Silas Voss, 63, retired smokejumper, stood in the fairgrounds line for a smoked turkey leg, work boots caked in dust kicked up by a pack of screaming kids darting past the corn dog stand. He’d planned to meet his old crew buddy Roy for the afternoon, but Roy texted an hour prior saying his left knee had swollen so bad he could barely tie his work boots, left Silas flying solo. He didn’t mind, mostly. The fair was the same as it had been for 40 years: ferris wheel creaking loud enough to cut through the country cover band playing by the grandstand, sharp tang of vinegar from the pickled egg stand mixing with sweet fried dough, old timers leaning on split rail fences arguing over prize heifer standings.
His flaw, one he’d nursed for 18 years ever since his wife left him for a craft brewery owner in Bend, was that he’d written off any kind of warm, casual connection with women as a waste of time, not worth the hassle of letting someone get close enough to disappoint him. So when he spotted Clara Mendez walking toward him, he almost turned and hid behind the cotton candy cart.
Clara was 48, the new head of the county’s rural health outreach clinic, and the woman who’d given him his shingles shot two weeks prior. He’d been flustered then, sitting on the exam table in flannel, her cool hand brushing hair off his upper arm before she swabbed it with alcohol, her laugh light when he flinched at the needle. He’d left the clinic with a dumb ache in his chest he hadn’t felt in decades, spent the next two weeks kicking himself for even noticing she was pretty, for replaying the way her gold hoops caught the exam room light when she leaned in to ask if he had other health concerns.
She waved when she got close, holding a sweating lime seltzer in one hand, neon pink fair wristband wrapped around her other wrist. She wasn’t in scrubs today: cutoff jean shorts, a faded 1998 Pearl Jam tour tee, canvas sneakers dotted with grass stains. She stood so close when she stopped that the coconut sunscreen she was wearing wrapped around him, warmer than the 82 degree air blowing across the fairgrounds. “Fancy seeing you here,” she said, grinning, and her arm brushed his when she nodded at the turkey leg stand. “Was that what you talked me into craving after your appointment? You kept going on about how these are the only ones west of the Rockies that don’t taste like shoe leather.”
Silas felt his ears go pink. He’d rambled about the fair turkey legs when he was in the exam room, nervous, trying to fill the silence so he wouldn’t say something stupid like tell her she had the nicest smile he’d seen in 20 years. He cleared his throat, kicked a loose clump of dirt with the toe of his boot. “They live up to the hype, far as I’m concerned. You here alone?”
She nodded, said her roommate had bailed last minute to go on a date with a guy who raised alpacas outside of town. They fell into step next to each other when the line moved forward, shoulders brushing every few steps, no space between them like they’d been walking together for years. Silas fought the split instinct to step away, to run back to his truck and drive home to his quiet garage where he restored vintage crosscut saws and didn’t have to feel the low, thrumming excitement in his chest he’d thought died when his wife left. He was disgusted with himself, almost, for being this giddy over a woman who’d only ever seen him in an exam room, for letting a simple brush of her arm make his hands shake a little when he pulled his wallet out to pay for his turkey leg, and for hers when she said she wanted one too.
They found an empty splintered wooden bench by the petting zoo to sit, the sound of goats bleating soft in the background. Their knees knocked when they shifted to get comfortable, rough denim of his work jeans rubbing against the softer fabric of her cutoffs, and neither of them moved away. She finished her turkey leg first, wiped her hands on a napkin, and when he looked over at her, she reached out and wiped a smudge of turkey grease and powdered sugar (he’d snuck a bite of a fried Oreo he’d bought for a dollar from a kid selling them out of a cooler) off his jaw. Her finger was warm, calloused a little at the tip, and she didn’t pull away right away, her thumb brushing the edge of his stubble for half a second before she leaned back.
“Full transparency,” she said, grinning like she knew exactly how flustered he was, “I almost called you last week. You mentioned you restore old crosscut saws in your garage. My dad left me one when he died, it’s all rusted shut, I haven’t been able to find anyone who knows what they’re doing to fix it. Wasn’t sure if it’d be weird to call a patient, though.”
Silas let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, the tight knot of guilt and stupid self-denial he’d been carrying for 18 years loosening a little. It wasn’t weird. She was off duty, he was just a guy who fixed saws, who liked turkey legs and old Pearl Jam records, who’d spent too long locking himself away from anything that didn’t involve his workshop or hunting trips up in the mountains. “Not weird at all,” he said, and for the first time in years, he didn’t feel like he was forcing a smile. “I got all the tools at my place. You can bring it over anytime, I’ll even throw in a beer after we’re done.”
She laughed, and when he asked if she wanted to ride the ferris wheel before the sun went down, she said yes immediately. He paid for their tickets, held the car door open for her when they got to the front of the line, and when the ferris wheel lurched upward, she leaned her shoulder against his, warm and solid, as the whole fairgrounds spread out below them, string lights flickering on one by one. When she laced her fingers through his, calloused palm against calloused palm, he didn’t pull away.
