge of the scar on his forearm, and she pauses, running her thumb over the discolored skin for a slow, warm beat before she pulls her hand back. “I remember that fire,” she says softly. “My husband was on the county commission that approved the emergency funds for it. I saw the photos of the crew after it was contained. You looked a lot worse for wear.”
Javi’s throat goes dry. He’s had strangers stare at the scar, ask invasive questions about how he got it, but no one’s ever touched it like that, like they’re not scared of it, like they see the story behind it instead of just a blemish. He knows he should pull away, knows her husband is out of state on a work trip, knows messing with a neighbor’s wife is the kind of stupid, messy drama he’s spent the last seven years actively avoiding, but when she tells him she hasn’t heard from her husband in four days, knows he’s with his 28-year-old assistant in Dallas, and doesn’t have the energy to fight about it anymore, he doesn’t make up an excuse to leave. He listens, nods when she talks about how she bought the property to start a small lavender farm, how her husband has been trying to convince her to sell it to a developer for twice what they paid for it for six months, how she’s never felt more alone in a house full of people than she does when he’s home.
The bartender flicks off the neon “OPEN” sign above the door an hour later, wiping down the counter and hinting that he wants to lock up. Elara leans in, her breath smelling like whiskey and cherry lip gloss, her face so close he can count the freckles across her nose. “I don’t want to go back to an empty house,” she says, her fingers brushing the back of his hand where it rests on the bar. “You told me last summer you had a stand of old growth ponderosa pines at the back of your property that smell like vanilla when the sun goes down. Can you show me?”
He doesn’t hesitate this time. He slaps a $20 on the bar to cover both their tabs, stands, and offers her his hand to help her off the stool. Her palm is calloused from digging in garden beds, matches the calluses on his from chainsaws and splitting mauls, and when he rests his hand on her waist to guide her through the door, she leans into the touch, her shoulder pressing firm to his chest. He opens the passenger door of his beat-up 2008 F-150 for her, waits for her to slide in before he walks around to the driver’s side, and when he turns the key, the radio cuts on mid-“Dreams,” and she hums along under her breath, lacing her fingers through his where they rest on the gear shift.
He pulls out of the parking lot, heading west toward the mountains, the cool October air whipping through the open window carrying the smell of pine and fallen maple leaves. She doesn’t let go of his hand the entire drive.
