Earl Mendez is 62, a retired air traffic controller from Fort Worth who moved out to the Hill Country three years after his wife Diane passed, stubborn as a mesquite root, who had not so much as asked a woman out for coffee in eight years, convinced any romantic entanglement at his age was either desperate or disrespectful to Diane’s memory. He’d dragged his 12-quart crockpot of brisket chili out to the annual Lions Club cookoff at 7 that morning, had already turned down three offers to join a cornhole tournament, and was wiping a bead of sweat off his brow with the back of his flannel sleeve when he smelled it: vanilla cedar perfume, the same one he’d only smelled once before, at Diane’s family reunion in 2010.
He looked up. Lena Carter was 58, Diane’s first cousin, the county’s new agricultural extension agent, leaning in so close to his crockpot her shoulder brushed his bare bicep, the heat of her skin searing through the thin layer of sweat there. She held eye contact for three full beats before she smiled, the same gap between her two front teeth he’d stared at for way too long that day 13 years prior, when Diane had dragged him over to introduce them at the lake house. “I’d know that cumin and coffee rub scent anywhere,” she said, picking up a plastic sample spoon from the stack next to his crockpot, her fingers brushing his when she reached for it. He fumbled the stack of napkins he was holding, half of them falling into the dust at his boots.
He wanted to step back, tell himself this was wrong, that Diane would roll her eyes so hard she’d get a headache if she saw him flustered over her cousin, but he couldn’t move. The air around them hummed with the noise of the cookoff: a guy yelling about his prize-winning hot dog chili, a George Strait track playing low over the tinny speakers, a group of kids chasing a golden retriever through the picnic tables, but all he could hear was his own pulse thudding in his ears. She took a bite of the chili, closed her eyes for half a second, hummed low in her throat, and he felt his face heat up like he was 16 again, talking to a girl for the first time at a drive-in movie.
He’d spent the last eight years building walls thick enough to keep out anyone who might make him feel like this, had told himself he was fine, that his old truck, his fishing boat, his weekly poker games with the guys from the VFW were enough, but every wall crumbles a little when someone remembers the small stuff. She asked him how the 1972 F-150 he’d been restoring was coming, said Diane had complained for years that he spent more time under the hood of that truck than he did at the dinner table. He stared at her, shocked she’d remember that, and before he knew it he was talking for 40 minutes straight, about the new carburetor he’d put in last month, about the way the Hill Country sunsets looked better than anything he’d ever seen in Fort Worth, about how much he still missed Diane, even after all this time. She didn’t rush him, didn’t look away, stood so close their knees brushed every time one of them shifted their weight, her hand brushing his forearm twice when she laughed at his dumb joke about the time he’d burned the Thanksgiving turkey so bad the smoke alarm went off for three hours.
When they announced the chili winners, he got second place, a cheap blue ribbon and a $25 gift card to the local feed store. She leaned in to give him a hug when they handed him the ribbon, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, her breath warm against the side of his neck, and he didn’t pull away, didn’t overthink it, just rested his hand lightly on her back for a second, the fabric of her linen blouse soft under his calloused fingers. “I would’ve given you first place,” she whispered, so quiet only he could hear, when she pulled back, “Your chili’s still the best I’ve ever tasted.”
He didn’t hesitate this time, didn’t talk himself out of it, asked her if she wanted to get a beer after the cookoff wrapped up, somewhere away from the crowd, away from the family connections that made his chest tight with a weird mix of guilt and want. She paused for a second, her eyes flicking to the worn wedding band he still wore on his left hand, then nodded, pulled the crumpled chili entry slip out of his hand, scribbled her number on the back of it, tucked it into the pocket of his flannel shirt, patted his chest twice before she turned to walk back to the judge’s table to announce the pie contest winners.
He stood there for a minute, twisting the second place ribbon between his fingers, the paper with her number crinkling against his chest through his shirt pocket, the faint scent of her vanilla cedar perfume still clinging to the collar of his flannel. He looked over at her, saw her laugh at something the old guy who’d won first place said, and she glanced up, caught him staring, winked. He pulled his beat-up iPhone out of his jeans pocket, thumb hovering over the new text thread he was about to start, already knowing he’d ask her if she liked brisket tacos from the food truck off Main Street, that he’d take her out to the overlook off Highway 290, where they could sit in the bed of his truck and watch the sun dip pink over the oak trees.
