Rudy Galvan, 61, retired municipal arborist for the city of Cleveland, had gone to the weekly VFW fish fry every Friday for the 11 months he’d lived outside Asheville. He knew the routine by heart: grab a plastic tray, load up on cornmeal-crusted catfish, vinegar coleslaw, two hushpuppies, skip the potato salad that always tasted too much like mayonnaise, pay the 12 dollar cover to the kid with the army cap behind the register, and sit at the same corner table by the window to eat alone before heading home to mess with his half-restored 1972 F-150. He’d spent the 8 years since his wife left for a Parma realtor deliberately keeping people at arm’s length, convinced his calloused palms, permanent chainsaw nick scar across his left bicep, and habit of forgetting to reply to texts made him unfit for anything more than passing pleasantries.
That’s why he froze when he got to the dessert table and saw Clara behind it. She was his next door neighbor, the woman who ran the small honey farm three acres down the road, the one he’d only waved at from across the property line for three months straight, the one he’d caught himself staring at when she hauled 50 pound beehive boxes around her yard in cutoff shorts and work boots in 90 degree heat last July. She wore a faded red flannel over a yellow sundress, smudges of flour on her left wrist, honey jar stickers plastered all over her canvas apron. Her hair was pulled back in a messy braid, a stray curl stuck to her sweat-glistened forehead. “Peach cobbler? I baked it this morning,” she said, and her voice was warmer than the iced tea he’d grabbed earlier, a little rough like she spent too much time yelling over the wind in her orchard.
He nodded, unable to think of anything to say. When she reached across the table to hand him the paper plate with the cobbler slice, their fingers brushed. He felt the raised calluses on the pads of her fingers, matching his own from decades of hauling tree limbs and holding chainsaw handles, and a jolt went up his arm he hadn’t felt since he was 19 and snuck into a bar with a fake ID. He mumbled a thank you, fumbled for his wallet, and she waved him off. “On the house. Saw you haul that fallen oak out of your front yard yesterday. Looked like you could use a sweet treat.” He walked back to his table, his face hot, and ate the cobbler so fast he barely tasted it, except for the faint hint of wild honey mixed into the crust. He kept glancing over at her, and twice she caught him, raised an eyebrow, and smiled.
He was torn. Half of him wanted to march back over there, ask her if she wanted to sit, buy her a soda, ask her about her bees. The other half recoiled at the thought: this town was too small, everyone gossiped, neighbors didn’t date, what if it went wrong and he had to see her every single day for the rest of the time he lived here? What if she thought he was just some gruff old guy who spent too much time alone with his truck? He’d almost talked himself into bussing his tray and leaving early when she walked over to his table, holding two cans of root beer, and pulled out the chair across from him without asking.
She sat down, and her knee brushed his under the table. She smelled like lavender and beeswax and the faint, sweet tang of ripe peaches. “I left a jar of wildflower honey on your porch two weeks ago,” she said, popping the top on one of the root beers and sliding it across the table to him. “You never said anything.” He winced, scratched the back of his neck. “Forgot. I’m bad at… reaching out. Haven’t had much reason to the last few years.” She laughed, a low, throaty sound, and held up her left hand to show him a thick, silvery scar across her palm from a bee sting that got infected last spring. “I get it. I spent three years after my ex left avoiding everyone except my bees. Was convinced no one would get why I’d rather spend 12 hours a day in a bee suit than go to a town potluck.”
They talked for an hour, about the oak tree that fell in his yard, about the new batch of peach mead she was fermenting in her basement, about how Cleveland winters were way worse than anything the North Carolina mountains could throw at them. When he passed her a napkin to wipe a smudge of cobbler filling off her chin, their hands touched again, and this time he didn’t pull away. The VFW emptied out around them, the kid at the register flipped the open sign to closed, and a light rain started tapping against the window.
He offered to walk her to her truck, held the door open for her, draped his old waterproof work flannel over her shoulders when she shivered in the rain. When they got to her beat up Toyota Tacoma, she leaned against the door, took his hand, and laced their scarred, calloused fingers together. “Wanna come over tomorrow? Help me hang three new beehive boxes. I’ll feed you leftover cobbler and let you taste the mead.” He nodded, before he could overthink it. She leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, her lips warm against his cold, rain-damp skin, before she climbed into her truck and waved as she pulled out of the parking lot.
He walked back to his F-150, the jar of wildflower honey she’d pressed into his hand before she left heavy and warm in his jacket pocket. He climbed into the driver’s seat, turned the key, and grinned so wide his cheeks ached for the first time in 8 years.
