The August humidity hangs thick enough to sip over the fire department pig roast, the sun just dipping below the line of gnarled oaks lining the fairground perimeter. Roland Voss, 62, retired high-voltage lineman for the Ozark Electric Cooperative, mans the beer tent, wiping condensation off aluminum cans with a frayed rag, his work boots caked in half an inch of mud from the afternoon thunderstorm. A half-drunk Miller Lite sticks out of the back pocket of his faded Carhartt jeans, the scar across his left bicep—leftover from a 2012 lightning strike that nearly killed him mid-climb—glows pink in tiki torch light. His old lineman buddies yell from the cornhole pit, begging him to join, but he waves them off. He’s spent 30 years keeping most people at arm’s length, ever since his wife left him while he was gone three weeks fixing storm damage in southern Arkansas, and the pig roast is one of only two social events he forces himself to attend all year.
He looks up when he hears the click of wedge heels on the wooden tent counter, and recognizes her immediately: Clara Hale, wife of the new county commissioner who just rammed through an 18% property tax hike that’s gonna force half his neighbors to sell chunks of their land. Roland signed the recall petition last week, and his first instinct is to make a snarky comment about her husband’s dumb campaign signs nailed to every tree for 20 miles, but he bites it back when she smiles, crinkles forming at the corners of her hazel eyes, a smudge of barbecue sauce on her left cheek. She’s wearing a pale blue linen dress that hits just above her knees, a loose braid falling over one shoulder, and she asks for a Michelob Ultra, her voice warm, no stuck-up politician’s wife lilt he expected.
He grabs the can from the ice chest, and their fingers brush when he passes it over. Her skin is softer than he expected, warmer, and she doesn’t yank her hand away like most people do when they touch his calloused, scarred palms. She leans against the counter, close enough that he can smell coconut shampoo mixed with smoky pork and a faint hint of bourbon on her breath, and nods at the scar on his bicep, asking how he got it. He tells her the lightning story, jokes that he still has the melted work boot hanging on his porch as a trophy, and she laughs loud, throwing her head back, no fake little socialite giggle.
He finds himself complaining about the tax hike before he can stop himself, talking about his neighbor down the road who’s gonna have to sell half his cattle herd to cover the extra bill, and she sighs, rolling her eyes. She says she told Jake it was a stupid, short-sighted move, that he didn’t bother talking to a single local farmer or lineman or small business owner before he pushed the vote through, that she’s been miserable since they moved here from Little Rock three months ago, stuck going to stuffy county events and listening to him brag about “progress” to people who openly hate his guts. Roland is taken aback, and for the next 20 minutes they swap snarky stories about local politicians, the terrible cover band playing off in the distance, and the absurdly high price of feed at the town’s only farm supply store.
The crowd thins out as the band shifts to slow dance songs, and Clara says she should head out, her heels killing her feet. Roland offers to walk her to the parking lot, the path still full of deep mud ruts from the storm, and she links her arm through his without hesitation, her shoulder pressed tight to his bicep as they pick their way through the grass. Halfway there, her left wedge sinks into a mud hole, and she stumbles, his hands flying to her waist to steady her. Her chest presses flush to his, her face tilted up, her lips an inch from his, and he can feel her warm breath fanning across his jaw.
She kisses him first, soft at first, then deeper when he doesn’t pull away. He can taste peach lip gloss and bourbon on her tongue, the linen of her dress thin under his palms where they rest on her hips, and for a second the world narrows down to that, the distant hum of the band, the crickets chirping in the trees, the quiet little sigh she makes against his mouth. He knows he should stop, that if anyone sees them the whole town will talk for months, that he’s kissing the wife of the guy every person in the county is mad at, that he’s breaking every rule he’s lived by for 30 years to keep from getting hurt again, but he doesn’t care.
She pulls back after a minute, her lipstick smudged, and swipes her thumb across his lower lip to wipe off the excess gloss, grinning. She says her husband is still inside schmoozing with the county board, that she’s gonna leave him there to find his own ride home. Roland grabs a crumpled napkin from his pocket, scribbles his cell number on it in blue ballpoint, and shoves it in her hand. She tucks it inside the front of her dress, winks, and turns to climb into her silver SUV, waving out the window as she backs out of the parking spot.
His old buddy yells his name again from the cornhole pit, asking where the hell he disappeared to, and he just shakes his head, grinning, wiping the last faint trace of peach lip gloss off his mouth with the back of his hand before he takes a long, cold sip of his beer.
