Rafe Mendez, 57, only agreed to enter the annual Northport rib cookoff because his 16-year-old niece begged him for three weeks straight, saying his hickory-smoked ribs were too good to keep locked up for just her annual summer visits. He’d spent 22 years as a U.S. Forest Service hotshot crew supervisor, now ran a small custom fire pit and sustainable firewood delivery business out of his 40-acre property, and had avoided every town social event for 8 years, ever since his wife left him for a Miami real estate developer who wore white leather loafers to golf. He’d made a rule out of staying away from small town gossip, and from anyone who might look at him like a fixer-upper project.
The July heat clung to his flannel shirt like a wet blanket, the air thick with the smell of fried Oreos, cut clover, and diesel fumes from the rickety carnival Ferris wheel spinning at the end of the street. He was wiping barbecue sauce off his knuckles when she stepped up to his booth, and he almost dropped the rag. He’d seen her around town before, Elara Voss, the 48-year-old librarian who’d moved to town 6 months prior, the one all the old guys at the diner complained was “too stuck up” because she’d turned down three dinner invites in her first month. She was wearing a faded linen button-down tied at the waist, frayed denim cutoffs, scuffed white Converse, and he spotted a tattoo of a ponderosa pine wrapped around her left ankle before his eyes snapped back up to her face.
He’d spent the last 8 years convincing himself he didn’t want anyone close, that the hassle of small town talk, the risk of getting burned again, wasn’t worth the effort. He told himself he was disgusted with the way his pulse jumped when she held eye contact longer than casual, the way he could smell coconut sunscreen and faint cedar on her, like she kept a sachet of it in her tote bag slung over her shoulder. She took a bite of the rib, closed her eyes for half a second, and laughed when she swallowed. “Tastes exactly like the ribs we made at fire camp outside Bend in 2017. I was a fire management planner for the Forest Service out west for 15 years, before I moved here to get away from the endless smoke season.”
Rafe couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked to someone who didn’t ask him about his ex-wife, or his firewood prices, or if he’d thought about selling his property to the out-of-state developers buying up half the county. They talked for 40 minutes, her leaning against his booth, occasionally shifting so her forearm grazed his when a kid ran past and jostled her. He noticed the thin, pale scar on her left wrist, same shape and placement as his own, from a falling cedar branch during the 2018 Sierra Nevada fire that had trapped his crew for 12 hours. When he pointed it out, she held her wrist up next to his, their skin touching, and shook her head like she couldn’t believe the coincidence.
The emcee announced the rib contest results over the loudspeaker, and Rafe didn’t even pay attention until he heard his name called for second place. Elara whooped louder than anyone else in the crowd, grabbed his hand, and tugged him toward the stage before he could protest. He didn’t pull away. He didn’t care that half the town was staring, that the group of retired guys at the diner booth by the stage were gawking so hard their hot dogs were getting cold. When she squeezed his hand as he accepted the tacky plastic trophy and the $150 gift card to the local hardware store, he felt the same rough calluses, the same faint scar, the same quiet weight of having seen too many things burn, and it didn’t feel like a risk. It felt like coming home.
