Rudy Galvez, 62, spent 28 years as an air traffic controller in Cleveland before a near mid-air collision scare pushed him into early retirement seven years prior, three months after his wife Linda died of pancreatic cancer. His biggest flaw, he’d admit if pressed, is that he’s spent every year since overcalculating every possible risk of even the smallest choices—he avoids takeout because of food poisoning stats, won’t drive in the rain after 7 PM, hasn’t so much as held another woman’s hand because he’s convinced any new relationship would end in loss before it even starts. He spends most days restoring vintage CB radios in his garage, trading parts with other collectors across the Midwest via Facebook Marketplace.
He’d driven 45 minutes to the small town summer fair south of Akron specifically to avoid running into anyone he knew, until he saw the fire department beer tent and caught sight of Marnie, 38, the daughter of Linda’s cousin, who’d been listing her late father’s CB parts online for three months. He’d exchanged 47 texts with her about vintage mic cords and console faceplates, but he hadn’t seen her in person since she was 12, crying at Linda’s funeral. He hesitated by the tent entrance for 10 minutes, the smell of fried dough and burnt hot dogs curling into his nose, the twang of a local country cover band rattling in his ears, before he stepped inside.
She spotted him immediately, wiping beer foam off her hands on the frayed legs of her cutoff jeans, and walked over before he could turn and leave. Her arms were freckled from weeks of working at her family’s corn farm, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, a thin silver chain around her neck with her husband’s National Guard dog tag hanging from it. He’d forgotten she was married, that her husband was deployed to Kuwait for a 12 month tour, until he saw the tag glint under the string lights strung across the tent.
“Rudy, right? I almost didn’t recognize you without the beard Linda always complained about,” she said, leaning in so he could hear her over the crowd, her sun-warmed shoulder brushing his bicep when she stopped next to him. The contact was light, unexpected, and he felt his face heat up like a teenager on a first date. He berated himself immediately—she was half his age, he’d watched her grow up, this was wrong, the kind of small town gossip that would get both of them dragged through the mud before the fair ended that night.
She grabbed him a draft beer from the keg behind the table, her calloused fingers brushing his when she passed the plastic cup to him, and nodded to an empty picnic table in the corner of the tent, out of the line of sight of most of the local regulars. He followed, his work boots sticking to the beer-soaked plywood floor, his chest tight with a mix of shame and anticipation he hadn’t felt in decades. They talked for 45 minutes about her dad’s old CB collection, about the 1977 Royce model he was currently restoring, about how hollow she’d felt since her husband stopped answering her texts two months prior, no explanation, no return calls.
She leaned in across the table when she talked, her hazel eyes darting from his to his mouth every time he laughed, her knee brushing his under the table every time someone walked past and jostled the bench. He kept waiting for the part of his brain that screamed about risk to kick in, to tell him to leave, to block her number, to go home and lock himself in his garage like he always did, but it didn’t. He found himself leaning in too, his hand resting on the table an inch away from hers, the hum of the crowd fading to background noise.
“I brought the last of the parts with me, they’re in the back of my truck,” she said after a while, standing up, her hand brushing his shoulder when she passed him to walk toward the tent exit. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t run through the list of 17 possible bad outcomes that usually ran through his head before any choice, just stood up and followed her out into the warm summer dark. The fair lights glowed gold through the oak trees lining the parking lot, the sound of the band faint from half a block away, when they reached her beat up silver pickup.
She hopped up on the tailgate, patting the spot next to her, and when he sat down, she reached over and laced her fingers through his, her palm still warm from the sun. “I’ve wanted to see you in person since we first started texting,” she said, her voice soft, looking right at him, no hesitation. He didn’t pull away, didn’t overthink it, just turned to her, brushed a strand of hair that had fallen loose from her ponytail off her face, and kissed her, slow and soft, the taste of cheap lager and cherry lip gloss on her mouth.
She kissed him back, her free hand coming up to rest on the side of his neck, and for the first time in seven years, Rudy didn’t feel the weight of every possible future disaster hanging over his head. He knew they’d have to talk through what this meant later, whether it was a one time thing or something more, whether they could avoid the small town gossip that would undoubtedly follow if anyone found out. A group of teens laughed as they walked past the truck, too wrapped up in their own nights to glance over, and he pulled her a little closer, his hand resting on her waist, no plans to leave any time soon.
