Earl Hagstrom, 62, retired high school woodshop teacher, sat alone at a splintered pine picnic table in the Yamhill County Fair beer garden, sweating through the armpits of his faded Carhartt shirt. A fine dusting of cedar sawdust still clung to the cuff of his work jeans, a habit he couldn’t shake even six months after turning in his key to the shop. He’d avoided the fair for 19 years, ever since his wife left him for a flashy realtor who drove a silver BMW and wore boat shoes even in the rain, convinced the whole town still whispered about how he’d been too boring, too focused on his planer and his jointer to keep a woman happy. He’d only come this year because his 28-year-old grandson had begged him to watch his demolition derby heat, and he’d never been able to say no to that kid.
The can of cold IPA in his hand was slick with condensation, and the air smelled like fried Oreos, diesel fumes from the derby track, and cut grass. The announcer yelled over the crackling speakers as a beat up 1998 Civic painted neon pink slammed into the side of a minivan, and Earl snickered into his beer. A shadow fell across his table a second later, and he looked up to see a woman in a faded bee-themed t-shirt, flannel tied around her waist, work boots caked with clover pollen, holding a plastic cup of hard cider. The only empty seat in the packed beer garden was the one across from him, and she lifted an eyebrow, nodding at the bench. “Mind if I crash? My feet feel like they’ve been run over by a derby car.”
He tensed up automatically, the familiar cold prickle of distrust running up his spine. He’d spent two decades assuming any woman who talked to him unprompted either wanted a free custom furniture build or felt bad for the sad divorced guy who lived alone with a fat tabby cat. He grunted, jerking his chin at the seat, and she sat, setting her cider down on the sticky table. A thin streak of honey glistened on her left thumb, and she wiped it on her jeans, laughing as the pink Civic spun out and hit the barrier, sending the driver’s front tire rolling across the track. “That’s my cousin’s kid driving that thing. Told him neon pink was a bad call for a derby car. Looks like he’s proving me right.”
Earl found himself snorting before he could stop himself. They talked for 45 minutes, the beer garden growing louder around them as the derby heats wrapped up. She said her name was Mara, 58, ran the local beekeeping co-op, had been selling honey sticks at the fair all day, had already blown half her profits on deep fried cheese curds and a ride on the Ferris wheel. When she mentioned she’d been fighting with a 1970s honey extractor for three weeks, the oak gear stripped so bad it wouldn’t turn, Earl leaned forward without thinking, explaining how he’d cut custom replacement gears for his woodshop students’ projects dozens of times, knew exactly what kind of cut he’d need to make to fix it. She leaned in too, her forearm brushing his, and he felt the warmth of her skin through the thin cotton of his shirt, the faint, sweet scent of beeswax and lemon polish clinging to her sleeves. She held his gaze when he rambled about dovetail joints and grain direction, didn’t look away or check her phone like most people did when he got going on woodworking.
His chest felt tight, warring impulses pulling him in two directions. Half of him was disgusted with himself for even entertaining the idea that she might be interested in more than a free gear fix, that he wasn’t just a handy old guy to her, that he might actually be worth talking to. The other half was buzzing, like he’d drunk three cups of coffee instead of one beer, like he hadn’t felt this seen, this awake, since before his wife left. He almost blurted out an excuse to leave, said he had to get home to feed his cat, but then she leaned over to point at a guy walking by in a bumblebee costume, her shoulder pressing into his for half a second, and the words died in his throat.
The fair lights flickered as the 10 PM closing announcement blared over the speakers, and the beer garden servers started herding people toward the exit. Mara twisted the edge of her flannel in her fingers, a faint pink flush high on her freckled cheeks, and asked if he wanted to come back to her farm to look at the extractor, said she had a jug of homemade peach mead chilling in the fridge that was way better than the beer they sold at the fair. Earl hesitated for three long beats, the old voice in his head screaming that this was a trap, that he was going to make a fool of himself, but then he saw the way she was biting her lower lip, like she was just as nervous as he was, and he nodded.
They walked to his beat up 2004 Ford F150 parked in the dirt lot, cottonwood fluff drifting through the warm summer air. She brushed a clump of it off the collar of his shirt, her fingers lingering on the fabric for a beat longer than necessary, and he didn’t flinch away, like he would have a month ago. The drive to her farm took 12 minutes, the windows rolled down, crickets chirping in the fields on either side of the road, the radio playing old Johnny Cash songs low. He pulled into her gravel driveway, the tires crunching under the weight of the truck, and fireflies blinked in the clover fields surrounding the small white farmhouse.
She led him around the back to her workshop, the door propped open with a cinder block, rows of glowing glass honey jars lined up on the shelves next to stacks of wooden beehive frames. The stripped extractor sat on the workbench in the middle of the room, and Earl ran his finger along the cracked oak gear, already mapping the exact dimensions he’d need for the replacement in his head. She set the cold jug of mead and two mason jars down on the bench next to him, her elbow brushing his again, and he didn’t pull away.
