Manny Ortega, 59, has run a small-scale beekeeping operation outside Asheville, North Carolina, for 17 years. He’s stubborn to a fault, still fixes his own fence lines and hauls 40-pound honey supers alone even after a rotator cuff tear last year left his left shoulder throbbing if he lifts too fast. He’s been widowed 12 years, hasn’t so much as flirted with anyone since his wife Maria died in a car crash, convinced any kind of new connection would be a betrayal of the 28 years they had together.
For three weeks, he’s been quietly furious at the woman running the tamale stand directly next to his honey booth at the weekly downtown farmers market. Her vent fan blows steamy corn and pork scented air directly at his display, fogging the glass jars and making the handwritten labels he spends two hours printing every Sunday curl at the edges. He’d avoided speaking to her, just offered tight, unsmiling nods when she waved, pretending he was too busy restocking jars or answering customer questions to stop and chat. He didn’t even know her name until a regular called her Elara when they ordered a half dozen green chile tamales.
The conflict boils over on a muggy Saturday in late August, when a sudden thunderstorm rolls through 15 minutes before the market closes. Most vendors scatter early, but Manny stays to pack up his last two cases of honey, his shoulder screaming as he hefts the first cooler toward his beat-up 2008 F150 parked at the curb. His grip slips halfway across the sidewalk, the case slamming to the wet concrete, jars skittering across the puddles. He curses under his breath, kneeling to grab them, when a pair of scuffed work boots appears next to his knee.
Elara is holding three jars in her arms, her dark hair stuck to her forehead with rain, the front of her apron spotted with masa and rainwater. Their hands brush when they both reach for the same wildflower honey jar, and Manny flinches like he’s been burned. He can feel the rough calluses on her fingertips from kneading masa at 4 a.m. every day, smell the mix of cumin, smoked pork, and the faint jasmine perfume she wears under her apron. She holds eye contact for two full beats, a small, teasing smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth, before she passes him the jar. “You know, you’ve been such a grump since I set up here I half thought you’d hiss at me if I got too close,” she says, standing to follow him to his truck with the rest of the jars.
Manny’s chest feels tight, half from annoyance, half from a strange, fluttery heat he hasn’t felt in over a decade. He wants to tell her to mind her own business, that the steam from her stand has ruined 12 of his labels so far, but instead he grunts a thank you when she sets the case of honey in the bed of his truck. She mentions her dad kept hives outside Laredo when she was a kid, that she knows how much work goes into every jar, how frustrating it would be to ruin the labels you spent time on. She says she’ll reposition her vent fan first thing next week, point it away from his booth, no strings attached. He surprises himself by asking her if she wants to come out to his bee yard next Saturday, try the tupelo honey he just harvested, he’ll grill corn to go with whatever tamales she brings. She says yes before he finishes talking.
He spends the whole week overthinking it, yelling at himself for being an idiot, for betraying Maria, for thinking a woman 5 years younger than him would have any interest in a grumpy beekeeper with a bad shoulder and a house that still has Maria’s crochet blankets draped over every couch. When she shows up Saturday, she’s wearing cut off denim shorts and a faded Willie Nelson flannel, no makeup, a cooler of tamales slung over her shoulder. She doesn’t flinch when a honeybee lands on her wrist while they’re checking the hives, just blows it off gently, laughing when Manny tenses up like she’s about to get stung. They sit on his back porch afterward, watching the sun dip below the Blue Ridge Mountains, the soft hum of the hives drifting up from the tree line.
She passes him a pork tamale slathered in green salsa, and this time when their hands brush, he doesn’t pull away. He admits he hasn’t invited anyone over to the house since Maria died, that he thought he’d spend the rest of his life just him and the bees. She nods, says she didn’t let anyone help her fix her leaky kitchen faucet for three years after her ex left, thought asking for help meant she was weak, that she was failing at being independent. He reaches up, brushes a strand of graying dark hair off her face, his palm lingering on her cheek for a second, and she leans into the touch, her hand coming up to cover his.
The crickets are chirping loud enough to drown out the distant traffic from the highway, and Elara pulls a jar of her homemade habanero salsa out of her cooler, setting it next to the open jar of tupelo honey on the porch rail. She leans in, close enough that he can feel her warm breath on his jaw, and kisses him slow, the faint taste of cinnamon and corn on her tongue.
