Russ LaFleur, 62, retired commercial beekeeper, had only stopped at the McDowell County fire department fish fry to drop off a jar of his award-winning sourwood honey for the raffle. He’d planned to hightail it back to his cabin before anyone could corner him into staying, before his sister-in-law could drag over some divorcee from the church auxiliary, before he had to make small talk about how “nice it is he’s getting out more.” The air reeked of fried catfish, cut grass, and cheap domestic beer, the bluegrass band off by the picnic shelter sawing through a fast version of Rocky Top so loud he could feel the bass thrum in his work boots.
He was halfway to his beat-up 2008 Ford F-150 when a woman carrying a heaping paper plate of coleslaw and hushpuppies stumbled over a loose cinder block at the edge of the parking lot, slamming shoulder-first into his chest. A dollop of creamy coleslaw splattered across the front of his faded sun-bleached Carhartt work shirt, the one still dotted with bee sting stains from his last removal gig. She froze, wide hazel eyes locking onto his, silver strands catching the golden late-afternoon sun where they peeked out of her thick auburn braid. She was wearing scuffed work boots, not the strappy sandals all the other recent city transplants wore to local events, and there was a streak of linen dye across her left cheekbone. He recognized her immediately: Marnie, the woman who’d bought the old Henderson place three miles down the road from his cabin, the one who ran the vintage linens shop downtown.
He tensed up first, instinct telling him to brush it off and leave before the conversation dragged on, before he let himself notice how her freckles spread across her nose like scattered cinnamon, before he caught the faint scent of lavender and lemon in her hair. She rambled out an apology, swatting at the coleslaw on his shirt with a crumpled napkin, her knuckles brushing his sternum through the thick fabric every other swipe. He told her it was fine, he’d gotten worse stuff on that shirt, but she insisted on buying him a beer to make it up to him, and before he could think of a polite excuse to dip, he was sitting across from her at a splintered pine picnic table, cold Pabst in a red solo cup in front of him.
Their knees knocked under the table every time one of them shifted to hear the other over the band. She leaned in when he talked about the swarm he’d removed from an old barn the week before, didn’t cut him off or laugh when he rambled about how gentle most honeybees are if you don’t panic. She told him about her messy divorce from a corporate lawyer in Chicago, about how she’d moved to the mountains to stop waking up every morning hating the sound of sirens, about how she kept finding half-empty old honey jars in the back cabinets of her new house, left by the previous owners. Her hand brushed his when she passed him a packet of hot sauce for his catfish, her palm warm and calloused from folding vintage tablecloths all day, and he felt a jolt shoot up his arm that he hadn’t felt since his late wife Ellen was alive.
The internal conflict hit him hard right then, cold and sharp in his chest. He’d spent 8 years telling himself he didn’t deserve this, that dating again would be a betrayal of the 32 years he’d had with Ellen, that his kids would side-eye him, that the whole town would gossip like he was some randy teenager messing around behind his wife’s back. He wanted to stand up, mumble an excuse about a late swarm call, drive home and sit on his porch with his hound dog and a beer alone like he always did. But he couldn’t make himself move. She was looking at him like he was more than just the widowed bee guy, like his stories mattered, and he hadn’t felt that in so long he almost forgot what it felt like.
When the fire chief announced the 50/50 raffle winner, they both froze. Their ticket numbers were consecutive, they’d bought them back to back when they’d walked past the ticket table on the way to the picnic table, so they split the $820 pot evenly. She laughed so hard she snort-laughed, grabbing his bicep to steady herself, her fingers pressing into the muscle through his shirt, and he found himself laughing right along with her, no guilt, no overthinking, just pure stupid joy. She said they should use their cut to get dinner at the diner up on the parkway next Saturday, the one with the blackberry pie that won state fair awards three years running. He almost said no, almost made up a lie about having to check a hive that evening, but then he looked at her, her crinkled hazel eyes waiting, no pressure, no expectation, and he said yes.
They walked out to the parking lot together as the sun dipped below the mountains, painting the sky pink and tangerine. She stopped by her beat-up forest green Subaru, leaned in, and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, her lip gloss tasting like peach when it brushed his skin. She said she’d text him the time for dinner, waved, and climbed into her car. He stood there for a minute after she pulled out, touching the spot on his cheek where her lips had been, the crumpled raffle ticket still crumpled in his palm. He climbed into his truck, turned the key, and Merle Haggard’s “Okie From Muskogee” blared out of the rusted speakers. He turned the volume up, shifted into drive, and pulled out of the parking lot, smiling so wide his cheeks hurt.
