Hugo Marquez, 61, had spent three hours hiding from his neighbor’s well-meaning attempts to set him up with every widow within ten miles of the small mountain town he’d called home for 32 years. A vintage typewriter restorer by trade, he was used to hunching over worn metal frames alone, his knuckles perpetually chapped from metal polish and sandpaper, his jeans dotted with rust stains that never washed out. It had been eight years since his wife died of ovarian cancer, and he’d turned down every invite to cookouts, holiday parties, and town festivals until last week, when his next-door neighbor showed up on his porch with a jar of peach jam and refused to leave until he agreed to come to the annual fall harvest fair.
He was leaning against the rough wood of the hard cider booth, a half-full cup in one hand, when she bumped his elbow. The spiced, boozy drink sloshed over the edge, soaking a dark spot into the thigh of his worn denim. He looked up ready to brush it off, and froze. It was Clara, the woman who’d bought the old herb farm two roads over six months prior, the one everyone in town talked about like she was some fragile, tea-drinking saint who never even raised her voice, let alone drank spiked cider. She had a streak of silver cutting through chestnut hair pulled back in a loose braid, dried lavender sticking out of the breast pocket of her plaid flannel, and mud caked thick on the soles of her work boots.
“Shit, I’m so sorry,” she said, leaning in before he could say a word, dabbing at the wet spot on his jeans with a crumpled paper napkin. Her shoulder pressed into his chest for half a second, and he caught the sharp, warm scent of rosemary and cinnamon on her sweater, mixed with the faint, earthy smell of compost. She looked up at him when she was done, her dark eyes holding his for a beat too long, no shy look away, no awkward laugh to defuse the tension. He’d watched her from his driveway a dozen times, loading flats of basil into her beat-up pickup, but he’d never been close enough to see the tiny smattering of freckles across her nose, or the faint scar along her left cheek from a childhood bike crash he’d heard her mention once at the grocery store.
He mumbled that it was fine, that he got far worse stains stripping old paint off typewriter bodies, and she grinned, the kind of wide, unselfconscious grin that crinkled the corners of her eyes. “I know,” she said, nodding toward the general direction of his house. “I see you out in your garage most weekends, hunched over those old machines. I’ve got my mom’s 1948 Underwood sitting on my kitchen table, the shift key sticks so bad I can barely type out seed packet labels. I’ve been meaning to knock for weeks, but I figured you’d tell me to get lost.”
The crowd surged around them, kids chasing each other with glow sticks, the bluegrass band off to the side cranking up a fast fiddle tune, the smell of fried dough and smoked pork drifting over from the food stalls. She stepped closer to avoid a group of teenagers barreling past with cotton candy, her shoulder brushing his again, this time on purpose. When she reached past him to grab a cup of cider from the booth attendant, her hand brushed his, and he felt the rough callus on the pad of her index finger, from tying herb bundles at dawn every morning, he guessed. He didn’t pull his hand away.
He’d spent eight years convincing himself that wanting anything other than quiet, empty days alone was a betrayal, that any new connection would just end in more pain, more loss. He’d laughed at the guys at the hardware store who joked about flirting with diner waitresses, called them immature for chasing cheap thrills when they should be settling into being alone. But standing there next to her, the cold October wind nipping at his ears, her arm pressed warm against his, he couldn’t remember why he’d thought being alone was better.
She tilted her head toward the corn maze at the edge of the fairgrounds, the string lights strung along the entrance glowing gold in the growing dark. “Wanna get away from all this noise?” she asked, biting her lower lip just a little, like she was half expecting him to say no. He hesitated for half a second, the old instinct to make an excuse about a half-restored Royal sitting on his workbench rising to the tip of his tongue, but he nodded instead.
The corn stalks rustled in the wind as they walked the winding paths, the noise of the fair fading behind them. She grabbed his arm when she tripped over a half-buried root, her hand wrapping warm around his forearm, and she didn’t let go when she steadied herself. They stopped at a dead end a few minutes later, the stalks towering over them, blocking out most of the light from the fair. She turned to face him, her hand still on his arm, and leaned in slow, like she was giving him plenty of time to pull away. He didn’t.
The kiss tasted like spiced cider and clove, her lips soft against his chapped ones, his hand coming to rest on her waist, the thick fabric of her jacket soft under his palm. When they pulled apart, she laughed, quiet, and rested her forehead against his. “I thought you’d never stop ignoring me,” she said.
They walked out of the maze an hour later, their fingers laced together, no one giving them a second glance even though he knew half the town would be talking about it by breakfast the next morning, the reclusive typewriter restorer and the quiet herb lady, breaking all the unspoken rules about how widows and widowers were supposed to act. He walked her to her pickup, and she leaned in to kiss him again quick before she climbed in, telling him to bring his tools over Saturday afternoon, she’d make pot roast and mashed potatoes, no rush, they could take all the time they wanted with the Underwood. He nodded, leaning against the hood of his own truck as she pulled out of the parking lot, waving when she honked the horn. He lifted his half-empty cider cup to his mouth, the drink cold now, and smiled, the rustle of corn stalks still ringing in his ears.
