Dale Rainer, 58, retired electric lineman with a scar slashing across his left eyebrow from a 2017 pole fall, sat slouched on a wobbly folding chair in the Auglaize County Fair beer tent, sweating through the sleeves of his faded plaid flannel even with the overhead fans whirring. He’d mowed three acres that morning, skipped his usual post-mow nap to avoid his neighbor’s endless rants about property taxes, and the frosty plastic cup of Pabst in his calloused hand was the first thing that had felt right all day. The air reeked of fried Oreos, burnt pork chops, and the sweet cloying scent of cotton candy drifting from the midway, and the local cover band banged out a rough version of *Folsom Prison Blues* loud enough that his boots vibrated against the grass-stained plywood floor. He’d spent the last hour pointedly avoiding the school district’s booth 20 feet away; he’d carried a grudge against that board for 12 years, ever since they’d gutted the high school shop program he’d volunteered at for 22 years, teaching kids to rewire outlets and fix pickup trucks before they graduated.
He’d just popped a salted peanut in his mouth when a woman tripped over the cooler at the end of his table, her elbow slamming into his bicep hard enough that he almost spilled his beer. Cold condensation from her plastic lemonade cup left a dark wet streak down the sleeve of his flannel, and when she turned to apologize, he recognized her immediately: Clara Bennett, 56, former elementary school principal, former school board president, the woman he’d blamed for the shop program cut for over a decade. He tensed, jaw tightening, already halfway to standing to move to a different table when she sat down across from him, dabbing at the corner of her mouth with a crumpled napkin. She was wearing a loose yellow sundress printed with sunflowers, silver hair pulled back in a braid that fell over one shoulder, and there was a tiny pale scar on her left wrist that he’d never noticed before. He’d only ever seen her in blazers and slacks at school board meetings, red faced and yelling over the crowd of angry parents and trade workers the night the program got cut.
He said nothing, stared at his beer, waiting for her to leave. Instead she leaned forward, elbows on the sticky table, and said she’d recognized him the second she tripped, that she’d been meaning to talk to him for 12 years. He scoffed, said he didn’t have anything to say to her. She smiled, a little lopsided, and told him she’d voted against cutting the program, had been outvoted 5-2, and that she’d chased him out to the parking lot after that meeting to tell him but he’d peeled out of the lot so fast he’d kicked gravel all over her shoes. He blinked, taken aback; he’d never heard that, had assumed she’d led the charge to defund the program to funnel more money to the football team. She told him her oldest son had been in the shop program his junior year, had learned to rebuild his first truck from Dale, now worked as an HVAC tech in Columbus making six figures. She’d been widowed three years, she said, had quit the board to spend more time working on a new vocational program the district had finally approved last month, aimed at kids who didn’t want to go to college.
The crowd in the tent shifted, a group of drunk farmers stumbling past to get to the bar, and she slid into the seat next to him to make room, her shoulder pressing against his, warm through the thin fabric of her dress. He could smell lavender hand lotion on her, mixed with the faint smoky scent of the charcoal grill outside the tent, and when she reached across him to grab a handful of peanuts from his bowl, their fingers brushed, her skin soft against his rough, calloused knuckles. He hadn’t been that close to a woman since his wife left him for a travel nurse seven years prior, and he felt his throat go dry, a weird flutter in his chest that he hadn’t felt since he was a teenager. He was still mad, still embarrassed he’d wasted 12 years hating her for something she didn’t do, but he couldn’t bring himself to move away.
The band slowed down, shifted into a wobbly, slow cover of *Stand By Your Man*, and a handful of couples wandered out onto the patch of grass just outside the tent to dance. She nudged his knee with hers, asked him if he danced. He shook his head, said he hadn’t danced since his 25th wedding anniversary, that he had two left feet and would probably step on her dress. She laughed, a rough, gravelly sound like she smoked a menthol every now and then, and grabbed his wrist, her fingers wrapping around it gentle but firm, said no one was watching except the guys at the bar who were too drunk to remember their own names. He let her pull him to his feet, let her lead him out to the grass, his hand settling on her waist, his palm warm through the thin fabric of her sundress, her hand resting light on his shoulder. They swayed slow, off beat, their faces only a few inches apart, and he could feel the heat off her cheek, see the tiny laugh lines around her hazel eyes when she grinned up at him. He told her he’d fantasized about yelling at her at the grocery store at least a dozen times over the years, and she laughed, said she’d driven past his house three times with a plate of cookies to apologize, had been too scared he’d slam the door in her face.
The song ended a minute later, and they walked back to the table, their shoulders still brushing. She grabbed her canvas tote from the chair, pulled out a crumpled flier for the new vocational program, the first planning meeting scheduled for the next Tuesday at 7pm in the old shop room. She handed it to him, their fingers lingering together for a beat longer than necessary, and told him she needed someone who knew what they were doing to run the electrical track, that no one else in the county had half his experience. He took the flier, folded it up and stuck it in the pocket of his jeans, nodded. She slung her tote over her shoulder, told him she’d see him Tuesday, and turned to walk away, her sundress fluttering in the soft summer breeze. She looked over her shoulder halfway to the midway, winked, and disappeared into the crowd. He sat back down, picked up his beer, took a long sip, and looked down at the faint wet streak still on the sleeve of his flannel, the same one her lemonade cup had left an hour earlier.
