Ray Voss, 57, retired high school shop teacher, had spent three years avoiding every community event the town of Millfield, Ohio, threw at him. His late wife, Linda, had loved these gatherings, and some stupid, stubborn part of him thought showing up without her was a betrayal. His next door neighbor badgered him for three weeks straight to bring the handful of hand-carved walnut cutting boards he made in his garage to the local beer garden’s weekly maker’s market, and he caved mostly to get her to stop leaving overgrown zucchini on his porch. He set up his folding table at 2pm, propped a crumpled handwritten sign that said $25 EACH against a stack of boards, and settled in with an IPA, fully expecting to go home with every last piece and a mild sunburn.
The woman running the hot sauce booth next to him showed up ten minutes late, hauling two coolers and a stack of hand-labeled jars, her dark hair pulled back in a messy braid streaked with a single strand of silver at the temple. He recognized her immediately as Clara Bennett, daughter of his old high school principal, the man who’d suspended him for three days senior year for hiding a carburetor in the principal’s office supply closet. The low, sharp zing of that old, long-forgotten taboo hummed in his chest before he could stop it, and he looked away fast, pretending to wipe dust off a cutting board.
She leaned over his table ten minutes later, holding a frayed tent pole, and her bare shoulder brushed the thick, ridged scar on his left forearm, the one he’d gotten from a table saw accident when he was 42. He smelled coconut sunscreen and tangy apple cider vinegar, the exact kind he used to use to clean his saw blades. “You got an extra rubber band?” she asked, her voice low and rough, like she smoked a pack a day or spent half her time yelling over crowd noise. He fumbled in his pocket for the rubber bands he kept for holding sandpaper stacks, and when he handed them to her, her fingers brushed his, calloused at the tips, from jar lids or garden work he couldn’t tell. He noticed her nail polish was chipped deep burgundy, same color Linda used to wear to Friday night football games.
He watched her out of the corner of his eye for the next hour. She handed out samples of hot sauce on saltine crackers, laughed loud when a teenager coughed so hard he spit a bite onto the grass, and she kept glancing back at him, like she was waiting for him to say something. He kept kicking himself for even noticing her. Part of him felt disgusted, like he was cheating on Linda, like some sad old creep hitting on a woman eight years younger than him, who was practically off limits by association with his most reckless high school days. The other part of him couldn’t stop replaying the brush of her shoulder against his scar, the way her eyes crinkled at the corners when she laughed.
A cover band in the corner started playing “Free Fallin’” and the crowd hummed along, the smell of grilled brats and hop fog curling through the warm summer air. She walked over with two sample crackers, held one out to him. “Mango habanero,” she said. “Not too hot. I remembered you shop guys liked spicy stuff. Dad used to complain all the time about you all bringing hot wings to detention.” He blinked, shocked she even knew who he was. He took the cracker, bit into it, the sweetness of the mango cutting the burn of the pepper just right, and he coughed a little when it hit the back of his throat. She laughed, and he realized he was smiling, the first real smile he’d had that wasn’t for a grocery store cashier or his nosy neighbor in months.
They talked for the next two hours, jumping between the time he’d glued his principal’s desk drawers shut, the way Linda had loved to make homemade salsa so hot it made his eyes water, the way her ex-husband had left her two years prior for a 28 year old admin at his law firm, taking their golden retriever and half her savings. She leaned against the edge of his table when she talked, so close her knee brushed his when she shifted her weight, and he didn’t move away. He told her about the scar on his arm, showed her the faint white line that ran from his wrist to his elbow, and she traced it with one finger, light as a feather, and he felt a jolt go up his spine so sharp he almost dropped his half-empty beer.
The sky turned dark all at once, gray clouds rolling in fast, and the wind picked up, blowing one of her jar labels off onto the grass. They both leaned down to grab it at the same time, their heads knocked soft against each other, and she laughed, holding the crumpled label up like a trophy. The first drops of rain hit the back of his neck a second later, cold and sharp, and the crowd started scrambling, packing up booths fast. He fumbled with his tent poles, his fingers stiff with the sudden chill, and she grabbed one to help, her hand wrapping around his on the cold metal pole, and neither of them pulled away.
The heavy guilt he’d been carrying around for three years felt lighter all of a sudden, like the rain had washed the edge right off of it. He didn’t feel like he was betraying Linda. He felt like she’d be yelling at him for waiting three years to stop moping in his garage and talk to someone who made him laugh. He asked her if she wanted to get a burger and a cold beer at the dive bar down the street when the rain let up, and she said yes, no hesitation, grinning so wide he could see the tiny gap between her two front teeth.
The rain slowed to a soft drizzle ten minutes later, and they walked out to the parking lot, their work boots splashing in the puddles that had formed on the potholed asphalt. She linked her arm through his, pressing her elbow soft against his side, and he could still smell coconut sunscreen and vinegar on her shirt, over the sharp, fresh smell of wet grass and rain. He held the door of his dented old Ford F-150 open for her, and she climbed in, slinging her bag onto the passenger seat, the jar of ghost pepper sauce peeking out of the top pocket. He slid into the driver’s seat next to her, turned the key, and the old truck’s radio crackled to life with a Johnny Cash song he’d not heard since he was 17.
