Leo Marquez, 61, has spent the last eight years avoiding situations that could lead to anything resembling a date. A retired lineman with 37 years climbing utility poles across southern Ohio’s hollows, he still carries a scar snaking up his left forearm from a 2018 storm that took out three county substations, and a quiet guilt he’s never been able to shake over the thought of seeing anyone other than his late wife Linda, who passed from ovarian cancer in 2015. He shows up to the annual fire department chili cook-off only because his old crew badgered him into it, and because the 3-alarm recipe the new rookie makes is the only thing that can cut through the persistent joint ache he gets when the fall air turns sharp.
He’s leaning against a dented metal cooler, wiping sweat off his upper lip with the back of his calloused hand, when he turns to grab a stack of napkins and bumps solidly into someone behind him. Their hips press together for half a beat, warm through his faded Ohio State hoodie and her well-worn denim jacket, and she laughs, no awkward polite titter, just a low, warm sound that cuts through the noise of the crowd yelling over the Chiefs game playing on a portable TV propped on a folding table. She passes him a napkin she’d already grabbed, her knuckles brushing his palm when she does, and he catches the scent of lavender and lemon Pledge clinging to her sweater.
Her name is Marnie, she tells him, 58, moved to town three months prior to run the tiny one-room public library after her ex-husband left her for his 28-year-old dental hygienist and relocated to Fort Myers. She’s got hazel eyes flecked with gold, a smudge of ink on her left jaw from stamping library cards that morning, and a hand-stitched patch of a tabby cat reading a poetry collection sewn to the breast of her jacket. She leans in close when he speaks, the shoulder of her jacket pressing into his bicep so he doesn’t have to yell over the crowd, and the ends of her soft, gray-streaked auburn hair brush his jaw when she nods at something he says.
He tenses up at first, that familiar, sharp guilt pricking at the back of his throat, telling him he has no business enjoying talking to a woman this quick to laugh, this interested in the stupid story he’s telling about fixing a transformer on a 40-foot pole in the middle of an ice storm while a flock of turkeys circled the base trying to peck his boots. But then she snorts when he mimics the guttural gobble the turkeys made, and the guilt fades just a little, replaced by a flutter in his chest he hasn’t felt since he was 17, leaning against Linda’s parents’ porch rail asking her to prom.
She mentions the grandfather clock in the library’s entryway, stuck at 2:17 for 12 years, that every handyman in town has written off as too far gone to repair. Leo used to fix antique clocks as a side hustle back when his kids were little, to make extra cash for soccer fees and Christmas presents, and he tells her as much without even thinking about it. She bites at her lower lip, the corners of her mouth tugging up in a half-smile, and asks if he’d be willing to come take a look at it tomorrow after the library closes. She says she’ll pay him in the homemade peach pie she baked the night before, the kind with a crumb topping and extra cinnamon.
The guilt hits again, sharp and hot, for half a second. He can almost hear his sister’s voice in his head, the thing she’s been saying for years: Linda would want you to be happy, not moping around the house eating frozen dinners and watching old westerns alone. He looks at Marnie, her eyes bright like she’s half-worried he’ll turn her down, and he nods before he can overthink it.
She grins, pulls a crumpled library checkout slip out of her jacket pocket, scrawls her cell number on the back in blue ballpoint, and presses it into his palm. Her fingers linger for a full second longer than necessary, her thumb brushing the raised edge of the scar on his wrist, and he feels his face heat up like he’s a kid caught passing notes in class. She says she’ll see him at 6, gives him a small wave, and turns to walk over to a group of elementary school teachers clustered by the cookie table.
He tucks the checkout slip into the inner pocket of his hoodie, right next to the worn photo of Linda and their grandkids he keeps there, and takes a bite of his chili. It’s spicier than he remembered, or maybe that’s just the heat creeping up his neck. He pulls his beat-up flip phone out of his jeans pocket, punches the number in, and types a quick text: Leo, lineman who almost spilled chili all over you ten minutes ago. He hits send, shoves the phone back in his pocket, and leans against the cooler, watching her laugh as one of the teachers hands her a sugar cookie covered in red sprinkles.
