Moe Pritchard, 62, retired high-voltage lineman, had not set foot at the Maplewood Fire Department fish fry in seven years. Not since his wife, Ellie, collapsed mid-bite of a hushpuppy from an undiagnosed heart issue, dead before the paramedics even pulled into the gravel lot. His flaw, as his only neighbor Ron liked to nag him about, was that he’d frozen solid in the aftermath, turning down every dinner invitation, every community work day, every half-hearted setup with the widowed librarian three streets over. He liked his quiet, his half-restored 1987 Ford F-150, his routine of drinking instant coffee at 5 a.m. while watching the turkeys wander through his back pasture. Ron had to physically herd him into the truck that night, saying he’d turn into a hermit if he spent one more weekend alone sanding truck panels.
The air smelled like fried catfish, charcoal, and cut grass, the kind of thick summer air that sticks to your shirt the second you step outside. Moe leaned against a gnarled pine at the edge of the crowd, foam cup of cheap lager in one hand, catfish sandwich slathered in tartar sauce in the other, trying to avoid eye contact with anyone who might stop to ask how he was doing. He was halfway through a bite when a woman’s shoulder slammed into his elbow, sloshing beer down the front of his faded work flannel.
“Shit, I’m so sorry,” she said, stepping back, holding her own cup of sweet tea like she was afraid she’d spill that too. Moe wiped the beer off his shirt with the back of his hand and looked up. He recognized her immediately: Lena Marlow, 48, the new county health inspector who’d moved back to town three months prior, fresh off a very public divorce from the pastor of the biggest Baptist church in the county. The whole town had been whispering about it, calling her selfish, saying she’d thrown away a perfect life for no reason. Moe had never paid much attention, but he’d seen her around, always in a crisp button down and khakis, clipboard in hand, shutting down the old diner for a mold issue last month that everyone swore was just “old building smell.”
Tonight she was in cutoff denim shorts and a threadbare Johnny Cash tee, sun streaks in her dark auburn hair, freckles across her nose that he’d never noticed when she was in uniform. “No harm done,” he said, taking another bite of his sandwich, trying to act like his pulse hadn’t jumped a little when she smiled. The crowd was loud behind them, a group of teens screaming as they chased each other with water guns, the fire department’s radio blaring old country. She stepped a little closer to avoid a kid zooming past on a scooter, their shoulders brushing, and Moe could smell jasmine shampoo and coconut sunscreen on her, warm and sweet under the smell of fried food.
He knew people were watching. He could feel the sideways glances from the group of retirees at the picnic table ten feet away, the quiet murmurs. Moe had always hated small town gossip, hated that everyone thought they had a right to weigh in on other people’s business. He also hated the little flutter in his chest when she reached up to brush a fleck of coleslaw off his jaw, her fingers brushing the gray stubble on his cheek, lingering for half a second longer than she needed to. “You got a little something there,” she said, her voice low, like she didn’t want anyone else to hear, and she held his eye contact, didn’t look away like most people did when he stared too long.
He didn’t pull back. He didn’t make some dumb joke about being a slob. He just stood there, shoulder to shoulder with her, listening to her complain about the old diner owner calling her a witch to her face when she gave him the shutdown notice, laughing when she imitated his high, nasally drawl. When the sun dipped below the tree line and the first fireflies started blinking over the field next to the lot, she nodded toward his truck, parked at the far edge of the lot, away from the crowd. “Your old Ford? I saw you working on it last week when I was driving out to inspect the new water tower. Wanna go sit? My feet are killing me in these stupid sandals.”
Moe hesitated for half a second. He thought about Ellie, about the gossip that would spread through town by tomorrow morning, about the sharp twist of disgust he’d felt every other time someone had tried to set him up, like he was betraying the memory of the woman he’d loved for 32 years. Then he nodded, picked up his half-empty beer, and led the way across the gravel.
The truck’s seats were still warm from sitting in the sun all day, the AC broken, so they rolled the windows all the way down, the smell of clover and pine drifting in. The noise of the fish fry faded behind them, just the hum of crickets and the distant sound of a lawnmower running a few streets over. She leaned across the center console, her hand resting on his forearm for a second before she kissed him, slow, her lips tasting like sweet tea and cherry lip gloss. Moe kissed her back, his hand coming up to rest on the side of her neck, and for the first time in seven years, he didn’t feel guilty. He didn’t feel like he was doing something wrong. He just felt warm, and alive, and like he didn’t care what anyone else thought.
They sat there for an hour, talking, kissing every few minutes, until the fish fry lights started turning off and the crowd started heading home. When she pulled back to grab her purse off the floor, she asked if he wanted to come over to her place for dinner the next night, said she made a mean meatloaf that no one else had gotten to try yet. Moe nodded, already reaching for his phone to put her number in. When she leaned in to kiss him one more time before she got out of the truck, her hand brushed the faded photo of Ellie he kept taped to the dashboard, and neither of them flinched.
