Russell “Rust” Marquez, 62, retired commercial abalone diver, leaned against the split-rail fence bordering the local fire department’s summer beer garden, condensation from his hazy IPA dripping onto the scuffed toe of his work boot. He’d only shown up because his next-door neighbor, a retired schoolteacher who left homemade cinnamon rolls on his porch every other Sunday, begged him to donate something to the silent auction. He’d dropped off a hand-carved trout lure he’d sanded for three weeks, iridescent blue scales made from crushed abalone shell he’d hauled up from the frigid Pacific 15 years prior, and planned to leave after one beer. He’d avoided most small town gatherings since his ex-wife moved to Portland 11 years prior, convinced anyone his age who sought him out wanted something: access to his remote cabin on the Deschutes, his solid state pension, free fishing tips. The partial hearing loss in his left ear from a 2018 pressure injury gave him a built-in excuse to brush people off, squint like he can’t hear them, and walk away.
He’s half-way through his beer when she steps into his line of sight, sun gilding the edges of her chestnut hair streaked with silver, canvas book bag slung over one shoulder, a plastic cup of hard seltzer in her hand. He recognizes her immediately: Clara, the new part-time librarian who moved to town six months prior after her youngest kid left for NYU. Half the town’s retired men have been tripping over themselves to bring her jam or garden tomatoes, cooing about how “sweet and quiet” she is, and Rust has deliberately avoided the library since she started, not interested in playing that performative nice guy game.
She stops two feet away, close enough he can smell lavender lotion and pine on her worn flannel shirt, and holds up the paper bid slip for his lure. “I outbid Jim Henderson by ten bucks,” she says, grinning, and he notices the tiny silver hoop in her left nostril he’d never caught from a distance, the faint scar along her jawline from what looks like an old skiing accident. He blinks, leans his right ear (the good one) a little closer, and she adjusts automatically, stepping half an inch nearer so she doesn’t have to yell over the band playing old Johnny Cash covers behind them. Her elbow brushes his when she gestures to the abalone scales on the lure laid out on the auction table ten feet away, and the rough fabric of her work flannel drags lightly over his bare forearm, sending a jolt up his spine he hasn’t felt in a decade.
His first instinct is to shut it down. Grunt, say the lure’s nothing special, make an excuse about needing to feed his hound dog and bolt. But then she laughs, says she tried to teach herself to fly fish last weekend, tripped over a river rock and landed face first in the Deschutes, had to walk back to her car soaked through to her underwear, and he snorts before he can stop himself. “You’re holding the rod wrong, aren’t you,” he says, and her grin widens, leans in even closer, so their shoulders are pressed together now, and he can feel the heat of her through his thin cotton work shirt.
He spends the next 45 minutes talking to her, forgetting about the beer growing warm in his hand, forgetting he was supposed to leave an hour prior. She asks him about diving for abalone, and he tells her about the time he got caught in a rip current 30 miles off the coast of Monterey, spent two hours treading water before the coast guard found him, and she doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look away, just nods, asks follow up questions, no pity, no awkward pauses. When a group of drunk retirees yells his name, waving him over to their table, he shakes his head, doesn’t take his eyes off her.
He’s still fighting the voice in his head telling him she’s just being nice, that she’ll ask him for a favor or a handout before the night is over, when she leans up, brushes a fleck of grill ash from his cheek, and her thumb lingers on his stubbled skin for half a second. “I’ve watched you at the trout hatchery every Wednesday for two months,” she says, quiet enough only he can hear, “I’ve never seen you smile till right now.”
That’s the crack in the wall he built 11 years prior. He doesn’t overthink it, just nods his head toward his beat up 2008 Ford F150 parked a block away, says he’s got an extra fly rod in the back, can show her the proper grip if she wants. She doesn’t hesitate, just takes his calloused hand in hers, her palm soft but with a hard callus on her index finger from turning thousands of book pages, and follows him.
They sit in the bed of the truck on a frayed wool blanket he keeps stowed there for early morning fishing trips, the distant sound of the band fading, the smell of pine and grilled brats still hanging in the warm summer air. She kisses him first, slow, no rush, and he hesitates for half a second before kissing her back, the taste of seltzer and cherry lip balm on her tongue, his hand resting light on her hip, not pushing, not rushing. When they pull apart, she tucks a strand of graying hair behind his ear, writes her phone number on a crumpled receipt from the library bookstore, shoves it in the pocket of his work shirt.
They agree to meet at the river access point off Cascade Lane Saturday at 7 a.m., he brings the extra rod, she brings the peach pie she baked the night before. He walks her back to the beer garden, stops at the edge of the fence so no one spots them, doesn’t want the whole town gossiping before they even have their first date. He tucks the crumpled receipt with her phone number into the inner pocket of his worn neoprene waders hanging from the hook in his truck cab before he drives home, already making a mental list of extra gear and extra layers to pack for Saturday.
