Clay Bennett, 58, retired wildfire crew lead with 32 years of U.S. Forest Service time under his belt, leans against the scarred oak bar of Boise’s VFW Post 390, nursing a neat bourbon. His work boots are still caked with dust from the day’s wildfire prevention fair, where he’d run the fire extinguisher demo booth for six straight hours, and his left shoulder aches from hauling 20-pound demo units back and forth. His biggest flaw, one he’d admit to if pressed, is that he’s spent the seven years since his wife Karen died of ovarian cancer refusing to let anyone new sit in the passenger seat of his life, convinced even a casual coffee with another woman is a betrayal. He’s spent the last two years badmouthing Mayor Lila Marlow at every town hall, certain her push to cut prescribed burn budgets was performative environmentalism that would get someone killed in the next fire season.
He’s mid-sip when the door swings open, and Lila walks in, blazer still on from her opening remarks at the fair, heels dangling from two fingers, bare feet sticking slightly to the sticky linoleum floor. She orders the exact same small-batch bourbon he drinks, neat, no ice, and the bartender nods like he’s used to it. She glances over, catches him staring, and smirks before sauntering over to his end of the bar, pulling out the stool two down before sliding one closer, close enough that the knee of her tailored slacks brushes his denim-clad thigh when she sits. He tenses, half ready to snap about the budget cuts before she holds up a hand, stopping him.
“Before you start,” she says, her voice low and rough from a day of shouting over fair speakers, “I know you’re mad about the prescribed burn line item. I had to shift that money to replace the 40-year-old water tanks out in the rural canyon districts, remember the blaze that took three homes last July? Half the hydrants out there ran dry in 90 minutes. I didn’t have a choice, and I couldn’t say anything publicly while we negotiated the grant match.” The words sink in slow, and Clay’s jaw unclenches, the anger he’s carried for 12 months softening at the edges. He can smell her perfume now, pine and vanilla, like the high elevation meadows he used to hike on his days off, and when she passes him a bowl of salted peanuts the bartender set down in front of her, her hand brushes his, callus on her index finger rough against his knuckle, a callus he recognizes from shooting sporting clays, the same spot his own callus sits.
He shifts in his seat, equal parts embarrassed at how wrong he was about her, and furious at himself for the jolt of heat that runs up his arm when their hands touch. He’d walked past her booth at the fair earlier, noticed how her grey-streaked hair fell over her eyes when she knelt to talk to a kid with a plastic fire hat, but he’d brushed the thought off as exhaustion, nothing more. Now they’re talking, about the fire season, about the way pine beetles are chewing through the ponderosa stands east of town, and she leans in when he talks, head tilted, eyes locked on his like every word he says matters. No one has listened that closely to him since Karen died. A group of off-duty firefighters walks past, bumping her stool, and she slides closer, her shoulder pressed firm to his, warm through the thin cotton of his work shirt, and he doesn’t move away.
She laughs at a dumb joke he makes about the old Forest Service trucks that always broke down mid-burn, and he can smell the bourbon on her breath, warm and sweet, when she turns her face to his, her shoulder still pressed to his. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and her thumb brushes the edge of his jaw by accident, light as a raindrop, and his breath catches. He’s spent seven years convincing himself he’d never feel that flutter in his chest again, that desire was something he left behind with Karen’s last hospital bed, and for a second he feels sick, guilty, like he’s doing something wrong, before the feeling fades, replaced by the quiet thrill of being seen, of being wanted, even if it’s just for a minute.
“Your truck,” she says, nodding toward the parking lot where his restored 1972 F150 is parked, polished to a deep cherry red, “my dad had the exact same one. Learned to drive in it, out on the dirt roads outside of McCall. Would you ever give me a ride sometime?” He hesitates for half a second, the ghost of Karen’s laugh in his ear, before he nods, says “Yeah, Saturday works. I’ll even let you shift if you want.” Her grin is bright, unselfconscious, and she grabs a napkin, scribbles her number on it, shoves it in the front pocket of his work shirt, her hand brushing his chest through the fabric.
The drizzle has turned to light rain by the time they walk out to the parking lot, and he holds the door of her hybrid SUV open for her, his hand on the top of the door frame to keep her from hitting her head. She grabs his wrist before he can step back, her fingers warm around his skin, and says “I’ll text you first thing Saturday, don’t make other plans.” He nods, watches her pull out of the parking lot, taillights fading into the rain, before he climbs into his own truck.
He stops at the stop sign by the city park, the same one he and Karen used to stop at on their way home from date nights, and turns on the radio, Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” playing, the same song they danced to at their wedding. He taps the empty passenger seat twice, soft, like he’s letting Karen know it’s okay, before he presses on the gas, heading home.
