Ronan O’Malley, 62, had spent the last 90 minutes hiding behind the 10-gallon cast iron fry vat at the coastal Oregon town’s annual summer fish fry, grease popping in tiny orange flecks against his faded navy Carhartt. He’d only agreed to man the station after his old fishing buddy Jake had begged him, pointing out the charity funds went to the local search and rescue team that had pulled Ronan’s nephew off a stranded boat three years prior. He hated these events, hated the forced small talk, hated the way three different widows from the local book club had already wandered over to ask if he’d joined their weekly hiking group, their smiles too bright, their questions too pointed. He’d spent eight years avoiding anything that felt like moving on from Ellie, and the polite pressure made his jaw tight.
He was just reaching for a new batch of cod fillets when a shadow fell over the vat. “Two cod tacos, extra slaw, and if you don’t skimp on the hot sauce I won’t mention the stack of expired clamming citations I saw peeking out of your flannel pocket five seconds ago.”
Ronan looked up, his grip on the metal tongs tightening. The woman leaning across the folding table was 58 if he had to guess, sun lines fanning out from the corners of her hazel eyes, pine needles stuck in the loose braid of her sun-bleached blonde hair, a park ranger badge pinned to the chest of her olive cargo shirt. Her left forearm, dusted with freckles, brushed his when she reached for a stack of paper napkins, and he felt a jolt he hadn’t felt in years, sharp and warm, like touching a live wire that was somehow still grounded. He smelled sage and sea salt in her hair, like she’d spent all day hiking the bluff trails.
He tensed, half ready to argue that those citations were 10 years old, that the old ranger had been a power trip who’d written him up for being 20 feet over the clamming limit when he’d been catching enough to feed the entire senior center that month. Before he could open his mouth, she laughed, a low, rough sound that cut through the twang of the country band playing in the pavilion. “Relax. I’m Mara. I took over as head park ranger last winter. Wiped all pre-2018 minor recreation citations when we upgraded the database earlier this year. You’re off the hook.”
He exhaled, a short, surprised laugh escaping him. He scooped two tacos onto a paper plate, piled extra slaw on the side, and added three hush puppies he’d pulled out of the grease 30 seconds prior, still crispy at the edges. “On the house. Consider it thanks for not dragging me to court over a decade-old fine.”
She leaned against the back of the picnic table next to the fry station, out of the line of sight of the rest of the crowd, and took a bite of her taco, crumbs falling onto the front of her shirt. She brushed them off with a gloved hand, the rough canvas of the glove brushing his wrist again when she reached for the lemon wedge he’d set on the edge of the table. Neither of them moved away. They talked for 20 minutes, the crowd around the fry station thinning as the sun dipped lower in the sky, painting the ocean pink and orange. He told her about his lure restoration business, the small shop he ran down by the docks, the way he’d fixed a 1952 wooden salmon lure for a kid’s 16th birthday the week prior. She told him about the vintage glass float balls she collected, the ones she found washed up on the remote north shore after winter storms, the way she kept a shelf of them above her couch in her small cabin just outside of town.
Their knees bumped twice when she shifted her weight to get a better look at the small lure he kept on his keychain, a chipped blue thing Ellie had bought him for their 25th anniversary. She didn’t ask about the ring on his left hand, didn’t push for more details about his life, just nodded when he mentioned he’d been on his own for eight years, like she understood that some things didn’t need to be unpacked in 20 minutes next to a fry vat.
When the last of the customers had left, Jake yelled over to him that he could take off, that he’d handle cleaning the station. Mara wiped her hands on her cargo pants, tilted her head, and asked if he had any of those hush puppies left. He said he had a cooler of cold IPA at his shop, and a whole box of vintage lures he’d been meaning to sort through, if she had time to swing by. She said 7 worked, that she just had to drop off her radio at the ranger station first.
She walked back toward the park entrance, pine needles still stuck in her braid, and glanced over her shoulder once, waving, before she rounded the corner of the pavilion. Ronan looked down at the crumpled 10-year-old citation he’d pulled out of his pocket while they were talking, the edges frayed from being carried around in every flannel shirt he owned for a decade. He crumpled it tighter, tossed it into the metal trash can next to the fry vat, and wiped the last of the grease off his hands on his Carhartt, already mentally moving the stack of old fishing magazines off the extra stool by his workbench so she had somewhere to sit.
