Elias Voss, 59, has kept bees on 12 acres of wooded hillside outside Franklin, North Carolina, for 27 years. He’s stubborn to a fault, still mends the same frayed flannel shirts he wore in his 30s, still refuses to get a smartphone, still holds a grudge against the Asheville real estate agent who ran off with his wife 8 years prior. He’d driven to the Macon County Fair that sticky August afternoon only to drop off his entry for best wildflower honey, had planned to hightail it back to his hives before the crowds got too thick, before kids running with cotton candy bumped into him, before anyone tried to make small talk about the weather or the local high school football team.
He detoured for the fried peach stand first, though. No way he was skipping that. The line was three deep, the air thick with the smell of hot oil, ripe fruit, and powdered sugar, and when he got to the counter, the woman behind it looked up and grinned like she’d been waiting for him. It was Mara, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, the one he’d helped patch a leaky porch roof for back in 2010, the one he’d not spoken a word to since his divorce was finalized. She was 48 now, dark hair streaked with silver at the temples, linen work shirt dotted with peach syrup stains, and for half a second Elias forgot how to speak.
He ordered a slice of fried peach with extra powdered sugar, and when she handed the paper plate across the counter, their fingers brushed. Her skin was cool, sticky with syrup, and Elias flinched like he’d touched a live wire. He paid, should have stepped away, should have headed to the agriculture barn to drop off his honey jar, but he leaned his hip against the counter instead, boots scuffing the splintered wood under his feet. She teased him about the mud caked on his work boots, said she’d know those scuffed steel toes anywhere, said she’d spotted his name on the honey entry list that morning and knew he’d show up eventually.
He felt hot under the collar, equal parts embarrassed and curious, equal parts disgusted with himself for even wanting to stay and giddy that she’d noticed his name. It was taboo, wasn’t it? Hanging around his ex-wife’s cousin, half the people at the fair knew their family ties, half would run their mouths the second they saw them talking. He should leave. He should grab his peach slice and go. But he stayed, and they joked about the 2010 family reunion where she’d burned three batches of fried peaches and blamed it on a faulty fryer, and about the time he’d gotten stung 17 times moving hives the week before his wedding and showed up to the rehearsal dinner with his left eye swollen shut.
At one point she reached across the counter, thumb brushing the corner of his mouth to wipe off a smudge of powdered sugar, her palm lingering on his jaw for a beat too long before she pulled away. The crowd around them faded, the creak of the Ferris wheel, shouts of kids on the tilt-a-whirl, country music blaring from the beer tent all went quiet for a second. Elias’s ears burned. He hadn’t let anyone touch him that gently, that casually, in 8 years.
She said she was closing up the stand in 20 minutes, asked if he wanted to drive up to the Blue Ridge Parkway overlook a mile out of town, watch the sunset, try the batch of honey bourbon liqueur she’d brewed last month. He hesitated, every stubborn rule he’d set for himself after the divorce screaming no, every warning about small town gossip and family drama ringing in his ears. Then he looked at her, the way she was biting her lower lip waiting for his answer, late afternoon sun catching the silver in her hair, sticky peach syrup glistening on her wrist, and he said yes.
He dropped his honey entry off at the agriculture barn, waited for her to lock up, and followed her up the mountain. She spread a frayed knit blanket across the bed of her beat up Ford Ranger, they passed the liqueur bottle back and forth as the sky shifted from tangerine to soft lavender, their shoulders pressed tight enough that he could smell coconut sunscreen on her skin. He tastes peach syrup and wildflower honey when he kisses her, sweet enough to make every year of self-imposed isolation feel worth the wait.
