Roland Voss, 62, retired forensic document examiner, picked at a crumb of fried walleye on his paper plate and ignored the buzz of small-town chatter around him. He’d moved to Grand Traverse County eight months prior, escaping 37 years of FBI office politics and an ex-wife who’d left him after he’d spent three days verifying the signature on her anniversary card wasn’t a forgery. His whole career had been built on spotting lies, rooting out fakes, following every rule to the letter, and retirement hadn’t shaken that habit yet. He still kept a 10x magnifier in his front jeans pocket, still squinted at every handwritten sign in the general store for telltale pen pressure inconsistencies, still avoided crowds because too many overlapping stories made his skin itch. The Fourth of July fish fry was the first community event he’d bothered to show up to, and only because the volunteer manning the fryer was a former commercial fisherman who made the best walleye north of Cadillac.
He’d just taken a sip of cold amber ale when the bench next to him dipped under someone’s weight. He looked over, surprised, and found Clara Hale sitting six inches away, so close he could smell lavender hand lotion and lemon polish mixed with the faint, sweet tang of the cherry slushie she held in one hand. She was married to the county sheriff, Tom Hale, who was currently across the parking lot slapping backs and shaking hands with voters ahead of his re-election campaign, the very model of a small-town golden boy. She’d brought him a loaf of sourdough the week he moved in, had lingered on his porch long enough to notice the half-restored 1978 Grady White parked in his driveway, had asked him a dozen questions about engine parts that no one else in town had bothered to ask. He’d thought about that conversation at least three times a week since.
Her knee brushed his under the table, denim on khaki, and he didn’t move away. She laughed when he told her he’d spotted a fake 2023 fishing license taped to the back of a bait shop cooler two days prior, leaned in so close the ends of her wavy auburn hair brushed his forearm. “You never turn that brain off, do you?” she said, and there was a heat in her voice that wasn’t there the last time they talked. She held up her left hand, showed him the smudge of indigo ink on her thumb from pricing used books at the shop she ran downtown. “I found something you might like, yesterday. A 1976 Grady White owner’s manual, in a box of donations. All the original diagrams, no water damage.”
Roland’s throat went dry. He knew he should shift away, should make some polite comment about how her husband was probably looking for her, should remember all the rules he’d spent his whole life abiding by. Married women, especially the wives of local law enforcement running for office, were off limits, full stop. He’d spent his career cleaning up messes people made when they let desire override good sense, and he had no interest in making one of his own. But then she reached across him to grab a napkin off the end of the table, her chest brushing his shoulder for half a second, and he felt a jolt he hadn’t felt since he was in his 30s, sharp and warm and impossible to ignore.
The first firework went off over the lake then, a burst of electric blue that painted the whole parking lot neon for a split second, and the crowd around them stood up all at once, pressing in tight. A kid with a glow stick darted between their legs, and Clara stumbled, grabbing his bicep to steady herself. Her hand was warm, her fingers curling into the muscle of his arm through his thin cotton t-shirt, and she didn’t let go even when she got her balance. She leaned up, her mouth right next to his ear so he could hear her over the roar of the crowd and the crack of the next firework. “Tom’s driving to Traverse City tomorrow for a campaign luncheon, he’ll be gone till 7. I can bring that manual over around 2. If you want.”
Roland hesitated for half a second, thought about the mess this could make, thought about the gossip that would spread through town faster than wildfire if anyone found out, thought about how he’d spent eight months eating frozen dinners alone and working on his boat and wondering if he’d ever feel anything other than bored for the rest of his life. He looked down at her, at the flecks of gold in her hazel eyes lit up by the red firework bursting over the lake, at the faint smile playing on her lips, and nodded. “I’ll have a cooler of that same amber ale on the porch,” he said, quiet enough only she could hear.
She squeezed his bicep once, let go, and stepped back into the crowd, walking toward her husband who was waving her over to stand next to him for a photo with a group of local farmers. She glanced over her shoulder halfway there, caught his eye, and winked, the indigo smudge on her thumb visible even from 20 feet away when she lifted her hand to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Roland took another sip of his beer, watched the next burst of gold fireworks paint the sky, and didn’t even reach for the magnifier in his pocket when a guy walked past holding a handwritten campaign sign for Tom Hale.
