Elwood Rainer, 53, has run a small-scale beekeeping operation out of his 12-acre property outside Asheville for seven years, ever since he walked out of his corporate accounting job and left his ex-wife a note on the kitchen counter saying he couldn’t do the quiet, resentful grind anymore. His biggest flaw, the one his sister nags him about every Thanksgiving, is that he’s turned avoiding casual connection into a competitive sport. He only speaks to customers long enough to ring up honey jars, skips every community potluck, and hasn’t let anyone other than the vet who treats his barn cat inside his house in four years.
Late August heat clings thick to the county farmers market at 8 a.m., the air smelling like cut grass and fried green tomatoes from the food truck at the entrance. Elwood is wiping beeswax smudges off a row of wildflower honey jars when he glances two booths down and freezes. He’d know that scar above her left eyebrow anywhere, the one she got crashing his best friend’s dirt bike at the 1988 senior bonfire, when she’d tried to do a wheelie in front of the entire football team. Maren Hale. She’d been off limits back then, dating his lab partner, and he’d never so much as asked her to a dance, even when he’d spent three months carving a wooden bee charm for her that he’d never had the guts to give away. She’s 48 now, her hair streaked with silver at the temples, wearing a faded Lynyrd Skynyrd t-shirt and work boots, arranging hot sauce bottles on a folding table, laughing loud enough that he can hear her over the hum of the observation hive he brings for the kids who stop by his booth.
He spends the next three hours sneaking glances, pretending to count inventory every time he catches her looking back. She waves once, and he panics, dropping a stack of price tags, face heating up like he’s 17 again, mortified that he’s acting like a kid with a crush when he’s old enough to get AARP mailers. He tells himself he’s being stupid, that he’s better off alone, that any connection is just going to end with someone walking out, same as his ex did. But he can’t stop looking at the way she tucks her hair behind her ear when a customer asks a question, the calluses on her hands from chopping peppers, the smudge of chili powder on her left cheek.
A sharp gust of wind blows through the market at 11:30, sending a stack of her recipe cards flying across the asphalt, half of them landing at Elwood’s feet. He bends to pick them up, and she’s there a second later, kneeling beside him, their hands brushing when they both reach for the same card printed with a mango habanero recipe. Her skin is warm, calloused at the fingertips, and he can smell lime and coconut sunscreen and the sharp, bright tang of fermented peppers on her clothes. “Elwood Rainer,” she says, grinning that same gap-toothed grin he remembers, “I thought that was you. I still have the jar of sourwood honey you brought to ag class our junior year. My mom used it in her tea for months.”
He fumbles over his words for a second, then offers her the jar of limited-edition sourwood honey he’d set aside for his sister as a welcome-back gift. She trades him a bottle of her hottest sauce, the one with a hand-drawn skull on the label, says she’s been looking for local honey to cut the heat in her new peach pepper recipe. They lean against the edge of his booth while the market slows down, the crowd thinning out as the heat climbs higher. She tells him she moved back to town two months prior, after her husband died in a truck crash on I-40, to take care of her mom who has bad arthritis. He tells her about the divorce, about the 42 beehives he keeps spread across the county, about how he talks to the bees when he’s checking hives because they don’t expect him to say the right thing. She leans in when he talks, her arm brushing his every time she shifts her weight, her knee knocking his once when a kid runs past chasing a golden retriever.
He’s the one who brings up the old crush, half-joking, says he almost asked her to prom back in ‘88 but was scared her boyfriend would beat him up. She laughs, leans closer, so he can smell the mint gum she’s chewing, says she’d have said yes, she thought he was cute back then too, quiet and weird with his thrifted bee-themed t-shirts. For a second he’s frozen, staring at her, the voice in his head screaming that he’s going to mess this up, that he should make an excuse and leave, but the other part of him, the part that’s been quiet for seven years, is screaming louder.
They pack up their booths at the same time, and he offers to carry her 30-pound cooler of hot sauce to her beat-up Ford Ranger. She accepts, then pauses, twisting the hem of her t-shirt, asks if he wants to come over for dinner later, says she’s making carnitas tacos, and they can test the honey and hot sauce combo together, her mom would love to meet him. He hesitates for half a second, the same reflex that’s made him turn down every invitation for seven years kicking in, then nods. She hands him a crumpled paper bag with an extra bottle of sauce and a piece of peanut butter fudge she’d stashed under her table before she climbs into her truck. He gets in his own pickup, the sourwood honey he’d meant for his sister sitting on the passenger seat, and follows her down the dirt road leading out of the market parking lot, the low hum of bees still ringing in his ears, and he doesn’t feel the urge to turn around and go home alone for the first time in seven years.
