Cole Henderson, 58, retired Yellowstone park ranger, had shown up to the Maplewood Fire Department pig roast only because his next-door neighbor had banged on his cabin door at 2 p.m. holding a cooler of craft beer and threatened to mow his wildflower lawn if he hid inside for one more weekend. He’d lost his wife Elaine to ovarian cancer three years prior, and his least favorite thing in the world was the tight, pitying smiles people shot him when they thought he wasn’t looking, the awkward “you doing okay?” small talk that always ended with someone mentioning how much they missed her pecan pie. He’d spent the first 45 minutes of the event leaned against the splintered wooden support pole of the beer tent, nursing a warm IPA and avoiding eye contact with half his 1983 high school graduating class, the air thick with the smell of hickory smoke, grilled onions, and the sweet chemical tang of kids’ cherry snow cones dripping onto the grass.
He was debating slipping out the back when she walked up. Lila Marlow, 47, newly divorced town clerk, had moved back to Maplewood the year prior to take care of her ailing dad, Cole’s old football coach. Cole still thought of her as the pigtailed 10-year-old who’d snuck frogs into his gym bag when he’d babysit her and her brother on Friday nights, so he froze when she stopped just a foot away, close enough that he could pick up the coconut scent of her sunscreen over the smoke, the faint warm tang of bourbon on her breath when she grinned. Her auburn hair had streaks of silver running through it, pulled back in a loose braid, and she was wearing faded cutoff jean shorts, a white linen button-down tied at the waist, and work boots caked in mud from helping fix the town playground’s swing set earlier that day.
Cole huffed a laugh, the tight knot in his shoulders loosening a little. He’d forgotten how sharp her sense of humor was, how her left eye crinkled a little more than her right when she smiled. He made a joke about the dentist’s terrible 1998 comb-over, and she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, clapping a hand over her mouth, and when she shifted her weight to stand closer, her knee brushed his, the rough denim of her shorts catching on the frayed cuff of his work pants.
He felt a flicker of guilt then, sharp and hot, like he was doing something wrong. She was Coach Marlow’s kid, for Christ’s sake, half the town had watched her grow up. He tried to remind himself she was a grown woman, almost 50, had been married for 20 years and ran the entire town’s administrative department now, but he still felt like he should be looking over his shoulder for someone to judge him. When she grabbed his forearm to point out a kid tripping over a folding chair and face-planting into a plate of potato salad, her hand was warm, calloused from the weekend gardening she posted about on the town Facebook group, and it stayed on his arm a beat longer than necessary, her thumb brushing the scar he’d gotten from a grizzly bear encounter in 2010, before she pulled away.
The band kicked into a terrible cover of John Mellencamp’s Jack & Diane, and the crowd roared, the noise loud enough that they had to lean in almost cheek to cheek to hear each other talk. She told him she’d been stopping by his cabin a few times over the past six months to drop off extra tomatoes from her dad’s garden, but she’d never seen his truck in the driveway, had figured he was avoiding everyone. He admitted he’d been hiding, that he’d forgotten what it felt like to talk to someone who didn’t start every conversation with a reference to Elaine. She nodded, said she got it, that people had been treating her like a broken toy ever since her divorce, like she couldn’t be trusted to make her own choices.
When she suggested they ditch the pig roast and walk down to the old swimming hole at the edge of town, the one they’d both gone to as kids, Cole hesitated for half a second. He thought about the gossip that would spread if anyone saw them leaving together, about Coach Marlow’s reaction, about how guilty he’d felt 10 minutes earlier for even noticing how her freckles spilled across her shoulders where her shirt slipped down. Then he looked at her, grinning, holding up a half-full bottle of bourbon she’d pulled out of her back pocket, and he nodded.
They walked the half-mile dirt path through the oak trees, the noise of the pig roast fading behind them, the air smelling like pine and damp earth. When they got to the dock, Lila kicked off her boots, rolled up her shorts, and dipped her feet in the cold spring water, patting the spot next to her for Cole to sit. He sat down, their shoulders pressed tight together, no space between them, and she passed him the bourbon bottle. She told him she’d had a crush on him since she was 16, when he’d come to her high school graduation party and carried her passed-out older brother home without making fun of him, that she’d been working up the nerve to talk to him for months.
Cole laughed, quiet, the guilt melting away entirely, replaced by a warm, light buzz he hadn’t felt in years. He told her he’d felt like a creep all night for staring at her, for wanting to reach out and tuck that loose strand of hair behind her ear, and she laughed, leaning into his side. The sun was dipping below the tree line, painting the water pink and orange, when she tilted her chin up to look at him, her hand resting on his thigh. He leaned in, his hand cupping her jaw, and kissed her, slow, the bourbon sweet on her lips, the cold water lapping at the edges of the dock under their feet. A dragonfly buzzed past their heads, landing on the end of the dock for half a second before flying off into the trees.
