Clay Bennett, 58, retired electric line worker, had avoided the county summer fair for four straight years. His wife Linda’s memorial service had fallen the same week as the 2019 fair, and every mention of fried dough or Ferris wheel bells made his chest feel tight enough to crack a rib. He only showed up this year because his 16-year-old niece had won first place for her boer goat, and she’d begged him to help haul the 80-pound animal from the livestock tent to her truck before the forecasted rain hit. The plan was to be in and out in 20 minutes, no detours, no small talk with neighbors who still gave him that sad, tight-lipped smile whenever they saw him at the grocery store.
He’d stopped at the pop-up beer garden first, though, because hauling a goat sounded better with a cold Pabst in his system first. The cicadas were screaming so loud they drowned out the county band’s cover of a John Mellencamp deep cut, and the can sweated through the paper koozie in seconds, soaking into the calluses on his palms worn rough from 32 years of climbing utility poles and two years of restoring his 1972 Ford F100 in his garage. He was leaning against a tent pole, scanning the crowd for his niece, when his elbow knocked into someone’s side.
He turned to apologize, and froze. Mara Carter, 49, ex-wife of his old line partner Jake, was brushing ranch dressing off her cutoff flannel shirt, her dark hair streaked with one thick silver stripe pulled back in a messy braid. They hadn’t spoken since 2013, when he and Jake had gotten into a screaming match over a mislabeled transformer that left half the town without power for 12 hours. Jake had blamed Clay, Clay had called Jake a lazy drunk, and they’d never patched it up. Unspoken small town rule said you didn’t so much as make eye contact with your former best friend’s ex-wife, even if the friend had skipped town for Florida three years prior.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, already stepping back, already mentally kicking himself for not bailing the second he parked his truck. Then her hand brushed his when she reached for the napkin dispenser next to his elbow, and he froze again. Her fingers were warm, calloused too; he remembered she ran a small woodworking shop out of her garage now, sold cutting boards and birdhouses at the farmers market every Saturday. She didn’t yank her hand away like he expected. She held it there for half a beat, her eyes flicking first to the thick, ragged scar across his left knuckle from the 2019 ice storm, then up to his face, a half-smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth.
“Recognized that scar before I saw your face,” she said, her voice low enough that only he could hear it over the noise of the fair. A group of kids ran past, chasing a cotton candy vendor, and she stumbled a little, her arm pressing into his bicep for three full seconds before she steadied herself. He could smell lavender lotion and fried green tomatoes on her, and something tight in his chest loosened, even as his brain screamed that this was a bad idea, that everyone who knew them was watching, that he was betraying a friend he hadn’t spoken to in a decade, that he had no business wanting anything from anyone after Linda died.
He should have left. He should have mumbled another excuse and gone to find his niece. Instead he asked how her woodworking shop was going, and her face lit up, and she leaned in a little closer so she didn’t have to yell over the cicadas, her shoulder brushing his every time someone walked past. She asked about the F100, the one he’d rambled about for years, the one he was supposed to drive up the Pacific coast with Linda before she got diagnosed. No one had asked him about that truck in years, not even his brother, who knew he spent 20 hours a week sanding the frame and swapping out parts in his garage.
The rain started 20 minutes later, light at first, then coming down hard enough that the fair crew started yelling about closing down the rides early. His niece had texted ten minutes prior to say her dad had showed up to help with the goat, no need for him to stick around. Mara grabbed his wrist, her fingers wrapping around the scar on his forearm from a 2008 line fire, and tugged him under the awning of her food stall, the one she ran on fair weekends selling fried green tomatoes and vegan lemonade. The picnic table under the awning was empty, the crowd having scattered to their cars, and the only sounds now were the patter of rain on the tin awning and the distant clank of the crew taking down the Ferris wheel.
She sat down across from him, and her foot brushed his under the table, deliberate this time, not an accident. She told him she and Jake had gotten divorced in 2020, that he’d moved to Florida to live with his new girlfriend, that no one had told Clay because everyone knew he kept to himself, that he never answered texts or returned calls. She said she’d had a crush on him since 2018, when she’d broken her ankle slipping on ice, and Jake had refused to leave the bar to help her bring groceries in, and Clay had been driving past, had carried all six bags up her porch steps for her, hadn’t even stayed for a glass of iced tea.
He didn’t say anything for a minute, too busy staring at the freckles across her nose, at the chipped blue nail polish on her fingers, at the way she was leaning forward, her elbows on the table, like she actually cared what he had to say. He’d spent four years convincing himself he didn’t deserve to want anything, that he was supposed to spend the rest of his life alone in his garage with his truck and his memories of Linda. He’d spent ten years convinced Jake would kill him if he so much as looked at Mara the wrong way. But when she reached across the table, brushing a fleck of cotton candy fuzz off the front of his flannel shirt, her fingers lingering on his chest for a beat, he didn’t pull away.
He told her he thought about that day too, the day he’d carried her groceries, that he’d driven home thinking about how much he hated Jake for being such an ass to her, that he’d thought about her more times than he was willing to admit over the last few years, even when he felt guilty for it. She smiled, and the rain slowed to a drizzle, and the streetlights came on, golden and soft through the mist.
They walked to his truck parked on the side of the road 10 minutes later, his hand brushing the small of her back when they stepped over a puddle. He opened the passenger door for her, and she paused before climbing in, leaning up to kiss him quick, her lips tasting like lemonade and mint. He leaned against the truck frame, watching her slide into the seat, the glow of the dashboard lights catching the silver streak in her hair as she reached over to turn his radio to the classic rock station he kept preset.
