Moe Kapowski, 58, spent 32 years fixing walk-in freezers for regional grocery chains before retiring last spring. His biggest flaw, one he’d never admit out loud, was that he’d shut down every romantic advance in the eight years since his wife died, convinced anyone interested was only after his paid-off lake cottage and the fat union pension that let him fish three days a week and buy imported beer without checking the price tag. He’d showed up to the annual fire department beer tent fundraiser alone, as he always did, planning to eat one bratwurst with extra sauerkraut, watch three rounds of cornhole, and slip out before the fireworks drew the rowdy college kids home for the summer.
The air hung thick with charcoal smoke, citronella, and the sweet tang of strawberry shortcake from the bake sale table. He was halfway through his second pilsner, snickering at the group of off-duty cops who were definitely cheating at cornhole, when a shadow fell across his picnic table. He looked up to see Clara Marlow, 47, the woman who ran the mobile pet grooming van that rumbled through his neighborhood twice a month, whose ex-husband had been arrested three weeks prior for embezzling $120,000 from the very fire department running the event. Half the town had been side-eyeing her all week, calling her a co-conspirator even though the police had already cleared her of any involvement.
She gestured to the empty spot across from him, a half-empty can of lemon seltzer in her other hand, and yelled over the blaring Alan Jackson track on the PA. “Every other table’s full, and the ladies by the bake sale are giving me the cold shoulder bad enough I’m worried my seltzer’s gonna freeze. Mind if I sit?” Moe hesitated for half a second, already imagining the gossip that would spread through the town’s Facebook group by sunrise, but he nodded. She slid onto the bench, close enough that her bare, suntanned arm brushed his when she reached for the stack of napkins beside his elbow. He caught a whiff of lavender dog shampoo and citrus on her, a far cry from the heavy perfume the widows at his church wore when they brought him casseroles.
They traded small talk first, about the brutal heat wave that had wilted half the town’s flower beds, about the golden retriever down the street that tried to bite her every time she showed up to groom him, about how the bratwurst this year was half the size it was last year for the same price. When he made a dumb joke about the cheating cops having cornhole boards rigged with magnets, she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, and her eye contact lingered a beat longer than it should have, warm and crinkled at the corners. He felt a tight, unfamiliar flutter in his chest, the kind he hadn’t felt since he’d asked his wife to prom back in 1983. He fought it at first, scolding himself for being stupid, for risking his quiet, drama-free retirement for a woman the whole town was currently side-eyeing, for falling for a pretty smile when he’d worked so hard to keep his life simple.
She knocked over her seltzer can mid-laugh, the fizzy liquid spilling across the splintered wood of the table. They both reached for the napkins at the same time, their hands brushing, and he felt the rough callus on her palm from holding grooming clippers 10 hours a day, the faint scar across her knuckle from where a pit bull had nipped her last winter. She flinched like she’d been burned, then grinned, wiping the seltzer off the edge of the table. “Sorry, I’m a klutz when I’m not around dogs,” she said. The PA cut out right then, and the announcer yelled that the fireworks show was starting in 30 seconds.
The first firework went off with a deafening boom, painting the sky neon pink. She leaned in to yell in his ear, so close her breath was warm against his neck, “The blue ones are my favorite, they look like bioluminescent algae I saw once when I visited Florida.” He turned his head to respond, and their faces were inches apart, the light from the fireworks gilding the silver streaks in her dark hair, the faint freckles across her nose. No one was looking at them, every eye turned up to the sky, and for once he didn’t overthink it. He lifted a hand and brushed the stray strand of hair that had fallen across her face away, his thumb brushing her cheekbone for half a second. She didn’t pull away. She just smiled, soft this time, no snark, no nervous energy, and leaned in a little closer.
When the last firework faded, the crowd cheered, and people started packing up their coolers to head to the bars downtown. She stood up, slinging her canvas tote bag over her shoulder, and nodded toward the path that led down to the lake. “Wanna walk down there? The reflections on the water are always better than the actual show, and we can avoid the crowd and the gossip hounds for a little while.” Moe stood up, brushing crumbs off his jeans, and nodded. She tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, warm and solid, as they walked away from the tent. The crickets were loud enough to drown out any distant chatter, and for the first time in eight years, he didn’t care who saw them anyway.
