Ron Voss, 62, retired lineman for Ohio’s Paulding County electric co-op, leaned against the dented chrome bumper of his freshly restored 1972 F-100 and twisted the tab off a sweating can of Pabst Blue Ribbon. It was the annual small town block party on Main Street, and he’d dragged the truck down to show it off, mostly to avoid the group of ladies from his Methodist church who’d been badgering him for three months to go on a blind date with one of their widowed cousins. His biggest flaw, if you asked his younger sister, was that he’d shut himself off entirely from anything resembling romance after his ex-wife cleaned out their joint savings and ran off with a traveling roofing salesman 12 years prior. He’d spent the decade since fixing up vintage pickups in his pole barn garage, selling them at regional swap meets, and spending most weekends eating fried catfish at the VFW, convinced every woman over 50 within a 30 mile radius was either desperate for a caretaker or after whatever cash he had stashed away.
The crowd was loud, kids screaming as they chased each other with water guns, the nearby grill spitting fat onto hot coals, a Johnny Cash deep cut blaring from a portable speaker someone had propped on a picnic table. He was half watching the cornhole tournament when a woman he didn’t recognize stepped around the tailgate of his truck, holding a paper plate heaped with pulled pork that dripped sauce onto the cuff of her pale blue linen shirt. “Sorry to bother you,” she said, nodding at the stack of napkins he’d tossed next to his tool bag on the truck bed. “Saw these from across the street, and I’m one wrong move away from ruining this shirt entirely.”
She was mid-50s, he guessed, dark hair streaked with gray pulled back in a loose braid, white Converse caked with mud from the grassy side of the street. He recognized her as the new librarian the whole town had been gossiping about for the past month: Marnie Carter, who’d moved from Chicago after leaving a wealthy surgeon husband, the rumor mill churning that she’d left him high and dry to chase small town fun and a new sugar daddy. He handed her a napkin, his calloused work fingers brushing her softer, ink-stained ones, and he tried not to flinch at the small jolt that ran up his arm.
They started talking, first about the terrible barbecue the local fire department was serving, then about the truck. She pointed out a tiny patch of rust on the inner wheel well he’d sworn he’d hidden with spray paint, said her dad had taught her to rebuild carburetors when she was 14, that she’d been looking for a solid old pickup to haul boxes of library books to the senior center every week. He was skeptical at first, sharp with her, half convinced she was putting on an act to get him to knock a few grand off the price he’d listed for the F-100. She didn’t back down, though, leaning in closer to point out a frayed belt under the hood he’d been meaning to replace, her shoulder pressing against his bicep for three full seconds, the scent of lavender perfume mixing with the smoke from the grill curling in his nose. She held eye contact when she talked, no shy darting away, no fake laughs at his dumb jokes, and he felt that old, unfamiliar twist in his chest he’d thought had died 12 years prior.
His brain was screaming at him to walk away, to make up an excuse about needing to feed his old hound dog back home, to not fall for whatever game he was convinced she was playing. But he couldn’t shut up, telling her stories about climbing power lines in the middle of ice storms, about the time he’d dropped a wrench on his foot and had to drive himself to the ER with a broken toe. She teased him about his faded VFW hat with the frayed brim, he teased her for wearing a linen shirt to a party where half the attendees were covered in beer and barbecue sauce.
When the sun started to dip low, painting the sky pink and orange, she wiped the last of the sauce off her shirt and nodded at the truck. “You wanna take this thing for a spin? I haven’t ridden in an old Ford since I was a kid, and I’d love to see how she runs before I make you an offer.” He almost said no, almost blurted out some dumb lie about the truck needing a new oil change, but then she handed him a slice of peach pie she’d grabbed from the dessert table, their fingers brushing again when he took the paper plate, and he found himself nodding.
They drove 10 minutes out of town to the old overlook above the Maumee River, windows rolled all the way down, the radio playing a Tom Petty deep cut he hadn’t heard in years. The breeze off the water was cool, carrying the smell of pine and wild clover, and when they parked, she told him the real story about leaving her husband: he’d cheated on her with his 26 year old surgical nurse, had tried to pay her off to stay quiet and keep up appearances for their country club friends, so she’d packed two suitcases, taken half his vintage guitar collection, and moved to the first small town she found on a map. She told him she’d heard the rumors around town, that everyone thought she was a gold digger, that she didn’t care what people thought as long as the kids at the library liked the new story times she was running.
He told her about his ex-wife, about the way he’d come home from a 16 hour shift fixing downed power lines after a tornado to find an empty house and a note on the kitchen counter. He told her he hadn’t let anyone sit in his passenger seat in 12 years, hadn’t even had a conversation with a woman that didn’t revolve around truck parts or church potlucks in longer than he could remember. She reached over, rested her hand on his thigh for a quick, gentle beat, no pressure, no expectation, before pulling it back to rest on the dashboard. “I don’t want anything from you,” she said, quiet, like she could hear the noise in his head. “Just a fair price on the truck, maybe someone to show me where the best catfish spots are around here. That’s it.”
They drove back into town as the streetlights flickered on, the crowd at the block party thinning out, most people packing up coolers and herding tired kids into minivans. He pulled up to the curb in front of the small cottage she was renting down the street from the library, grabbed a crumpled old work order from his glove box, and scrawled his cell number on the back of it. “Call me whenever you want to test drive it again,” he said, handing it to her. “Or if you wanna get a beer at the VFW, or go fishing. Whatever.”
She tucked the paper into the pocket of her high waisted jeans, grinned, and leaned in to press a quick, soft kiss to his cheek, her rose colored lipstick leaving a faint pink mark right next to his gray sideburn. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” she said, stepping out of the truck and closing the door behind her.
He sat there for 10 minutes after she walked up her porch steps, holding the empty paper pie plate in his lap, and didn’t even roll his eyes when the group of church ladies walked past his truck and gave him a knowing, triumphant wave.
