Roland Voss, 62, spent 34 years running linotype presses for the Clarion Democrat, a small western Pennsylvania weekly that folded in 2019, and his hands still bear the permanent proof: indigo ink stains tucked into the creases of his knuckles, calluses along his palms from tightening press bolts, a faint scar across his left index finger from a 1998 incident with a loose type slug. His flaw, if you asked his younger sister, was that he’d refused to so much as grab coffee with a woman since his wife Elaine passed from lung cancer eight years prior, convinced any new connection was a betrayal of the 32 years they’d built together. He passed his weekends selling custom letterpress coasters at the county farmers market, a low-stakes hobby that let him mess around with the half-dozen vintage presses he kept in his garage without the pressure of meeting a daily print deadline.
Mid-August heat hung thick over the market tents that Saturday, the asphalt underfoot sticky enough to pull the soles of his work boots if he stood in one spot too long, the air smelling like grilled sweet corn, cut watermelon, and the faint, acrid tang of port-a-potty cleaner drifting from the edge of the lot. He was rearranging a display of wood type samples when she stepped up to his table, wearing a faded Merle Haggard tee, frayed cutoff denim shorts, and a pair of scuffed white cowboy boots, chili pepper tattoos winding up her forearm and a smudge of cayenne powder dusted across her left cheek. She ran the hot sauce stand three stalls over, he knew, had tried her ghost pepper blend the week prior and spent ten minutes coughing so hard he thought he’d dislodge a lung.
She asked for a set of four coasters etched with “Burner Babe” for her best friend’s 60th birthday, leaning across the table to flip through his font binder, and their knees knocked under the edge when she sat on the folding chair he kept for regulars. Their hands brushed when he handed her a sample pack of cardstock, and he felt the rough callus on her thumb from chopping jalapeños and habaneros 40 hours a week, a rough mirror to his own. He made a joke about her ghost pepper sauce nearly sending him to the urgent care, and she laughed, a low, rough sound that reminded him of the old jukebox at the diner he and Elaine used to hit after late press runs, and she leaned in a little closer, close enough that he could smell coconut sunscreen and the sharp, vinegary tang of pickled peppers on her clothes. She held eye contact longer than most people did, didn’t glance away when he caught her staring at the ink stain wrapped around his wrist.
He told himself he was just being polite, for the next three weeks. But he started saving the last jar of peach jam he bought from the orchard stand for her, brought her an iced oat milk latte when the line at the coffee booth died down, left a free set of coasters etched with tiny chili peppers on her table when she was busy with customers. She brought him samples of every new sauce she tested, left notes scrawled on napkins tucked into the lids that said things like “For the guy who knows what a kerning error is” and he tucked every one into the wallet he’d carried since 2010, right next to the photo of Elaine on their 25th anniversary. He’d lie awake at night after those Saturdays, equal parts disgusted with himself for even considering letting someone new in and giddy like a teenager who’d just gotten his first prom date, his chest tight with a feeling he’d thought had died with Elaine.
The last market of the season hit on a cold, pouring October Saturday, most vendors packing up by 10 a.m. when the rain picked up enough to soak through the tent canvases. Roland was hauling a heavy box of wood type to his beat-up 2004 Ford F150 when the bottom split, type slugs spilling across the wet asphalt. She ran over before he could bend down to pick them up, her raincoat flapping behind her, and they both reached for the same 2-inch serif ‘A’ at the same time, their hands pressed together in the cold rain. She didn’t pull away, just smiled, her hair stuck to her forehead, and said she had a pot of venison chili simmering on her stove at her house three blocks away, asked if he wanted to come warm up and dry off. He hesitated for half a second, glancing at the photo of Elaine taped to his truck dashboard, and then nodded. He knew Elaine would have called him an idiot for shutting himself off from good things for eight years, would have told him to stop being so stubborn.
They sat at her Formica kitchen table an hour later, bowls of chili in front of them, Patsy Cline playing low on her record player, the same album Elaine used to spin every Sunday morning while she made pancakes. She passed him a piece of honey butter cornbread, their fingers brushing again when he took it, and he didn’t flinch. He took a bite of the chili, perfect heat, sweet from roasted red peppers, just the way Elaine used to make it, and she leaned across the table, wiping a smudge of chili off his chin with the pad of her thumb. He lifted his hand to cover hers where it rested on his cheek, and didn’t look away when she smiled.
