Arlo Mendez, 62, retired Forest Service hotshot crew lead, slouched low on the splintered pine picnic table, the cold sweat of his IPA can soaking through the knee of his frayed work jeans. He’d told his sister no fewer than seven times he had zero interest in the beer garden’s weekly trivia nights, called the whole “senior social” circuit desperate and sad, only caved when his former crewmate Javi showed up on his porch at 5pm with a six pack and a plea that their team was one person short of qualifying for the $100 grand prize bar tab. The calluses on his knuckles, raised from 38 years of digging fire lines and hauling hose across western Oregon’s blistered wildlands, caught on the table’s rough grain when he reached for his beer.
The sun dipped low over the Cascades, painting the pine tops pink, when the host read the question about the 2002 Biscuit Fire, the blaze Arlo had spent three straight weeks fighting, sleeping in his truck, eating nothing but MREs and gas station coffee until the last spot was cold. The team across the grass, a group of local librarians, yelled out an answer that was three thousand acres off the actual burn size, and Arlo snort-laughed so loud he snort-sneezed beer out his nose.
The woman at the head of the librarian team looked over immediately, one dark eyebrow arched so high it almost vanished under the silver streak slicing through her black, shoulder-length hair. She pushed off the fence post she’d been leaning against, her linen blouse fluttering in the soft evening breeze, and walked straight over to his table. She stood close enough that Arlo caught a whiff of lavender hand lotion mixed with the sparkling citrus seltzer in her plastic cup, her elbow brushing his forearm when she leaned down to tap the crumpled answer sheet in front of him. “You got something to say, fire guy?” she asked, her tone sharp but playful, the corners of her mouth twitching like she was trying not to laugh.
Arlo’s first instinct was to deflect, to make a dumb joke and go back to ignoring everyone around him, the way he’d done most days since his wife Jan died eight years prior. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t let anyone new get close, wouldn’t waste anyone’s time with his gruff moods and his habit of waking up screaming from fire line nightmares, wouldn’t risk the sharp, cold guilt that bit at his chest every time he even thought about going on a date. But then she smiled, fully, crinkles fanning out at the corners of her hazel eyes, and the guilt tangled with something warmer, something he hadn’t felt in so long he’d forgotten what it felt like.
He told her the correct burn size, cited the exact post-fire report he’d helped write, and she rolled her eyes, but she stayed leaning against his table for the rest of the round, their knees brushing every time one of them shifted their weight. When the final scores were read, Arlo’s team won by three points, and she groaned, fished a $10 bill out of her jeans pocket, and walked to the bar to buy him a congratulatory beer as a forfeit.
They migrated to the edge of the beer garden later, away from the crowd, sitting on the curb while a Tom Petty deep cut hummed from the outdoor speakers. She told him her name was Maeve, 58, the new head librarian at the town’s tiny public branch, that she’d moved up from Sacramento six months prior after her ex-husband left her for his spin class instructor. Arlo admitted he was the guy who owed $12 in late fees for a wildfire memoir he’d checked out in March and forgotten to return, that he’d been actively avoiding the library for three months so he wouldn’t have to face the librarian who kept sending him reminder emails. Maeve laughed so hard she snort-laughed too, and said she’d recognized his name the second he yelled about the Biscuit Fire, that she’d put a hold on the new fire ecology book he’d requested two weeks prior, had been wondering when he’d work up the nerve to come pick it up.
When she tripped over a half-buried cooler on their way to the taco truck at the edge of the lot, Arlo reached out automatically, his calloused hand wrapping around her waist to steady her, the soft fabric of her blouse warm under his palm. She held onto his bicep for two full seconds after she was steady, her fingers pressing into the faded hotshot tattoo curling around his arm, before she pulled back, her cheeks pink under the string lights.
Arlo’s chest tightened, the old guilt rearing up, telling him he was being disrespectful to Jan, that he was too broken to be good for anyone, that he should say goodnight and drive home to his empty cabin and his half-finished woodpile. But then Maeve looked up at him, her hazel eyes soft in the dusk, and said she was off work tomorrow at 2, if he wanted to bring the late fee and let her buy him a taco after he picked up his book.
He hesitated for half a second, then nodded.
She left a few minutes later, waving over her shoulder as she climbed into her beat-up Subaru, leaving Arlo’s old hotshot jacket draped over the curb where she’d been sitting—he’d handed it to her an hour prior when she’d shivered and said the evening air was colder than she’d expected. He picked it up, pressed the collar to his nose for half a second, caught the faint scent of lavender and citrus seltzer clinging to the canvas. He pulled his beat-up flip phone out of his pocket, fumbled with the keypad for a minute, and set a reminder for 1:45pm the next day, note scrawled in all caps: BRING LATE FEE. DON’T BE AN IDIOT.
