Rafe Mendez, 62, spent 31 years as a wildlife biologist tracking black bear populations in the Smoky Mountains before he retired two years prior, and his biggest flaw was a stubborn refusal to deviate from the routine he’d built after his wife Elaine died seven years back. He only showed up to the county fire department’s annual cookout because his 82-year-old next door neighbor had taped a flyer to his screen door at 7 a.m. that morning, her scrawled note in the margin saying “you’ve got to get out of that cabin sometime, Rafe” that made him feel too guilty to skip. He showed up in his faded olive park service jacket, the one with a frayed bear claw tear on the left sleeve from a sow that’d charged him in 2019 when he stumbled too close to her cubs, and made a beeline for the beer cooler the second he walked through the gate, avoiding eye contact with every neighbor who waved or called his name.
The cooler was stacked with cheap lagers and a handful of the hazy IPAs he only allowed himself to buy once a month, and he reached for one right as another hand closed around the same can. The skin of her knuckles brushed his, calloused and slightly warm, and he pulled his hand back fast like he’d touched a hot grill. She was 58, he’d guess, silver streaks woven through the dark hair pulled back in a loose braid, silver hoops catching the golden hour sun as she laughed and held the can out to him. “Sorry, saw the label and got excited. They don’t stock this at the grocery store in town,” she said, and he noticed she smelled like pine soap and the peach iced tea everyone was serving out of big plastic dispensers by the grill. She told him she was Clara, the new county librarian, had moved to the area three months prior after her youngest daughter graduated college and moved to Portland.
Rafe didn’t talk to strangers, not usually, but he found himself leaning against the cooler next to her instead of grabbing his beer and bailing like he’d planned. He told her the story behind the tear in his jacket, and she didn’t do that thing most people did where they gasped and said how scary that must have been, she just snickered and asked if he’d at least had the sense to run fast enough. The noise from the grill and the kids bouncing on the inflatable obstacle course got louder every few minutes, so she kept leaning in closer to hear him, her shoulder pressing into his bicep every time someone yelled behind her. He kept fighting the stupid, fluttery urge to tuck the stray strand of hair that kept falling in her face behind her ear, disgusted with himself for acting like a 16 year old at his first high school dance, but he couldn’t make himself step away either. He’d spent seven years only talking to his hound dog and the guy at the feed store, and no one had asked him a single question about his work that wasn’t “did you ever see a bear attack someone?” in longer than he could remember.
When the fire department started calling numbers for the 50/50 raffle, the whole crowd surged forward, and a kid running by with a ketchup-covered hot dog darted between them, so Clara stepped right up against him to get out of the way, her hand resting on his forearm for a full ten seconds while she laughed at the kid’s mom yelling after him. He could feel the heat of her palm through the thin fabric of his jacket, and for a second he forgot how to breathe. She tilted her head up to look at him, her eyes crinkling at the corners, and said “you wanna skip all this? I heard the diner on Main Street has peach pie that’s supposed to be life changing, and I don’t feel like standing around while everyone fights over a $400 raffle prize.”
Rafe didn’t even hesitate before he said yes. He grabbed two of the IPAs from the cooler, tucked them in his jacket pocket, and followed her through the gate to the dirt parking lot where his beat up 2008 Ford F150 was parked. He opened the passenger door for her, and she snickered when she saw the dog hair covering the seat and the half empty bag of jerky on the floorboard. He brushed as much hair off as he could with his hand, feeling his face heat up, and she waved him off and sat down without complaining. He got in the driver’s seat, turned the key, and the old Johnny Cash CD he’d had in the player for three years kicked on right at the start of Folsom Prison Blues. He glanced over at her, and she was already tapping her boot against the dash, grinning like she’d been riding in his truck for years.
