Elroy Voss, 62, retired high school woodshop teacher, had spent the last three years avoiding the town’s weekly summer beer garden like it gave off sawdust that would clog his favorite planer. His late wife, Linda, had dragged him every year before her stroke, but after she was gone, the sound of bad cover bands and drunk neighbors yelling over each other felt like a violation of the quiet routine he’d built: wake at 6, drink burnt coffee, sand custom birdhouses in his garage until the sun went down, eat a frozen dinner alone on the couch. He only showed up that August night because his old teaching partner had left three voicemails reminding him the annual amateur woodcarving contest he’d half-forgotten entering was announcing winners there, and the top prize included a $200 gift card to the lumber yard he’d been frequenting for 27 years.
He leaned against the gnarled oak at the edge of the park, cold IPA sweating through the paper napkin wrapped around it, jeans still dotted with pine sawdust from the bluebird house he’d finished that morning, scuffed work boots planted in a patch of clover. He was mentally calculating how long he could stand there before he could slip out unseen when someone’s shoulder slammed into his bicep, sloshing a third of his beer down his wrist.
“Shit, I’m so sorry, I was chasing a runaway cornhole bag and didn’t see you there.”
He looked down. Marnie Hale, 58, owner of the town’s only independent bookstore, was wiping beer off her faded 1989 Tom Petty tour shirt with a napkin, silver hoops swinging, bare freckled legs glistening with a light sheen of sweat from the 80-degree humidity. She smelled like lavender hand cream and lemon seltzer, and when she leaned in to dab at the beer spot on his shirt sleeve, her wavy auburn hair streaked with silver brushed his jaw, and he had to fight the urge to lean into the contact.
He’d seen her at the farmers market every Saturday, manning the table next to his birdhouse stand, selling used mystery paperbacks and homemade peach jam, but they’d never exchanged more than a quick nod. He’d always written her off as too loud, too quick to laugh with every customer that stopped by, the kind of person who would find his quiet, uneventful routine boring.
She recognized the sawdust on his jeans immediately, grinning and nodding at the half-carved bald eagle peeking out of his canvas bag he’d brought for the contest. “I’ve been staring at your bluebird houses for months. Tried to build one last winter, cut my thumb open on the circular saw, gave up and decided I’d just beg one off you eventually.”
He kept fighting the voice in the back of his head that said he was betraying Linda, that he should go home, go back to his quiet routine, stop feeling that flutter in his chest he’d thought died with her. But every time Marnie tilted her head and asked him another question about the type of sealant he used for birdhouse roofs, that voice got a little quieter.
When the emcee announced he’d won first place, the small crowd around the contest table cheered, and Marnie whooped so loud a few people turned to stare. She leaned in to congratulate him, and before he could overthink it, he cupped her jaw with his calloused, sawdust-dusted hand and kissed her. The crowd was still cheering, no one paid them any mind, her lips were slightly chapped, tasted like peach hard seltzer and spearmint gum, and for the first time in three years, he didn’t feel like he was just waiting for time to pass.
They left before the band finished their set, him carrying the homemade peach pie that came with his contest prize, her hand tucked into his, her fingers calloused from decades of turning book pages, fitting perfectly into the gaps between his. The crickets were chirping loud in the oak trees lining the street, the air smelled like fresh cut grass and the pine sap leaking from the tree in her front yard, and when they reached her porch, she leaned against the railing, grinning up at him. “I got a stack of cedar lumber in my garage I’ve had no clue what to do with. You wanna build that bluebird house tomorrow? I’ll even let you use my good table saw.”
He set the pie down on the porch rail, wrapped an arm around her waist, and pulled her close, the silver strands in her hair catching the warm glow from the porch lamp.
