Ron Jablonski, 58, retired county lineman, had avoided Ashland’s annual summer street fair three years running. He hated the crowds, the overpriced kettle corn, the way half the town would corner him to ask if he’d finally “put himself back out there” after his wife Diane died six years prior. His only excuse to show up this year was his mom’s request for a jar of the homemade peach jam the 4H booth sold every year, so he’d shoved his hands in the pockets of his faded work flannel, laced up his steel-toe boots, and drove the 12 miles into town before the sun hit its peak.
He’d grabbed the jam, was halfway to his truck, when the smell of smoked pork and chili powder pulled him off course to the cookoff booth at the end of the block. He reached for a small sample cup at the exact same time another hand did, his calloused, scar-streaked left forearm knocking against a softer, warmer one lined with faint freckles. He pulled back fast, mumbled an apology, then froze when he recognized the woman attached to that hand.
Marnie Carter, 54, the new part-time librarian who’d moved to town three months prior, was grinning up at him, a smudge of bright red chili powder dusting her left cheek. She’d helped him check out a dog-eared copy of Vintage Chainsaw Restoration the week before, and he’d been so awkward, so determined not to make small talk with the pretty woman who smelled like lavender and old paper, that he’d practically ran out of the building once he had the book in hand. Now she was tilting her chin up to meet his eye, her hazel irises crinkling at the corners, and he could hear the sound of the bluegrass band two booths over blending with the crackle of the cookoff’s propane burners.
“Fancy seeing you here,” she said, picking up the sample cup they’d both reached for and holding it out to him. “I owe you one, you held the door for me when I was carrying a box of picture books into the library last Tuesday. This is payment.”
He took the cup, his fingers brushing hers for half a second, and felt his face heat up like he was a 16 year old kid talking to his first crush. He hated that feeling, the sharp twist of want in his chest tangled up with the old, familiar guilt that came with even thinking about being interested in someone who wasn’t Diane. For six years he’d shut that part of himself down, told himself he was too old for that nonsense, that dating at his age was for people who didn’t have a good enough life already. But Marnie was already grabbing a second sample cup for herself, leaning against the booth’s wooden rail close enough that her shoulder brushed his bicep, and he couldn’t make himself step away.
They sampled four different chilis side by side, him making a dumb crack about how the fire department’s entry was so spicy it could melt the rubber insulators he used to install on high tension lines, and she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, snorting again when she realized she’d done it, covering her mouth with her hand. She told him she’d seen the chainsaw book he checked out, that her dad had left her 17 vintage saws when he died last year, all stacked in her garage, and she had no clue how to get any of them running. He wanted to offer to help immediately, but the voice in the back of his head was yelling that he was being disrespectful, that he should go home, that this was going to end in mess.
He didn’t leave. He followed her over to the craft beer tent when she asked, sat across from her at a wobbly picnic table, and didn’t move his leg when her knee brushed his under the table the first time, or the third, or the tenth. She told him she’d moved to Ashland to get away from her stressful corporate job in Portland, that she’d been working part time at the library and picking up shifts at the animal shelter on weekends, that she’d been trying to work up the nerve to ask him out since he’d come in for the chainsaw book, but she thought he hated her because he’d been so quiet that day.
He told her about Diane, about the 32 years they’d been married, about how he hadn’t so much as had a coffee with another woman since she died, how he’d convinced himself he was better off alone. She didn’t push, didn’t give him that pitying look most people gave him when he mentioned his wife. She just leaned forward, her hand resting lightly on the scar that ran down his left forearm, the one he’d gotten when he repaired a downed power line during the 2017 winter storm, and her palm was warm through the thin fabric of his flannel sleeve. “You don’t have to be alone if you don’t want to be,” she said, soft enough that only he could hear it over the noise of the crowd.
That was the kicker, the thing that made the guilt untangle from the want long enough for him to breathe easy. He told her he could come over to her place Saturday, bring that hazy IPA they were drinking, take a look at her dad’s saws. She grinned, pulled a crumpled napkin out of her purse, scribbled her address on it, and tucked it into the breast pocket of his flannel, her fingers brushing his chest through the fabric for a split second.
She said her friend was waving her over from the jam booth, stood up, and gave him a small wave over her shoulder before she turned and walked into the crowd. He sat there for another 10 minutes, sipping his beer, the napkin crinkling in his pocket every time he shifted his weight. When he finally stood up to head to his truck, he brushed his fingers over the pocket where her address was, the faint smell of lavender still clinging to the spot where her hand had rested on his arm.
