Rafe Mendez, 58, retired air traffic controller, only showed up to the beer garden chili cookoff because his hiking buddy Dale left three voicemails threatening to hide all the vintage CB radio parts he’d ordered online if he bailed again. Seven years out from his wife Karen’s sudden stroke, he’d perfected the art of holing up in his cabin on the mountain, only leaving for grocery runs and solo hikes, convinced any casual joy that didn’t involve soldering wires or listening to old Waylon Jennings records was a betrayal of the 34 years they’d had together. He leaned against a splintered wooden post, sipping a pale ale that tasted too citrusy for his taste, and watched a group of local retirees argue over whose chili had the best heat, the bluegrass band’s fiddle thrumming so loud it vibrated in his molars.
He’d just taken a bite of a chili entry that was so spicy his eyes watered, fumbling for a napkin in his jeans pocket, when his elbow knocked into someone’s shoulder. He turned to apologize, and came face to face with Lena Marlow, his next door neighbor of three months, the woman whose ex-husband had been the town’s Baptist pastor until their divorce was finalized two weeks prior. Half the town was still side-eyeing her for leaving him, whispering that she’d thrown away a perfect life for no reason, even though everyone with half a brain knew he’d been cheating on her with the church secretary for two years. She was holding a paper plate of cornbread, grinning at his streaming eyes, and held out a wet wipe from her jacket pocket. Their fingers brushed when he took it, and he caught the smell of lavender hand cream mixed with campfire smoke, soft enough that it didn’t compete with the chili and smoked pork hanging thick in the air.
He mumbled a thank you, wiping at his face, fully intending to nod and walk away to hide in the corner again, but she leaned in closer to be heard over the band, her shoulder pressing lightly into his bicep as someone squeezed past them. “I heard that entry was made by a guy who grows his own habaneros in a greenhouse. Tried it earlier, I thought my tongue was gonna fall off,” she said, her voice low and warm, no trace of the awkward standoffishness most people in town had treated her with lately. He found himself leaning in too, instead of stepping back like he usually did when people got within his personal space, and noticed the fleck of honey gold in her left iris, the faint streak of gray running through the auburn hair she’d pulled back in a loose braid.
He told her he was fixing up a 1976 CB radio he’d picked up at a flea market the weekend prior, expecting her to nod and change the subject, but her face lit up. She told him her dad had been a long haul trucker, she’d spent half her childhood helping him fix ham and CB radios in their garage, knew how to solder a wire better than most of the guys she’d gone to high school with. They wandered away from the crowd, sitting on a weathered picnic table at the edge of the beer garden, sharing her plate of honey cornbread, and for an hour he forgot to check his watch, forgot to come up with an excuse to leave. He brushed a crumb off the knee of her jeans when she leaned over to adjust her boot, his hand lingering for half a second before he pulled back, and she didn’t flinch, just smiled at him, her knee brushing his under the table.
By the time the band wrapped up their last set, the sun had gone down, the air biting cold enough that he could see his breath when he laughed. He offered to walk her home, their houses only two minutes apart up the dirt road, and she didn’t hesitate to say yes. They walked slow, their shoulders brushing every few steps, no awkward silence weighing between them. When they got to her porch, she stepped up onto the first step, putting her a few inches taller than him, and reached out to brush a smudge of chili off his cheek that he’d missed earlier. Her thumb was warm, a little rough from the raised beds she tended in her front yard, and he didn’t pull away, didn’t make a joke about being messy, just held her gaze.
He’d spent the last seven years telling himself he didn’t deserve anything that didn’t feel like penance, that the town’s gossip and his own guilt were enough reason to shut everyone out. He thought of the nosy retirees at the cookoff, who’d definitely be talking about them walking home together by tomorrow morning, thought of the photo of Karen on his kitchen counter, the way she’d always teased him for being too stubborn for his own good. Lena tilted her head, her hand still resting light on his jaw, and asked him if he wanted to come in for coffee, said she had a copy of Waylon Jennings’ Greatest Hits on vinyl she’d found at a thrift store the week before.
He didn’t hesitate to say yes. He followed her inside, the warm air wrapping around his cold cheeks, and she put the record on, the opening notes of “Luckenbach, Texas” drifting through the small living room. She handed him a mug of black coffee, cinnamon mixed in just how he liked it, and sat down on the couch next to him, their knees touching under the coffee table. He picked up his mug, clinked it gently against hers, and let the warm smell of cinnamon in her coffee wrap around him like something he’d forgotten he was allowed to have.
