Clay Bennett, 58, retired high-voltage lineman, spent 32 years climbing poles across rural western Ohio, left with a scar slashing across his left bicep from a 2019 ice storm, and a stubborn refusal to court any kind of attention after his wife left him for a traveling insurance salesman seven years prior. He’d told everyone who asked that he was perfectly happy alone, that his two coonhounds, a well-stocked chest freezer of venison, and weekly poker games with the guys from the union were all he needed. He hated small-town gossip most of all, went out of his way to avoid the huddles of retirees at the diner who lived for dissecting everyone else’s business.
It was the end of August, the kind of day where humidity clings to your skin like a damp shirt, and the whole town was buzzing about the county commissioner’s state senate run. Every stop sign had his sign stuck to the back, every diner placemat had his face on it, all of them touting his “devoted family man” persona, his pretty, quiet wife standing at his side in every photo. Clay had dodged three separate volunteer pitches for the campaign that morning already, first at the hardware store, then at the gas station, then again from a guy selling heirloom tomatoes at the farmers market where he’d stopped to grab the peach jam he ate on toast every morning.
He cut left around the honey stall to avoid a group of former county workers waving campaign signs, and ran straight into a woman carrying a stack of tattered western paperbacks. They spilled across the mulch, spines cracking against the dry wood chips. He knelt to grab them, his work boot scuffing the edge of a Louis L’Amour novel, and his hand brushed hers as they both reached for the same copy of *Hondo*. The scent of lavender lotion hit him first, brighter than the smell of grilled corn and cut grass hanging in the air, then he heard her laugh, low and warm, nothing like the tight, rehearsed smile he’d seen on her in every campaign ad.
It was Elara Voss, the commissioner’s wife. He recognized her now, out of the tailored pencil skirts and campaign sashes, in cut-off jean shorts and a faded Fleetwood Mac tee, her dark hair pulled back in a messy braid, eyeliner smudged slightly at the corners like she’d rubbed at it earlier that day. She thanked him, and said she remembered him too—he’d climbed the pole outside her lake cottage last January, when the ice storm took down half the lines on the west side of town, she’d brought him a mug of hot cocoa spiked with peppermint schnapps while he waited for his crew to catch up. He’d been half frozen, hadn’t even looked at her face back then, too focused on the frayed line 30 feet above his head.
He knew better than to stay. The commissioner was a petty son of a bitch, had cut the union’s retirement benefits two years prior just to fund a new country club parking lot, and anyone caught so much as looking at his wife wrong would end up on the wrong end of every code enforcement inspection in the county. Plus, the gossip would be unbearable, every old biddy in town would be talking about him for months, the retired lineman fooling around with the politician’s wife. He stood up, handed her the stack of books, and mumbled a quick apology, ready to bolt.
She didn’t let him leave. She leaned in, close enough that he could feel her breath on his neck, and said she’d been asking the guys at the hardware store about him for weeks. Said the marriage was a sham, the commissioner had been cheating on her with his 26-year-old campaign manager for six months, she was only sticking around through the election to make sure her alimony was locked in, that she was sick of smiling for photos and pretending she gave a damn about zoning laws. She brushed a strand of hair off her face, and her knee brushed his where she still knelt half on the ground, the soft fabric of her shorts catching on the frayed edge of his work jeans.
Every instinct he had screamed at him to walk away. He’d spent seven years avoiding drama, avoiding any kind of connection that would put him in the town’s crosshairs, perfectly happy in his quiet little ranch with his dogs and his jam and his fishing trips. But she looked up at him, no fake smile, no polished campaign persona, just tired, and honest, and said she’d been dying to go fishing at the old reservoir outside town, no one ever took her, she hated the fancy campaign dinners and the small talk and pretending she didn’t drink beer straight out of the can when her husband was out of town.
He didn’t even think before he spoke. Told her he had a 1987 Ranger bass boat he’d restored himself, that the reservoir was full of crappie this time of year, that the commissioner was scheduled to be in Columbus for a campaign fundraiser next Tuesday, he could pick her up at 6 a.m. at the end of her road, no one would see them. She grinned, the first real, unguarded smile he’d seen all day, grabbed a library checkout receipt from the pocket of her shorts, scribbled her cell number on the back, and shoved it into the pocket of his faded flannel shirt, her fingers brushing the edge of the chest hair peeking out of the unbuttoned collar. Told him not to be late.
He walked back to his truck, the peach jam completely forgotten, the receipt crumpled in his fist under his shirt. He passed the group of retirees by the corn stand yelling about how the commissioner was the “only honest politician left in Ohio” and how everyone needed to get out and vote for him, and he just tipped his faded Browns cap and kept walking, no retort, no eye contact. His two hound dogs were panting in the bed of the truck, tails thumping against the metal when they saw him. He climbed in the cab, turned the key, and the old radio blared Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” loud enough to rattle the windows. He pulled out of the parking lot, already making a mental list of minnows and cold beer to pick up from the bait shop on Monday night.
