Rafe Mendez is 58, spent 32 years as a lineman for the rural electric co-op outside Dayton, retired two years back after a fall left him with a faint limp and a deep distaste for being fussed over. His biggest flaw, as his only remaining close friend keeps telling him, is that he’d rather spend three nights alone fixing a broken lawnmower than spend an hour at any community event where people might ask him how he’s “holding up” three years after his wife’s cancer diagnosis took her. He only showed up to the fire department chili cookoff because his old crew partner showed up on his porch with a six pack of his favorite beer and threatened to drag him by his work boot laces if he said no.
The gymnasium of the small town elementary school reeks of cumin, burnt hot dog buns, and the faint chemical tang of the floor wax they use twice a year. He’s been hovering by the rolling beer cooler for 20 minutes, picking at a bowl of chili so spicy it makes his eyes water, when someone reaches past his left side for a root beer. Her flannel sleeve brushes the hair off his forearm, soft from being washed a hundred times, and she smells like pine sap and lemon Pledge, the same scent his grandma used to use on her kitchen cabinets. He glances down, recognizes her immediately: Elara Voss, 49, who bought the old abandoned apple farm at the edge of town six months prior, who also happens to be the ex-wife of the town’s new, universally beloved fire chief. Everyone in town has been whispering about her since she moved in, saying she left the chief for a younger guy, that she’s trouble, that no one should get too close. Rafe has avoided her on purpose up until now, not wanting to get wrapped up in small town drama he has zero patience for.
She turns to him, holds eye contact for two full beats longer than casual politeness dictates, a half-smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. “That’s the third hottest bowl in the room, for the record. I made it.” She nods at the chili in his hand, and he huffs a laugh, swipes at the sweat beading at his hairline. “Could’ve fooled me. Thought it was industrial grade paint stripper. Tastes pretty good, though.” Her laugh is low, warm, no high pitched fake lilt to it, and she leans in a little when he tells her he retired from the co-op, her shoulder brushing his bicep as she asks if he ever climbed the 120 foot tower out by the apple orchard.
He finds himself sitting down next to her at a rickety picnic table ten minutes later. He shifts his weight under the table, the faint scar on his left knee from his 2021 fall pulling a little, and their knees brush again, neither of them pulling away. She tells him she left the chief after 18 years of marriage because he cared more about being the town’s hero than he ever cared about asking her how her day was, how she’d spent five years planning to buy the apple farm and he’d never once asked to see the blueprints for the cider press she wants to install. Rafe finds himself telling her about his wife, about how she used to make chili so bland he’d have to sneak hot sauce into it when she wasn’t looking, about how he hasn’t bothered making it since she passed.
He knows he’s crossing a line, that half the people in the room are already glancing over at them, that if the chief sees them talking he’ll probably have something to say about it. The old part of him, the part that’s spent the last three years hiding out on his 10 acre property avoiding everyone, screams that he should leave now, cut this off before it turns into something that makes his life more complicated. But every time she tilts her head to listen to him talk, every time her hand brushes his when they both reach for a napkin at the same time, that voice gets quieter and quieter.
He makes an excuse to leave an hour later, says he forgot he left the garage door open, and he’s halfway to his beat up 2008 F-150 when he hears her footsteps behind him. She’s holding a tupperware of the milder chili she made for the kids, holds it out to him, and when he takes it their fingers brush for longer than necessary. “I didn’t want to make a scene inside,” she says, leaning against the side of his truck, close enough that he can feel the heat coming off her, can see the faint flecks of gold in her dark brown eyes. She lifts her thumb, brushes a smudge of chili off the edge of his jaw, and her hand lingers there for a second, her skin warm against his stubble.
He doesn’t overthink it, doesn’t spend ten minutes talking himself out of it like he normally would. “There’s an overlook up past the orchard,” he says, nodding toward the dirt road that leads out of town. “You can see the sunset over the valley from it. Wanna come?” She grins, nods, and he opens the passenger door for her, the old leather seat creaking when she sits down. He climbs into the driver’s side, turns the key, and the radio kicks on a George Strait song he hasn’t heard since his first date with his late wife, the one they used to dance to in the kitchen after dinner when the kids were asleep. He doesn’t reach for the dial to change it.
