Elias Voss, 52, has restored 17 vintage campers in the eight years since his wife died, and he’s avoided exactly that many community events in the same span. His best friend Ray practically had to drag him to the town’s annual fall chili cookoff, griping that Elias was turning into the reclusive hermit all the local elementary kids made up ghost stories about. He’s wearing the same frayed Carhartt he’s had since 2016, grease under his fingernails he’s scrubbed at three times with dish soap and still can’t shift, hovering by the beer table so he can make a quick exit the second Ray’s distracted by the prize announcement.
The air smells like smoked brisket, cinnamon sticks, and the sharp, sweet bite of pressed apple cider. A group of 4H kids runs past, yelling, and a woman in a faded flannel and work boots stumbles backward, sloshing a plastic cup of chili across the left sleeve of his Carhartt. She yelps an apology immediately, grabbing a handful of paper napkins from the stack next to the cooler, leaning in so close he can smell her perfume: cedar and vanilla, exactly the blend his wife used to melt down for homemade candles every Christmas.
His first instinct is to step back, mumble that it’s fine, leave before the tight ache in his chest gets any worse. He feels guilty for even noticing how her brown eyes crinkle at the corners when she’s flustered, for registering that the flannel she’s wearing has a patch of the same Airstream logo he stitched onto his wife’s jacket back in 2010. He half opens his mouth to make an excuse about needing to get home to his hound dog, but she’s already dabbing at the chili stain on his sleeve, her knuckles brushing his forearm through the thin flannel he wears under the Carhartt, the heat of her touch lingering even after she pulls her hand away.
She teases him about the grease under his nails before he can say anything, asking if he’s the guy who runs the vintage camper restoration lot on the old highway outside town. She says she’s been driving past his place for six months, ever since she moved to town with her 12-year-old son, and she’s been dying to ask if he’s got any projects that might be for sale for weekend camping trips. She mentions she’s divorced three years, her ex lives out in Oregon, she moved east to be closer to her sister who teaches third grade at the local elementary.
He finds himself leaning against the picnic table next to her, instead of backing away. He tells her about the 1972 Airstream he’s finishing up for a client out of Buffalo, about how his wife used to help him sand down the interiors, how they planned to drive one cross country after he retired, before the car crash that took her. He expects her to look awkward, to change the subject, but she just nods, sipping her hard cider, and says grief doesn’t have to mean you stop letting good things happen, right? Her hand is resting on the splintered wooden tabletop two inches from his, her pinky almost brushing his knuckle when she shifts to set her cup down.
He fights the voice in his head that screams he’s betraying his wife, that he doesn’t get to be happy after she didn’t get to grow old with him. That voice has won every fight for eight years, but today it’s quieter, drowned out by the sound of her laugh when he teases her about the ridiculous amount of cayenne she put in her chili entry, by the way she doesn’t flinch at the calluses on his hands when he passes her an extra napkin.
He offers to show her the Airstream tomorrow, says she can bring her son, that he’s got a big jar of homemade root beer he makes from his wife’s old recipe, the kind with enough sugar to make a kid bounce off the walls for an hour. She grins, grabs his beat up old flip phone out of his hand when he pulls it out to give her his number, types her name and contact in faster than he’s ever seen anyone use the clunky keypad. She tells him her son plays soccer at the town field at 10 a.m., they can stop by right after practice.
When she waves and turns to walk back to her 4H booth, he stares at the new contact in his phone for three full minutes before he remembers he was supposed to bring a six pack back to his friend.
