Woody Rainer, 62, retired small aircraft restorer, had parked himself on the same scuffed vinyl bar stool at Mabel’s Tap every Friday for eight years straight, ever since his wife left him for a yoga instructor 27 years her junior. He’d long since stopped caring that the left leg of the stool wiggled if he shifted too far left, or that the bar top was sticky enough to pull the paper coaster off the bottom of his mug if he lifted it too fast. That night, the air inside smelled like fried sauerkraut from the harvest festival food truck parked out front, pine from the wreaths stacked by the door, and the faint, acrid tang of draft beer spilled and mopped up a hundred times. He picked at a loose thread on the cuff of his oil-stained flannel, ignoring the row of 20-somethings yelling over a pool game at the other end of the bar, when someone slid into the empty stool to his right, close enough that their knee brushed his under the counter edge.
He glanced over, ready to grumble about personal space, and froze. It was Clara Bennett, 58, the mother of his daughter Lila’s fiancé, the woman he’d avoided making eye contact with for two straight hours at the engagement dinner two weeks prior, because he’d spent most of that dinner replaying the way her laugh curled around the room like honey, terrified someone would notice he was staring. She wore a faded denim jacket and boots caked in mud from the corn maze she’d walked through earlier that afternoon, her auburn hair pulled back in a messy braid streaked with more gray than he remembered. She ordered a spiced hard cider, then turned to him, grinning, when the bartender set it down. “You look like you’re as excited for tomorrow’s family breakfast as I am,” she said, leaning in so he could hear her over the Johnny Cash track on the jukebox, her shoulder brushing his bicep. He caught a whiff of vanilla lotion and crisp apple cider, and his throat went dry.
He’d spent the last two weeks talking himself out of texting her, even though Lila had casually dropped her number into a wedding planning group chat, convinced any move he made would get back to the entire town before sunset. Small town Ohio ran on gossip, and the last thing he needed was people speculating that he was chasing his future in-law, that he was some sad old creep who couldn’t keep it in his pants now that he was single. He’d written the whole thing off as a stupid, fleeting crush, the kind that popped up when you spent too much time alone in a garage rebuilding carburetors. But now she was sitting six inches away, her knee still pressed to his, and he couldn’t think of a single polite excuse to leave.
She told him she’d just finished a three-month travel nurse stint in Miami, that she was sick of city traffic and people who wore flip flops to the grocery store in December, that she’d signed a year-long contract at the local hospital so she could be close to her son while he planned the wedding. He told her about the 1978 Cessna he was restoring in his barn, the one that crash landed in a cornfield three years prior, the one he’d been chipping away at for 18 months. When he made a dry joke about the plane’s previous owner having worse landing skills than a toddler on a tricycle, she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, and her hand landed on his forearm, warm through the thin flannel. She left it there for three full seconds, long enough that he could feel the callus on the side of her index finger from holding syringes at work, long enough that he forgot what he was going to say next.
She admitted she was dreading the breakfast because her ex-husband was going to show up uninvited, the same one who’d cheated on her with his dental hygienist and then tried to claim their golden retriever in the divorce. He admitted he was dreading it because his ex-wife was bringing her 34-year-old boyfriend who wore linen pants to cookouts and wouldn’t stop talking about his home brewed kombucha. The longer they talked, the closer she leaned, until their faces were only a foot apart, and he could see flecks of gold in her hazel eyes, the tiny laugh lines fanning out from the corners. She tilted her head, and he realized he was staring again, but she didn’t look away. “I’m staying at that little blue Airbnb on Oak Street,” she said, her voice lower now, so quiet only he could hear it. “The one with the porch swing. The sky out here is way clearer than Miami’s. I downloaded a constellation app. You wanna come look?”
For half a second, he hesitated. He thought about the gossip, about the kids’ confused faces if they found out, about the way he’d sworn off any kind of relationship after his ex left, convinced he was too old to deal with all the messy, complicated parts of being with someone. He thought about the cold, empty house waiting for him, the frozen burrito stashed in his fridge for dinner, the Cessna that would still be there in the morning. Then he looked at her, at the way she was biting her lip like she was nervous he’d say no, at the smudge of cider on her chin, and he knew he didn’t have a single good reason to turn her down.
He flagged down the bartender and paid both their tabs, slipping a $20 bill across the counter to cover the tip. They snuck out the back door of the bar, past the stack of empty kegs and menthol-scented ashtray, so none of the regulars would see them leave together. The air outside was crisp, sharp with the scent of burnt caramel from the candy apple stand down the street, and the sky was already dotted with stars, bright enough that he could make out the Big Dipper without even trying. She laced her fingers through his, her hand warm even through the hole in the finger of his worn work glove. He stepped off the curb beside her, already forgetting the list of excuses he’d rehearsed all week for skipping the family breakfast.
