Clay Bennett leans against the dented metal cooler at the West Boise block party, 58 years old, calloused hands wrapped around a cold hazy IPA, the scar across his left forearm from a 2019 grizzly encounter itching a little in the 82-degree July heat. He’s only lived in the neighborhood 11 months, moved down from Montana after his granddaughter was born, and most days he still feels like an outsider, too used to quiet mountain trails instead of the constant hum of lawn mowers and kid’s bike bells. He’d almost skipped the party, planned to stay home and rewatch old episodes of *Yellowstone* instead, but his daughter had dropped off a six pack that morning and told him to get out of the house, so he’d showed up in scuffed work boots and the faded Forest Service tee he wears 90% of the time.
He’s watching a group of teens toss a frisbee across the street when someone reaches past him for a lime seltzer, their bare elbow brushing the soft, sunburnt skin of his bicep. The scent hits him first: lavender laundry soap, and a faint whiff of cedar smoke, like she’d spent the morning sitting by a campfire. He turns, and it’s Mara, the woman who lives two doors down from him, the one he’s seen carrying crates of records into her ground-floor vintage shop on weekends. She’s 54, he later learns, divorced, silver streaks running through the wavy auburn hair she has pulled back in a loose braid, a tiny pine tree tattoo curling around her left wrist, cutoff denim shorts and a faded Tom Petty tour tee that fits just loose enough to tease the curve of her shoulder.
She laughs when she sees his Forest Service shirt, says she recognized his last name on the condo mailboxes last week, that she was married to his cousin Jax for 18 years. Clay’s jaw tightens immediately. He hasn’t spoken to Jax in 12 years, not since they fought over that 10-acre strip of family land outside Missoula, Jax wanting to sell it to a developer to build a luxury vacation complex, Clay fighting to keep it wild, the way his grandpa had wanted. For a second he’s ready to mumble an excuse and walk away, disgusted with himself for even thinking about talking to the ex-wife of the guy he still considers a selfish asshole, convinced any kind of connection here is some kind of double betrayal: to Jax, even if he hates him, and to Diane, his wife who died seven years ago, who he still talks to every night before he goes to bed.
But then she leans in closer, her shoulder pressing against his to talk over the crackle of the taco truck grill and the shout of a kid chasing a golden retriever past them, and she says she left Jax six years ago, when she found out he’d been cheating on her with a 27-year-old barista from his favorite coffee shop, that she hasn’t spoken to him since, either. He relaxes a little, then, the tension leaching out of his shoulders, and he finds himself telling her about the land dispute, about the grizzly that gave him the scar, about Diane, about how he hasn’t so much as bought a woman a drink since she died, too scared he’d be doing something wrong.
She nods like she gets it, says she didn’t date for three years after the divorce, too convinced anyone new would just let her down, too used to putting everyone else’s needs first. When she takes a sip of her seltzer, her knee brushes his, and he doesn’t move away. She hands him a warm chocolate chip cookie she baked that morning, her thumb brushing the back of his hand when he takes it, and he swears his skin tingles for five full minutes after. They talk for almost two hours, watching the sun dip lower in the sky, painting the foothills pink and tangerine, and by the time the block party starts to wind down, most of the other neighbors have packed up their coolers and headed inside.
She asks if he wants to come back to her shop, says she picked up a box of old John Prine records at an estate sale last weekend, knows he’ll appreciate them, that she’s got a cold six pack of his favorite IPA in the mini fridge behind the counter. He hesitates for half a second, the old guilt flaring, the voice in his head telling him he shouldn’t go, that he’s too old for this, that he’s betraying Diane by even considering it. But then she tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear, and grins, the corners of her eyes crinkling, and he realizes Diane would have yelled at him for staying home alone for seven years, would have told him to stop being an idiot and have some fun for once.
He nods. She locks up her cooler, slings her canvas tote bag over her shoulder, and they walk the half block to her shop, the sidewalk still warm under his boots, the sound of crickets starting to chirp in the grass along the curb. She unlocks the front door, the little brass bell above the frame jingling softly, and the smell of old vinyl and roasted coffee wraps around him as he steps inside after her.
