Ray Voss is 58, a retired lineman from Akron who spent 36 years climbing power poles in ice storms and sweltering July heat, with a scar running up his left forearm from a 2017 line fault that almost took his arm. His flaw: he’s carried a chip on his shoulder the size of a cinder block since his ex-wife left him for a 32-year-old financial advisor three weeks after his retirement party, convinced any woman who shows him the slightest interest is only after his $4,200 a month pension and the small injury payout he got from the power company. He moved to the Florida panhandle last spring, bought a beat-up double-wide on a canal outside Port St. Joe, spends most days tinkering with old outboard motors in his carport or drinking cheap beer at the VFW with other retired guys who fled the Midwest for warmer weather.
He only showed up to the town’s annual oyster roast because his buddy Jimmie promised a bucket of steamed Apalachicolas for free, no strings attached. The air smells like salt, wood smoke, and drawn butter, bluegrass bleeds from speakers strapped to the bed of a beat-up 1998 Ford F-150, kids run between picnic tables with sticky handfuls of cotton candy. Ray leans against a longleaf pine, picks dried mud off his work boots, keeps one eye on the group of country club types huddled by the roaster, including the newly elected mayor, the guy who’s been ramping up code enforcement on the unlicensed trailer parks where half his friends live, threatening to evict everyone who can’t afford to bring their homes up to new, overpriced standards. He’s halfway through his third Bud Light when he turns to grab another from the cooler behind him, and bumps hard into someone standing just out of his line of sight.
Her suede jacket brushes his scuffed flannel sleeve, the glass of white wine in her hand sloshes over the edge, leaving a dark purple splotch right over his left chest pocket. She apologizes fast, voice warm, no entitled edge he expects from anyone associated with the mayor. He looks up, recognizes her immediately: Clara Bennett, 49, the mayor’s wife, the woman who stands next to him at every town hall meeting, smiling like she’d rather be anywhere else. She’s got sun streaks in her shoulder-length brown hair, laugh lines crinkling at the corners of her hazel eyes, wears scuffed work boots instead of the heels he saw her in at the last town hall, no diamond earrings, no fancy makeup. She grabs a crumpled napkin from the table next to them, leans in to dab at the wine stain on his shirt, her hand brushing his chest through the flannel for two full seconds too long. He can smell coconut shampoo and wood smoke on her, and he stiffens, half ready to tell her to get lost, that her husband’s a crook, that he doesn’t want anything to do with her.
Instead, she laughs, soft, quiet, like she’s sharing a secret. “I heard you yell at Todd at the last meeting about the trailer park fines,” she says, nodding at the mayor, who’s currently slapping a developer on the back across the field. “You were right. He’s being an ass about the whole thing, only cares about impressing the guys from Miami who want to build a gated golf course where those parks are.” Ray blinks, taken off guard. He’d pictured her as the typical politician’s wife, sipping chardonnay at country club luncheons, turning a blind eye to all the garbage her husband pulls. She leans against the pine next to him, close enough that her shoulder brushes his when she shifts her weight, says she’s been sneaking away from Todd all night, that she hates these events, that she’d rather be out on her dad’s old fishing boat than making small talk with people who think oysters only come from a restaurant in Manhattan.
He fights the pull in his chest, the stupid spark of interest he shouldn’t feel. She’s married to the guy who’s making his best friend’s life hell, for Christ’s sake. He should walk away, go back to Jimmie, complain about the mayor like every other guy there. But when she mentions she’s been trying to fix a 1978 Johnson outboard on that old boat, can’t get it to turn over no matter what she does, he can’t help himself. He knows that motor better than he knows his own Social Security number, rebuilt three of them in the last six months alone. She bites her lower lip, looks up at him through her lashes, asks if he’d be willing to take a look at it, says she’ll pay him twice his usual rate, that Todd will be at the county commission meeting all day tomorrow, no chance he’ll be home. He says yes before he can talk himself out of it.
He shows up to her house at 10 the next morning, half convinced he’s making the biggest mistake of his retirement. It’s a modest 1980s ranch on a small lot off the bay, not the waterfront mansion everyone in town assumes the mayor lives in, the yard dotted with old fishing gear and a half-dead palm tree. She’s wearing cutoff jeans and a faded 2018 Florida State football shirt, no makeup, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail. They spend the next hour in her garage, leaning over the motor splayed out on her workbench, he shows her how to adjust the carburetor, their hands brushing when they pass a socket wrench, the garage warm from the space heater, the air thick with gasoline and lemon Pledge. When they get the carb adjusted, she hands him a glass of iced tea, their fingers lingering on the cold glass for three beats, and she leans against the workbench next to him, says she and Todd haven’t slept in the same bed in eight months, that he spends every night at the office or out schmoozing, that she hasn’t felt like anyone’s actually seen her in three years.
He leans in before he can overthink it, kisses her soft, slow, and she kisses him back, no hesitation, her hands coming up to rest on his shoulders, calloused from sanding the boat’s hull, not soft like he expected. He can taste peach iced tea on her lips, the faint tang of the mint gum she’s chewing, and for the first time in three years, he doesn’t feel like the bitter old guy everyone avoids at the VFW. They pull apart after a minute, both grinning like stupid teenagers, no awkward silence, no overblown declarations.
They get the motor mounted back on the boat an hour later, she yanks the starter cord, and it purrs, low and steady, no sputters, no backfires. She wipes grease off her hands on her jeans, asks if he wants to take the boat out on the bay next weekend, says Todd’s going to a conference in Tampa for three days, they can spend the whole day fishing, no one will see them. He nods, grabs his toolbox, walks to his truck. He looks back when he reaches the driver’s side door, she’s standing in the driveway waving, sun glinting off her hair, a smudge of grease on her left cheek. He gets in, turns the key, the old diesel engine rumbles to life. He reaches for the radio, turns up the old Merle Haggard track playing, and pulls out of the driveway already counting down the days till next Saturday.
