Elroy Voss, 62, retired high-voltage lineman, leans against the chipped brick exterior of Mabel’s Tavern, calloused left hand curled around a half-drunk Miller High Life, right rubbing the pale, lumpy scar snaking up his forearm from the 2018 line fire that put him on disability six months early. The town’s annual summer street fair hums two feet away: the sharp, sweet reek of fried Oreos drifts over the roar of a cover band cranking “Jack & Diane,” kids weave between legs chasing each other with glow sticks, and his ex-wife’s bake sale booth sits 50 yards down the blacktop, the whole reason he’s camped by the bar instead of wandering like he used to. He’s avoided every fair since she left him seven years prior for a 38-year-old realtor who drives a Tesla and wears boat shoes even in January, figured there was no point in subjecting himself to the pitying looks and awkward small talk, but his neighbor begged him to help carry her grandkids’ prize-winning pig to the 4-H booth an hour earlier, so he caved.
A shadow falls over his scuffed work boots before he hears her voice. “Elroy Voss. Thought you swore you’d never step foot at one of these things again.” He looks up, blinks a second before placing her: Mara Carter, his ex’s youngest cousin, 41, forest ranger out in the Wayne National Forest, the kid who used to follow him and his ex on camping trips, begging him to lift her up to see bald eagle nests 20 years prior. She’s wearing frayed cutoff shorts, a faded Ohio State tank top dotted with pine sap, scuffed work boots caked in mud, and her dark hair is pulled back in a messy braid streaked with a single strand of silver at the temple. She stands close enough that her shoulder brushes his bicep when she leans forward to pluck a crumpled fried dough napkin off the front of his faded flannel, and he catches the scent of pine, lemon dish soap, and cherry lip balm, sharp enough to cut through the greasy fried food stench hanging in the air.
She nods toward the gravel path leading up to the river overlook, the spot he’d built a wooden rail for back in 2003, the spot he used to take his ex to watch sunsets before they stopped talking entirely. “C’mon. Too loud down here. I haven’t seen that view in three years.” He hesitates for half a second, glances at his ex’s booth where she’s laughing with the Tesla-driving realtor, then nods. The sound of the fair fades as they climb the path, crickets chirping in the tall grass on either side, fireflies blinking low to the ground. She slips on a loose rock halfway up, and he grabs her elbow to steady her, his hand wrapping around the soft, warm skin of her arm, and she doesn’t pull away, just smiles up at him, her dark eyes glinting in the fading golden light.
When they reach the top, the overlook is empty, the river stretching out below them, pink and orange from the setting sun painting the water in streaks of tangerine and rose. She leans against the rail he built, turns to him, and says she’s had a crush on him since she was 16, saw him carry her grandma’s wheelchair up three flights of stairs to her apartment in the middle of a snowstorm when no one else would even offer to help, and she never forgot it. He opens his mouth to say something, to tell her it’s wrong, that people will talk, that he’s 21 years older than her and half broken from the divorce and the fire, but she leans in and kisses him before he can get the words out, soft at first, then a little firmer, her hand coming up to rest on the scar on his forearm, her thumb brushing over the lumpy skin slow and gentle. He kisses her back, his free hand tangling in the end of her braid, the taste of cherry lip balm and Miller High Life on her tongue, and for the first time in seven years, he doesn’t feel like he’s just going through the motions of living.
They stay up there for 45 minutes, talking, kissing slow between stories, no rush, no pressure. She tells him she’s only in town for the weekend, but she’s got a small cabin 45 minutes north, up in the hills, no neighbors for miles, he can come visit whenever he wants, no strings attached. He walks her back to her mom’s house after the fair shuts down, the streets empty except for the crew picking up trash and a few drunk teens staggering home from the beer garden. She squeezes his hand twice before she gets out of his beat-up 2007 Ford F-150, says she’ll text him first thing in the morning. He drives home with the window rolled down, the cool night air hitting his face, the faint scent of cherry lip balm still clinging to his stubble. He pulls into his driveway, turns the truck off, sits there for two minutes just breathing, and for the first time in seven years, he doesn’t reach for the half-empty bottle of bourbon he keeps stashed under his kitchen sink when he walks in the door.
