The scent of jasmine shampoo hit him before he saw her, cutting through the smell of charcoal smoke and burnt bratwurst like a knife. He turned to grab a second IPA, and his hand brushed another reaching for the same cooler handle. The jolt went up his arm fast, like static from an old CRT television, and he yanked his hand back so hard he knocked a can of seltzer off the cooler edge, it fizzed all over the gravel at their feet.
“Easy there, tiger,” a voice said, laughing. He looked down, and there she was: Elara Voss, Diane’s first cousin, the last time he’d seen her she was 20, puffy-eyed at Diane’s funeral, wearing a black dress that was too big for her, clutching a crumpled tissue. Now she was 41, sun streaks in her dark wavy hair, a tiny silver hoop in her left nostril, cutoff jeans showing freckles on her thighs, a worn green flannel tied around her waist. She knelt to grab the fizzing seltzer can, her white tank top riding down a little at the neck, and he looked away fast, his ears burning like he was 16 again getting caught staring at a girl at the drive-in.
She stood, wiping damp gravel off her jeans, and leaned against the cooler next to him, her hip barely an inch from his, no space to pretend they weren’t pressed together. “You’re Leo, right? Diane’s husband. I’d know that grumpy scowl anywhere. You used to yell at me for sneaking peach hard cider out of your fridge when I was 17.”
He grunted, wiping condensation off his IPA can on his jeans. “You used to leave the cap off the rest so it went flat. I still hold that against you.”
He knew people were watching. He saw Mrs. Henderson from three houses down staring over her bowl of potato salad, her glasses perched on the end of her nose, already mentally drafting the town gossip newsletter entry about the widowed air traffic controller fraternizing with his dead wife’s much younger cousin. He raised his beer at her, and she huffed, turning away fast, and he snort-laughed before he could stop himself.
“Gossips,” he said, nodding toward Mrs. Henderson’s back. “They’ve got nothing better to do than watch me stand next to a pretty girl at a cookoff.”
The second the words left his mouth he wanted to kick himself. He’d not called a woman pretty out loud in 8 years, not since Diane had gotten sick. He tensed, waiting for her to look uncomfortable, to make an excuse and leave, but she just grinned, leaning in closer, her breath warm against his ear over the sound of the band. “Let ’em talk. I moved back here to sell succulents, not impress a bunch of retirees with nothing better to do than judge people.”
That line snapped something loose in him. For 8 years he’d lived like a ghost in his own house, eating frozen dinners alone, refusing all invites to cookoffs or trivia nights or fishing trips, scared if he did anything that felt like joy he was betraying Diane’s memory, scared the gossips would say he’d moved on too fast, that he didn’t love her enough. He looked at Elara, her eyes bright, her arm still pressed to his, and he didn’t care what Mrs. Henderson thought, didn’t care what the voice in his head that sounded like his own guilt was screaming.
“You said you liked my ribs, right?” he said, before he could talk himself out of it. “The smoked ones I used to make for Thanksgiving. Come over Saturday around 6. I’ll have a rack ready. And no, you can’t steal my hard cider, but I’ll buy you your own six pack of the good stuff.”
She whooped, punching his arm lightly, hard enough that he felt it through his shirt. She dug a crumpled napkin and a ballpoint pen out of her backpack, scribbled her number on it, doodled a lopsided pothos leaf next to the digits, and shoved it in his palm, her fingers lingering on his skin for a beat longer than necessary. “Don’t burn them,” she said, and then her friend called her name from across the park, she waved, and walked off, her boots kicking up little clouds of gravel as she went.
He stood there for a minute, holding the napkin, the ink smudging a little from the dampness on his hand. He shoved it in the front pocket of his jeans, took a long pull of his IPA, the bitter cold cutting through the heat in his cheeks. He knew he’d spend the next three days overthinking it, replaying every second of the conversation, worrying he’d crossed a line, worrying Diane would be angry, but he also knew he hadn’t looked forward to a single day this much in almost a decade. He pulled out his beat up old iPhone, typed the number in, sent a quick text: “Ribs are dry rub only. No sauce slobs allowed.” A minute later, his phone buzzed: “Good. I bring my own habanero sauce anyway. Save me two cobbler servings, I heard the prize one is insane.” He shoved the phone back in his pocket, turned toward the dessert table, and grabbed two of the peach cobbler containers off the top of the stack.
