Rusty Hale, 62, spent most days hunched over a workbench in his garage, sawdust stuck in the gray stubble along his jaw, fixing broken patio furniture or building custom birdhouses for neighbors. A retired industrial arts teacher, widowed four years prior, he’d made a habit of turning down every social invite that crossed his path, convinced small talk and forced cheer were a waste of the quiet days he’d worked so hard to earn. The only reason he was manning a rickety folding table at the town’s annual summer street fair was his 16-year-old niece, who’d begged him to sell the birdhouses to raise money for her high school robotics team. He’d caved, but only after she promised to man the booth for half the day so he could sneak home early.
The air reeked of fried dough and grilled sausage, a cover band two booths over cranked out a wobbly rendition of *Free Fallin’*, and kids ran screaming past with sticky cotton candy stuck to their cheeks. Rusty was half-asleep leaning against the wooden fence behind his booth when he saw her. Mara Navarro, 58, the new part-time librarian he’d worked with back in spring to build the new children’s section shelves, was walking toward him, a plastic cup of pink lemonade in one hand, her dark hair streaked with silver pulled back in a loose braid. He’d only ever seen her in oversized cardigans and scuffed sneakers behind the library desk; today she wore a cream linen dress that hit just above her knees, gold hoops glinting in the sun, and a pair of strappy leather sandals. He froze, suddenly hyper aware of the sawdust caked in the knees of his jeans and the sweat stain under the arm of his faded flannel shirt. He’d avoided the library for three months straight after their last meeting, embarrassed by how often he’d caught himself replaying the sound of her laugh or the way she’d leaned over his workbench to run a finger along the edge of a pine shelf, her nail polish chipped pale blue.
He thought about pretending to sort through the stack of birdhouses at his feet to avoid eye contact, but she waved, already close enough that he could smell the jasmine perfume she was wearing over the smell of fried onions from the food booth next door. “I knew these were yours,” she said, nodding at the birdhouses, her thumb brushing the carved oak leaf detail on the side of the largest one. “No one else around here cuts wood that clean.”
Rusty scratched the back of his neck, his throat suddenly dry. He didn’t know what to say, used to only talking to her about wood grain and weight limits for shelf brackets. When she reached into her purse to pull out cash for a small wren house she said she wanted for her apartment balcony, their fingers brushed as she handed him a crumpled 10 dollar bill. Her skin was cool, softer than he expected, and he fumbled the bill before shoving it into the cash box. A group of loud bikers roared past on the street behind her, and she leaned in closer, her shoulder pressing against his bicep for three full seconds, to yell over the noise that she’d been trying to fix a warped oak bookshelf in her rental for weeks, and had no idea where to start.
Rusty’s first instinct was to make an excuse, to say he was too busy, that he didn’t do side jobs for people he knew from town, that he liked keeping his work life and whatever passed for his social life completely separate. But she was looking up at him, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners, and he found himself offering to come take a look at it, no charge, as soon as the fair wrapped up for the weekend. She grinned, and he felt something tight in his chest loosen, the same thing that had been knotted there since his wife’s funeral.
When the fair closed down at 8, the sun dipping low enough to paint the sky pink and orange, she found him again, folding up his table, and asked if he wanted to get a beer at the dive bar down the street first. He almost said no, almost told her he had to get home to feed his old hound dog, but he nodded before he could talk himself out of it.
The bar smelled like peanuts and old beer, and they sat in a booth in the back, their knees brushing under the table every time one of them shifted. She told him she’d moved to town from Chicago six months prior, right after her divorce, because she’d grown up coming to her grandma’s cottage on Lake Michigan and had always dreamed of living somewhere quiet. He told her about his wife, about how he’d thought he’d never want to talk to another woman romantically again, how he’d felt guilty even noticing how pretty she was the first time they’d met at the library. She reached across the table, rested her hand on top of his, and said she’d felt the same, had worried he’d think she was being unprofessional for asking the library director for his phone number three separate times before chickening out.
They stayed until the bartender started wiping down the counters for the night, and he walked her to her car parked two blocks over, the streetlights buzzing softly overhead. She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek first, her lipstick leaving a faint pink mark, and when he didn’t pull away, she kissed him properly, her hand cupping the side of his face, the scratch of her rings against his stubble making him shiver. When she pulled back, she scribbled her address on a scrap of receipt from her purse, handed it to him, and told him to come over at 10 Saturday morning, and to bring extra wood glue.
He tucks the slip of paper into the breast pocket of his flannel shirt, already making a mental list of drill bits and sandpaper to throw in his toolbox before he drives over.
