Elroy Voss, 62, only showed up to the post-farmers market mixer at the downtown Asheville brewery because his biggest retail client begged him. His wildflower honey had taken first place at the county fair the week prior, and she’d insisted the regulars wanted to toast him. He’d spent the first 20 minutes hovering by the back cinder block wall, scuffed work boots planted wide, flannel sleeves rolled to his elbows to show forearms crisscrossed with faint, faded bee sting scars. The pale ale in his hand sweated through the paper coaster he’d grabbed at the bar, and the air smelled like fried pickles from the food truck out front, hoppy beer, and the thick, cloying humidity of late July. He’d already decided he’d leave as soon as he could slip out without offending anyone, already mentally running through the list of hive checks he needed to do before dusk.
He didn’t notice her approaching until she was less than a foot away, close enough that he caught the soft scent of lavender lotion mixed with the lemon seltzer she held in one hand. She was 58, he’d later learn, named Maren, the new town librarian who’d moved to the area three months prior after her park ranger husband died in a backcountry fall four years earlier. She held a jar of his honey in her other hand, the little hand-drawn bumblebee he scribbles on every label facing out, and she grinned when he blinked down at her, clearly flustered at being caught off guard. Her shoulder brushed his when a group of college kids squeezed past to get to the tap line, and he tensed up so fast he nearly spilled his beer. He hadn’t been that close to a woman who wasn’t a grocery store cashier or his sister-in-law in seven years, and his first instinct was to step back, mumble an excuse, and bolt for the door.
Instead, he stayed. She told him she’d bought the jar that morning, uses the honey to sweeten lemon drops for the after-school foster kid reading group she runs out of the library basement, and that the kids had loved the little bee drawing so much they’d started drawing their own on their library checkout slips. She teased him for hiding in the corner like he was scared someone would ask him for an autograph, and he laughed, a rough, rusty sound he barely recognized as his own. They moved to a stack of rough-hewn wooden pallets by the back exit to get away from the noise, and when she sat down, her bare knee brushed his denim-clad one, sending a jolt up his spine he hadn’t felt since he was 17 and fumbling with his first girlfriend’s seatbelt at the drive-in. He fought the urge to yank his leg away, fought the little voice in his head screaming that he was being disrespectful to his wife, that he had no right to feel this light, this seen, talking to a stranger at a brewery.
The sky opened up halfway through their conversation, thunder booming so loud the windows rattled, and rain slammed against the back door hard enough that a gust of wind blew a stack of paper food menus off the nearby ledge and into their laps. They both reached for the same menu that landed between them, their hands brushing, and he didn’t pull away. Her palm was warm, a little calloused at the fingertips from turning book pages all day, and she held his gaze for three slow, unblinking seconds, no teasing grin, no awkward look away, just soft, unhurried recognition. The little voice in his head went quiet all at once, and he realized there was no betrayal in wanting to stop feeling lonely, no rule that said he had to spend the rest of his life sitting alone in his living room watching old westerns with only his hives for company.
He asked her if she wanted to come out to his property the next Saturday, see the hives, taste the small batch of sourwood honey he’d been aging in oak barrels for six months. She said yes immediately, no hesitation, no awkward demurring, just pulled the ballpoint pen she kept tucked behind her ear and scrawled her cell number on the back of the honey jar label, her fingers brushing his when she handed it back to him. The ink smudged a little where her thumb brushed the paper, and he laughed when she swore under her breath, said it was the librarian’s curse to always have smudged ink on something.
The rain let up 20 minutes later, and she said she had to get home to walk her 10-year-old golden retriever, who hated being left alone during thunderstorms. She waved as she jogged out to her beat up forest green Subaru, and he stood there holding the honey jar in one hand, his half-empty beer in the other, the faint buzz of the bluegrass band playing inside fading for a second. He looked down at the smudged phone number on the label, then up at the faint rainbow starting to arc over the brick rooftops across the street, and for the first time in seven years, he didn’t feel the urge to rush straight home to an empty house. He pulled his phone out of his flannel pocket, typed the number into his contacts, and sent her a text with a drawing of a bumblebee, just like the ones on his labels.
