Elias Voss, 62, has spent most of the last eight years covered in two-stroke oil and quiet, restoring vintage outboard motors out of the back of the shuttered Lake of the Ozarks marina he ran with his late wife Linda. He’d shut down the public counter three months after her funeral, tired of strangers asking for “quick fixes” that never were, tired of people giving him pitying looks when they realized he was working alone. He only takes jobs now from guys he’s known for 20 years or more, guys who don’t ask about the empty chair by the shop radio, who bring him homegrown tomatoes instead of holiday cards he’ll never hang up.
He only heads to the annual Camden County Fair because he entered a fully restored 1957 Evinrude Fastwin in the small engine contest, and the guy running the category is an old fishing buddy who’d guilt tripped him into showing up. He’s leaning against the splintered wood fence bordering the tractor pull stands, a paper plate of fried catfish in one hand and a lukewarm draft beer in the other, when he smells coconut sunscreen and fried onion rings before he hears her voice.
“Is that you, Elias Voss? I’d know those grease-stained work boots anywhere.”
He looks down, and for half a second he doesn’t recognize her, until he spots the tiny scar above her left eyebrow, the one she got crashing a jet ski into a dock when she was 20, the one he’d helped her dad clean and bandage while she cried about ruining her new bikini. Lila Marlow, 47, now, not the goofy 19-year-old who burned every other batch of hot dogs at the marina snack bar, in town to help her aunt recover from knee replacement surgery. She’s standing six inches closer than most people ever get to him, cutoff jean shorts frayed at the hem, faded Willie Nelson tee stretched across her shoulders, sunburn peeling a little across the bridge of her nose. She holds his gaze for three full beats longer than polite, grinning, and he feels his ears go pink, a stupid, teenage reaction he hasn’t had since he asked Linda to prom in 1979.
She reaches for a french fry off his plate before he can offer, her forearm brushing his, and he flinches so hard a drop of beer sloshes over the edge of his cup onto his jeans. He hasn’t been touched by anyone who isn’t a doctor or a grocery store cashier in eight years, and the heat of her skin through his frayed work shirt sleeve lingers, sharp and warm, long after she pulls her hand back. He feels a twist of shame in his gut first, disgust at himself for noticing the way her laugh crinkles the corners of her eyes, for the way his heart picks up when she leans in to yell over the roar of a modified tractor pulling down the track. He’d promised himself he’d never look at another woman like that, not after Linda, and Lila’s always been off-limits anyway, the kid he’d watched grow up, the girl who used to bring him free popsicles on hot summer days when Linda was out running errands.
They end up walking to the beer garden together, his old hound dog Mabel trotting at their heels, and sit at a sticky picnic table tucked in the shade of an oak tree. She tells him she’s divorced, moved back to the lake part time to run a small plant stand, has been leaving jars of her aunt’s tomatoes on his shop porch for three months, even though he never answered the door. He tells her about the Evinrude, about the 1968 Mercury he’s restoring for a guy down in Springfield, about how Mabel still steals half his sandwich at lunch every day. The band on the small stage launches into a slow George Strait deep cut, the same one Linda used to blast when they were cleaning the marina after a long weekend, and Lila tilts her head at him, grinning.
“C’mon. Dance with me.”
He snorts, shakes his head. “Haven’t danced since Linda’s 50th birthday. Stepped on her toes three times, she threatened to make me sleep on the couch for a week.”
“Good thing I wear flip flops,” she says, and stands, holds her hand out to him. Her nails are chipped, painted a pale blue, a faint callus on her thumb from repotting plants. He stares at her hand for ten full seconds, the voice in his head screaming that this is wrong, that he’s betraying Linda, that he’s a creep for even considering it, before he takes it.
Her hand is smaller than his, warm, calloused in all the same places his are from working with her hands, and when she puts her other hand on his shoulder, he hesitates for a beat before resting his hand on her waist, light, like he’s scared she’ll break. They sway slow, off-beat, and she leans in a little, her hair brushing his cheek, smelling like lavender shampoo now that the fried food and diesel fumes have faded a little. He doesn’t step on her toes once.
“I had a crush on you when I was 19, you know,” she says, quiet enough only he can hear it, right against his ear, and he freezes mid-sway. “Thought you were the toughest, sweetest guy I ever met. Never said anything, ‘cause you were married, then ‘cause you were grieving. Figured it was long past time I told you.”
The song ends a minute later, and he doesn’t let go of her waist first. The fair’s string lights flicker on as the sun dips below the tree line, painting the parking lot orange and soft gold, and they walk back to his beat-up 2004 Ford F-150, Mabel trotting ahead. He opens the passenger door for her, pulls the jar of wild honey he’d stashed on the dashboard for her aunt out first. She takes it, sets it on the seat, then leans up, kisses him soft, no push, no hurry, her hand light on his chest where his wedding band hangs on a silver chain under his shirt. He kisses her back, slow, no rush, and for the first time in eight years, he doesn’t feel guilty.
“I don’t want to replace anyone,” she says, when she pulls back, tapping the chain through his shirt gently. “I just want to make some new memories. And learn how to change the spark plugs on my dad’s old fishing boat, if you’re up for teaching me.”
He tells her to come by the shop Saturday at 10, brings her an extra order of fried Oreos for the road before she gets in her own car. He watches her pull out of the parking lot, her hand out the window waving, Mabel’s head heavy on his boot, and tugs the chain a little tighter, no heavy weight sitting on his chest for the first time in eight years.
