Rafe Marquez, 53, spent 18 years perched in fire lookout towers across the Willamette National Forest before a rotor blade clipped a pine during a medical evacuation flight took him out of the field for good. He’s got a scar snaking up his left calf, a habit of counting cloud formations to pass time, and a hard rule against attending any local event that draws more than 20 people, a leftover from the years after his ex-wife Marnie left him for a park ranger he’d considered a friend. The only reason he’s at the county fair on a sticky 82-degree August afternoon is his 16-year-old next door neighbor begged him to chaperone her and her three friends, promising to mow his lawn for the rest of the summer if he said yes. He’d caved 10 minutes after she showed up at his porch with homemade chocolate chip cookies still warm from the oven, and now he’s hiding from the screaming teens in the craft beer tent, nursing a hazy IPA that tastes like citrus and pine resin, exactly like the woods he used to spend most of his time in.
The first brush is accidental. He leans back to stretch his bad leg, knocks his shoulder into someone standing behind him, and turns to apologize, beer sloshing over the edge of the cup onto his faded red flannel sleeve. It’s Lila Ruiz, Marnie’s youngest cousin, the girl who’d been 17 and covered in body glitter at their wedding, who’d snuck him a shot of tequila before the ceremony because she said he looked like he was about to pass out from nerves. He freezes, half-apology stuck in his throat, fully ready to mumble an excuse and bolt for the exit before she grins, the same small gap between her two front teeth he remembers clear as day, and yells over the noise of the country cover band playing by the tent entrance, “Rafe? I thought that was you. Long time no see.”
He can’t leave without looking like a total ass, so he nods, gestures to the empty spot across from him at the splintered pine picnic table. She slides into the seat, frayed denim shorts brushing his knee when she shifts to get comfortable, and he tenses up for a split second before he relaxes, the smell of her coconut shampoo cutting through the fried oreo and alfalfa fumes hanging thick in the air. She’s a traveling glassblower now, she says, passing through the fair to sell her hand-blown tumblers and sun catchers, just found out last week she’d be stopping in this part of Oregon. She mentions Marnie once, offhand, says she lives in Phoenix now with her third husband, and Rafe feels the tightness in his chest loosen a little, the old sting of the divorce faint and dull after 21 years of distance.
He keeps telling himself this is a bad idea. It doesn’t matter that it’s been two decades since Marnie packed her bags and left the half-scrawled note on his kitchen counter, doesn’t matter that Lila’s the one leaning in, elbows on the table, so close he can see the flecks of amber in her dark brown eyes when she laughs at his story about the time a raccoon snuck into his lookout tower and ate half his supply of smoked beef jerky. Every time their hands brush when they reach for their beer cups, every time her knee presses a little firmer into his under the table, he fights the urge to yank away, half-disgusted with himself for even thinking about someone tied to the worst period of his life, half-hungry for the warm, unforced attention he’s gone so long without. She asks him about the scar on his calf, and he tells her about the helicopter crash, the three months of physical therapy, the way he thought he’d never be able to hike the backcountry trails he loved again. She reaches across the table, brushes her calloused thumb over the edge of the scar peeking out above his scuffed work boot, and he doesn’t flinch.
The sun dips low, painting the sky streaks of tangerine and soft pink, and the teens text him they’re ready to head out in an hour, so he suggests they walk the fairgrounds to kill time. They stop by her booth first, tucked between a honey seller and a woman who makes hand-knit scarves, and she shows him the deep indigo tumblers she made inspired by the sunset over the Oregon coast. When he says he wants to buy one, she shakes her head, shoves it in a crumpled brown paper bag for free, says it’s a welcome back to the world gift. They keep walking, past the ferris wheel where couples are kissing at the top, past the cotton candy stand where a kid is crying because his treat fell in the dirt, all the way to the old gnarled oak tree at the edge of the property, where no one’s hanging around because the porta-potties are 50 feet away and the smell is just bad enough to keep most crowds away. He stops, turns to her, and before he can talk himself out of it, he kisses her. She tastes like cherry seltzer and mint gum, her hands coming up to rest light on his shoulders, and for a second he forgets where he is, forgets the fair, forgets Marnie, forgets every stupid reason he thought he shouldn’t do this.
When they pull apart, she laughs, quiet and warm, presses her forehead to his, and says she’s been wanting to do that since she was 17 and saw him standing at the altar, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else but married to her cousin. He laughs too, the first real, unforced laugh he’s had in months, and agrees to meet her for breakfast at the diner downtown at 8 the next morning, before she packs up her booth and heads to her next stop in northern California. They walk back toward the main fairgrounds, his hand brushing the small of her back the whole way, and when she laces her fingers through his for three slow steps before she has to split off to go help a customer lingering at her booth, he doesn’t pull away. He spots the teens waiting for him by the entrance, holding overstuffed stuffed animals and half-eaten corn dogs, and tucks the paper bag with the indigo tumbler tight under his arm, already counting down the minutes until he can sit across from her at a Formica table, drinking bad diner coffee and eating blueberry pancakes.
