Moe Hafner, 62, spent four years after his wife’s lung cancer diagnosis and eventual death treating casual human interaction like a splinter: avoid it if you can, yank it out fast if you can’t. A retired high school woodshop teacher from outside Asheville, he still spent every Saturday at the downtown farmers market selling custom end-grain cutting boards, his flannel sleeves perpetually dusted with walnut shavings, his fingernails caked with Titebond III glue he never bothered to scrub all the way off. He kept his booth sparse, no frills, didn’t bother with small talk with regulars, just took their cash, handed over their order, and went back to sanding scrap pieces between sales.
That October Saturday was crisp enough to turn the tips of his ears pink, the air thick with the smell of fried apple pies and pine from the wreath seller two booths down. He’d just propped a new batch of spalted maple boards against the back of his tent when the woman running the jam booth next to him leaned over, her shoulder brushing his bicep hard enough that he fumbled the sandpaper he was holding. She smelled like vanilla extract and burnt sugar, her auburn hair pulled back in a loose braid that had fallen half out, a smudge of bright orange peach jam streaked across her left cheek. “Sorry about that,” she said, grinning, her hazel eyes crinkling at the corners so deep you could tell she smiled more than she frowned. “Kid just tried to run off with a jar of my blackberry preserves, had to dive to catch it. You got an extra paper towel? I spilled a little on my wrist.”
Moe’s first instinct was to grumble that he didn’t run a convenience store, but he reached into his cooler and handed her a roll anyway. He’d seen her around the market for three weeks now, hadn’t bothered to learn her name, had actively avoided making eye contact before. He told himself it was because he didn’t have time for chit chat, not because the way she laughed when customers teased her about the heat of her habanero jam made his chest feel tight in a way he hadn’t felt since he was 17 and asking his first girlfriend to prom. He hated that feeling, hated that he was even noticing it, felt like he was betraying the 38 years he’d had with his wife.
She leaned back over ten minutes later, tapping the edge of his largest walnut board, which he’d flipped the price tag on by accident. “You’re losing money over here,” she said. “Three people asked how much that was in the last hour, couldn’t see the tag. I told ‘em it was 85, that sound right?” Moe nodded, flipped the tag over, and sold two of the large boards in the next 20 minutes. He owed her. He grabbed a small cherry cutting board he’d made as a practice piece, held it out to her. “For the heads up,” he said, avoiding her eyes.
She shook her head, pushed the board back toward him. “I don’t take handouts. But I will take a sip of that apple cider I see you’ve got in your thermos. Mine froze in my cooler an hour ago.” He poured her a cup, their fingers brushing when he handed it to her, the contact warm and sharp, like static electricity. He pulled his hand back fast, like he’d touched a hot planer. She didn’t comment, just took a sip, sighed, and said her name was Clara, she was the new part-time librarian at the West Asheville branch, she’d moved to town three months prior after her ex-husband moved across the country to be with his new girlfriend. She mentioned she had an oak bookshelf that had fallen apart the week prior, the previous owner had half-assed the joinery, she didn’t know how to use a planer to fix the warped shelf slats.
Moe hesitated for a full ten seconds, the voice in his head screaming that this was a bad idea, that he was too old for this, that he should just go home and watch old football games alone like he did every Saturday night. But he found himself saying he could stop by after the market, no charge, just bring him a jar of that peach habanero jam as payment.
Her cottage was tucked in the woods off a dirt road, small and cozy, a wood stove crackling in the corner when he walked in, Billie Holiday playing low on a vintage record player. He fixed the bookshelf in 45 minutes, tightening the joinery, planing the warped slats until they slid into place smooth as butter. She made him meatloaf for dinner, the glaze tangy and sweet, the mashed potatoes lumpy just how he liked them. They sat across from each other at her small kitchen table, her knee brushing his under the table halfway through the meal, and she didn’t move it. He noticed the faint orange smudge of jam was still on her cheek, leftover from the market, and he reached across the table without thinking, wiping it off with the pad of his thumb.
She didn’t flinch, didn’t pull back, just held his gaze, the corner of her mouth tugging up in a small smile. “Took you long enough to notice that,” she said. He didn’t say anything, just sat there, his thumb still hovering an inch from her cheek, the guilt he’d carried around for four years feeling lighter than it had in months. She told him she’d lost her first husband to a heart attack three years prior, that she’d moved to Asheville to get away from the house they’d shared, that she’d been terrified to talk to any man at the market because she was convinced she’d forgotten how to flirt.
He stayed for a second glass of cheap red wine, talking about the time a student had glued his hand to a table saw in woodshop, about the way his wife used to leave sticky notes with bad jokes on his lunch pail every day. She told him about the little kid who came to the library every Wednesday to check out every dinosaur book they had, about how she used to make jam with her grandma when she was a kid.
When he left, she walked him to the door, pressed a jar of peach habanero jam into his hand, and gave him a quick, soft kiss on the corner of his mouth, her lips warm against his cold skin. He got in his old Ford F-150, set the jam on the passenger seat, and saw she’d slipped a scrap of notebook paper under the lid, her cell number scrawled across it in purple sparkly pen. He turned the key, the truck rumbling to life, and reached over to tuck the paper in the pocket of his flannel shirt, his fingers brushing the edge of the jam jar again as he did.
