Elio Mendez, 52, makes his living sanding rust off 1960s Shastas and reupholstering their dinette booths out of the cinder block workshop behind his house, and he’d avoided the county fall harvest fair for eight straight years before his niece called begging him to haul her prize-winning Nubian goat’s show supplies. He showed up an hour late, worn flannel shirt unbuttoned over a faded Lynyrd Skynyrd tee, work boots caked in driveway gravel, fully planning to duck out before anyone he knew spotted him.
He was halfway back to the parking lot when the smell hit him: peach bourbon pie, thick with cinnamon and brown sugar, exactly the kind his mom used to bake for his birthday every year until she passed in 2019. He veered off the path toward the pie tent before he even thought about it, and didn’t notice the woman stepping out with a stack of pie tins until his shoulder bumped hers. Half a tin of powdered sugar puffed onto his shirt front.
Her first move was to laugh, low and warm, instead of apologizing. She was 48, with a streak of silver in her dark brown bangs, flour dusted on her left cheek, and she wiped her hand on her flour-stained apron before holding it out to him. The calluses on her fingertips from kneading dough brushed his wrist first, and he felt a jolt run up his arm that had nothing to do with the cool October breeze. “You’re Elio, right? The trailer guy,” she said, holding eye contact so long he had to fight the urge to look away. He tensed up immediately—everyone connected to his ex, who was running the fair that year, knew who he was, and he didn’t have the energy for gossip that would get back to her.
He mumbled a confirmation, already stepping back, but she held up a hand to stop him, cutting off his half-assed excuse to leave. “Relax, I haven’t spoken to Clara in five years. She stiffed me on a bakery loan I co-signed for her back in 2018, and I haven’t wasted a breath on her since.” She gestured behind her to the half-empty pie rack. “I’m Lila. Just moved back to take care of my dad, who’s got early dementia. Baking pies for the fair to cover his co-pays.”
The conflict twisted in his chest, sharp and warm at the same time: part of him screamed to leave, to not risk the drama that came with even talking to anyone who’d ever been in Clara’s orbit, but the other part of him couldn’t look away from the crinkles around her eyes when she smiled, couldn’t ignore the way she leaned in just a little when she talked, like he was the only person in the crowded fairgrounds that mattered. She offered him a free slice of pie, still warm from the oven, and their fingers brushed again when she handed him a plastic fork. He took a bite, and it tasted exactly like his mom’s, and he almost choked up.
They stood off to the side of the tent, out of the main foot traffic, their shoulders almost touching as they talked. He could smell lavender perfume mixed with vanilla extract on her, could hear the faint crackle of the tent heater over the roar of the crowd, could feel the warmth of her arm through his flannel when she leaned in to laugh at his joke about how most fair pies taste like cardboard and regret. She told him she’d inherited a 1972 Airstream from her grandpa, wanted to fix it up to take her dad on one last road trip to the Smoky Mountains before he got too sick to travel, and had been asking around for someone who knew how to work on vintage trailers.
He was halfway through telling her he’d take a look at it for half his usual rate when he spotted Clara walking toward the tent, clipboard in hand, her sharp eyes locking on them immediately. He tensed up, yanking his arm back like he’d been burned, ready to mumble an excuse and bolt for the parking lot. Before he could move, Lila reached down, laced her fingers through his, squeezed so tight her nails pressed gently into the back of his hand, and smiled directly at Clara, bright and unapologetic, until Clara huffed, rolled her eyes, and turned to walk the other way.
He didn’t let go of her hand. The calluses on her fingers fit perfectly against the calluses on his, worn smooth from years of sanding trailer frames and turning wrench handles, and for the first time in eight years, he didn’t care who saw them together.
They agreed to meet at his workshop the next morning at 10, to look over the Airstream’s blueprints and go over a budget. She slipped him an extra slice of pie wrapped in aluminum foil, pressing it into his chest so he could feel the warmth seep through his flannel shirt, and winked when he took it. He walked back to his niece’s goat pen, the pie tucked under his arm, and didn’t even flinch when he spotted Clara talking to a group of vendors 20 feet away. He lifted his free hand in a lazy, unconcerned wave, and kept walking.
