Arnie Mendez leaned his shoulder against the rough bark of a longleaf pine, paper plate of fried catfish balanced on one work-booted foot, and tried to tune out the Jimmy Buffett cover blaring from the speaker strung above the picnic tables. The fire department’s annual fish fry drew half the small Gulf Coast town every spring, and he’d only shown up because Chief O’Malley had cornered him at the bait shop two days prior, guilt-tripping him into making an appearance after he’d donated a fully refurbished 1972 Boston Whaler to the youth fishing program. Grease from the catfish seeped through the paper onto his frayed jeans, the air thick with the smell of fried batter, vinegar coleslaw, and salt rolling off the water three blocks away.
He’d planned to eat fast and leave, until he spotted her walking toward him, bare feet slapping against the warm asphalt, two slices of key lime pie balanced on separate paper plates. Elara Voss, 58, retired dental hygienist from Nashville, had moved into the sky-blue cottage two doors down from his rental six months prior. He’d spoken a total of 12 words to her in that time, all of them mumbled when he’d helped her heave a cast-iron patio table across her back deck three weeks earlier. Their hands had brushed when they set the table down, and he’d bolted before she could offer him a beer, chest tight with the familiar, stupid guilt that clung to him any time he so much as smiled at a woman who wasn’t Linda, his wife of 34 years who’d died of ovarian cancer in 2016.
She stopped in front of him, holding out one of the pie plates. The edges of her faded linen sun dress were frayed at the hem, a thin smudge of dirt on her left ankle from working in her herb garden earlier that day. “I brought three slices, remembered you said you liked key lime when we moved that table,” she said, grinning, and the corners of her hazel eyes crinkled so deep he could see the faint smatter of freckles across her nose that he’d never noticed from far away. He hesitated for two full seconds before taking the plate, his calloused fingers brushing hers for half a heartbeat, the skin on his neck prickling. Her nails were painted soft coral, chipped at the edges from digging in her rosemary bed earlier that day, he realized.
She sat down on the picnic table bench next to him, close enough that her knee brushed his denim-clad thigh every time she shifted. The coconut sunscreen she wore mixed with the faint, sweet smell of jasmine from the bush behind the table, and he found himself breathing in slow, on purpose, before he could stop himself. She teased him about hiding by the tree away from the crowd, said she’d seen him out on his Whaler at dawn three times that week, always alone, always hauling in redfish bigger than her forearm. He grunted at first, gave short, clipped answers, but every time she laughed, her shoulder bumped his, and the tight knot in his chest loosened a little more each time. He found himself telling her about laying asphalt across Kansas in the middle of summer, the heat so bad the blacktop stuck to the soles of his boots, about Linda making him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day he worked, even when they were fighting. He didn’t realize he was talking about her until the words were out, and he froze, waiting for the usual wave of guilt to hit, but it didn’t, not like it usually did.
When they finished the pie, she wiped a fleck of whipped cream off his cheek with the pad of her thumb, and he didn’t flinch. “Wanna walk down to the pier and watch the sunset?” she asked, nodding toward the boardwalk that cut through the dunes to the water. He almost said no, almost made up an excuse about having to tear apart a carburetor that night, but he nodded instead.
The boardwalk planks creaked under their feet, warm even through the soles of his work boots, the sound of the fish fry fading behind them as they walked. Halfway to the pier, she tripped over a loose nail sticking up through a plank, grabbing his forearm to steady herself, and their hands laced together by accident. Neither of them pulled away. He admitted he’d been avoiding her, said he’d spent seven years convinced any time he even thought about talking to another woman, he was spitting on Linda’s memory. She squeezed his hand, her thumb brushing the scar across his knuckle he’d gotten when a jackhammer slipped on a job outside Des Moines in 2004. “My husband died four years ago from a heart attack while he was mowing the lawn,” she said, soft, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore mixing with her voice. “I still leave his favorite mug out on the counter every morning. Grief doesn’t mean you have to stop living, Arnie. No one’s keeping score.”
They reached the end of the pier, sitting down on the weathered wooden bench that overlooked the water. The sun was dipping low over the Gulf, painting the sky streaks of tangerine and rose, the water glowing like melted glass. She leaned her head on his shoulder, and he didn’t move. He wrapped his arm around her waist, feeling the soft linen of her dress under his calloused palm, the faint warmth of her skin through the fabric. He watched a pelican dive into the water 100 yards out, coming up with a silver fish wriggling in its beak, and let his thumb brush the soft curve of her hip slow, gentle, like he was scared he’d break something if he moved too fast.
