Rudy Galvan leaned his shoulder against the dented aluminum beer cooler at the Westlake Volunteer Fire Department cookoff, swirling a lukewarm longneck in his hand. 62, retired after 34 years as a cattle auctioneer covering Panhandle sale barns, he’d only shown up ‘cause his old coworker Jimmie had begged, said the whole crew had missed him since he’d holed up on his 10-acre spread outside town after his wife Linda died of ovarian cancer three years prior. He’d already turned down three separate offers to be introduced to “nice single ladies” in the first 45 minutes, each one making the guilt in his chest twist a little tighter, like the worn leather band on his old auctioneer’s watch.
He was just debating slipping out to his beat-up F-150 when a woman carrying a paper plate stacked high with peach cobbler stumbled over a loose cinder block at his feet, a dollop of syrupy fruit spilling onto the scuffed toe of his work boot. She froze for half a second, then laughed, a warm, throaty sound that cut through the roar of the crowd and the cicadas screaming in the oak trees. “Well that’s a hell of a first impression,” she said, leaning down to dab at the spill with a napkin she pulled from her khaki shorts pocket, her sun-warmed shoulder brushing the top of his thigh as she moved. He caught a whiff of coconut shampoo and honeysuckle mixed with the hickory brisket smoke curling through the air, and his throat went dry for a second.
That was Marnie Cole, 58, the county extension agent who’d moved from eastern Oregon six months prior, the one Jimmie had been trying to set him up with for three straight months, the one he’d kept making excuses to avoid. When she looked up at him, hazel eyes flecked with gold, she didn’t pull back immediately, holding his eye contact for a beat longer than casual politeness required, the corner of her mouth tugged up in a half-smirk like she knew exactly how flustered he was.
He hesitated, the crumpled photo of Linda he kept tucked in his wallet burning a hole through the denim of his back pocket. He’d spent three years telling himself he didn’t get to have this, didn’t get to feel the little jolt of excitement when someone looked at him like that, didn’t get to laugh at a dumb joke with a woman who smelled like coconut and sunshine. The guilt reared up sharp, and for half a second he wanted to make an excuse and leave, go home to his empty house, his old photo albums, and his quiet, predictable routine. But she was looking at him like she didn’t think he was broken, like she didn’t feel sorry for him, like she just wanted to hear him talk.
When she asked if he wanted to walk down to the creek behind the fairgrounds to get away from the noise, he didn’t say no. They kicked off their shoes at the edge of the grass, the cool, damp turf soft under their bare ankles as they walked, fireflies blinking low over the clover and ragweed along the path. When they got to the bank, she sat down on a flat, sun-warmed limestone rock, patting the spot next to her. He sat, their knees pressing together through the thin fabric of their shorts, and didn’t move away. “I knew Linda, you know,” she said quietly, picking at a blade of Johnson grass in her hand, “she was my mom’s best friend when we were kids. She used to tell me if anything ever happened to her, she’d haunt your ass if you spent the rest of your life moping alone.” He stared at her, stunned, the weight he’d been carrying in his chest for three years loosening just a little, like someone had cut a strap off a too-heavy backpack.
He reached over, brushing a stray firefly that had landed on her sunburned shoulder off into the dark, his fingers lingering on her soft, warm skin for a beat longer than necessary. She turned to look at him, that same half-smirk on her face, and didn’t pull away. Somewhere down the creek, a bullfrog croaked loud, and the faint sound of the band drifted over the treetops, and he realized he didn’t feel guilty anymore. He smiled, and for the first time in three years, it didn’t feel like he was faking it.
