Rafe Mendez, 58, spent 32 years climbing utility poles across northwest Ohio, his hands crisscrossed with scar tissue from frayed wires and splintered pine, his left knee permanently stiff from a 2018 fall off a 40-foot pole during an ice storm. He’d been widowed seven years, and his most consistent personality flaw—the one his late wife used to tease him about relentlessly—was holding petty grudges for decades, even when he couldn’t remember the full context of the original slight. He’d avoided the high school reunion three years prior solely because he knew Lila Hart would be there, the woman he’d blamed for 35 years for ruining his senior prom.
The August sun hung low over the VFW parking lot, gilding the edges of the white party tents and turning the asphalt soft under his work boots. The air reeked of fried catfish, vinegar coleslaw, and cheap beer, cicadas buzzing so loud in the oak trees lining the lot he could barely hear the old Merle Haggard playing over the portable speakers. He was halfway to the food line, holding the chipped ceramic mug he brought every week, when he rounded a folding table stacked with homemade pies and bumped hard into a woman carrying a tin of peach crumble. The tin tilted, syrupy peaches sloshing over the edge, and he caught it one-handed, his palm brushing the soft, warm skin of her wrist where her flannel sleeve had rolled up.
He looked up, and recognition hit him like a jolt of old 120-volt current. It was Lila. Her auburn hair had streaks of silver running through it now, pulled back in a messy braid, a smudge of flour on her left cheek, and when she smiled at him in relief, the crinkles around her hazel eyes were the same as he remembered from senior year art class. “You just saved my best pie,” she said, wiping a bead of sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. “I’m selling these for the county animal rescue, that one was already spoken for by the mayor.”
Rafe’s jaw tightened. He set the tin down on the table carefully, pulling his hand back like he’d touched something hot. “Lila Hart. I’d say it’s nice to see you, but I still haven’t forgotten you ratted me out to my mom back in 1988. I missed prom because of that.”
Lila blinked, then laughed so hard she snort-laughed, covering her mouth with her hand. Rafe stared, thrown off. He’d pictured this interaction a hundred times: her defensive, apologetic, even rude, but not laughing. “Rafe Mendez. Oh my god, you still think that was me?” She shook her head, leaning against the table, her shoulder brushing his because the space between the tables was so tight. “That was Jenny’s little brother. He followed you two to the lake, took a polaroid of you drinking beer, showed it to your mom to get Jenny in trouble for skipping curfew. I even tried to tell your mom it was my beer, for Christ’s sake. She didn’t believe me.”
Rafe felt his face burn. All that resentment, 35 years of avoiding her, rolling his eyes when someone mentioned her animal rescue, skipping the reunion, and he’d been wrong this whole time. He felt stupid, childish, and worse, he couldn’t stop staring at the way the sun was catching the silver in her hair, the way her flannel was unbuttoned just enough to show a thin silver necklace with a tiny dog charm on it. The smell of her perfume, something light and peachy, mixed with the fried catfish smell, and he found he didn’t mind it at all.
“Shit,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m an idiot. I never knew that.”
“Nah, you’re just stubborn,” she said, grinning, and she nudged his arm with her elbow, the callus on her elbow from kneeling to rescue stray dogs rough against his bare forearm. “To make up for you holding a grudge against me for half our lives, I’ll give you a free slice of that pie you saved. C’mon, sit with me. My shift selling pies is over in five minutes anyway.”
He sat. They talked for two hours, the sun dipping below the oak trees, fireflies starting to blink around the edges of the tent. He told her about his wife, about retiring the year prior, about the morel mushroom trails he hiked every spring in the state park 20 minutes out of town. She told him about her divorce 12 years prior, about the 17 cats and 3 dogs she had at her farm, about how she still made wind chimes out of old scrap metal, just like she did in art class. When he got a crumb of pie crust stuck on his chin, she reached over and wiped it off with her thumb, her touch lingering for a beat longer than necessary, their eyes locking, and Rafe didn’t pull away. He felt something warm unfurl in his chest, something he hadn’t felt since his wife was alive, a mix of giddiness and calm that made his ears feel hot.
When the VFW volunteers started folding up the tables around them, she grabbed a paper napkin from the stack next to the soda cooler, scribbled her phone number on it, and drew a tiny lopsided peach next to the digits. “I know all the best morel spots on the north side of the park,” she said, handing it to him, her fingers brushing his again. “If you don’t hold any more grudges against me, you can take me hiking next Saturday. I’ll bring the peach pie.”
Rafe folded the napkin carefully, tucking it into the breast pocket of his flannel shirt, right next to the folded photo of his wife he kept there. He walked to his beat-up 2017 Ford F-150, the napkin crinkling softly under his fingers when he patted his pocket to make sure it was still there. He grinned so wide his cheeks ached, and he didn’t even notice the hushpuppy he’d dropped on the toe of his work boot halfway across the parking lot.
