Moe Pritchard, 62, spent 38 years tending honeybees across 40 acres of north Georgia pine barrens before he sold 90% of his hives three years prior, two weeks after his wife Linda’s funeral. He avoided every small town community event after that, sick of the tight-lipped smiles, the claps on the shoulder, the unspoken “poor Moe” that hung in the air every time someone recognized his beat-up work boots and the permanent bee sting scar slicing through his left eyebrow. The only reason he showed up to the county fire department’s annual chili cookoff was his old high school buddy, now fire chief, had showed up at his cabin at 7 a.m. with a six pack of Pabst and threatened to fill his bird feeders with fire ant bait if he bailed again. He brought a crockpot of chili infused with his own wildflower honey, kept his head down, claimed the first empty folding chair he saw at the far end of the picnic table, planning to eat his serving and slip out before anyone could corner him.
The chair beside him was empty for 47 minutes. He was halfway through his second bowl, wiping chili grease off his calloused palms on the thigh of his faded Carhartts, when the metal legs scraped the gravel beside him. He didn’t look up until the smell of lavender hand cream cut through the thick cloud of chili smoke and burnt hot dogs. Clara Mercer. 58, owner of the town’s only used bookstore, ex-wife of Jake Mercer, the quarterback who’d broken Moe’s rib during the 1979 regional football championship and spent the next 40 years bragging about it at every class reunion. He’d never spoken more than three words to her in his life, had written her off as just another accessory to Jake’s loud, arrogant routine. She set a jar of dill pickles on the table between them, her forearm brushing his as she reached for a stack of paper plates, the soft knit of her cream sweater catching on a rough patch of skin on his wrist where a bee had stung him two days prior.
He froze. He told himself he should move, should grab his crockpot and leave, that talking to Jake’s ex was the kind of small town gossip that would spread faster than a wildfire in the pine barrens. But when he glanced up, she was already looking at him, her dark brown eyes crinkled at the corners, a half-smirk playing on her mouth. “Heard your chili’s the only one here that doesn’t taste like boot leather and regret,” she said, nodding at his crockpot. Her voice was lower than he expected, rough around the edges like she spent half her day yelling at teenagers for stealing paperback romance novels off the front shelf. He grunted, served her a bowl, kept his eyes on the table, but he could feel her sitting so close their shoulders were almost touching, could hear the tap of her silver ring against the plastic bowl as she stirred the chili. She had ink stains on her thumb and index finger, a silver streak running through the side of her dark hair that caught the light of the string lights strung above the picnic tables.
They didn’t talk about Jake, didn’t talk about Linda, didn’t talk about any of the heavy stuff everyone else always wanted to drag up. She teased him for putting honey in chili, said it was “too fancy for a hillbilly beekeeper,” he teased her for bringing pickles to a cookoff, said she was the only person in town who’d ever turn down free fire department cornbread. When a group of kids ran past, one of them knocked a cup of sweet tea off the table, and she leaned into him to avoid getting splashed, her hand landing on his knee for three full seconds before she pulled it away, her cheeks going pink. He didn’t flinch. He’d spent three years avoiding any kind of physical contact that wasn’t a clap on the shoulder or a handshake, and the weight of her hand on his jeans sent a jolt up his spine he hadn’t felt since he was 17, sneaking Linda into the back of his pickup after football games. He felt stupid for it, felt like he was betraying Linda, felt like an idiot for even noticing how the silver streak in her hair glowed when the sun hit it, but he couldn’t make himself stand up and leave.
The cookoff wrapped up around 8, the sky opening up into a cold, steady rain right as the last of the prizes were handed out. Moe’s chili won second place, he stuffed the $25 gift card to the local hardware store in his pocket, and noticed Clara hovering by the edge of the awning, staring at her car across the parking lot, her jacket slung over her arm. “Battery died on me last week,” she said, when he walked over. “Forgot to get it replaced. Was gonna call a tow, but they’re backed up because of the storm.” He hesitated for half a second, then nodded at his truck parked two spots over. “I’ll drive you home. Or to the bookstore, if you need to grab something.” She didn’t argue. They ran through the rain to his truck, laughing when a gust of wind soaked the back of his flannel shirt. When he pulled up to the bookstore, the neon “OPEN” sign still glowing faintly in the window, she didn’t get out right away. She turned to him, her hand resting on the door handle, and reached out, brushing a stray piece of pine straw off his shoulder, her thumb brushing the scar on his eyebrow. “I always thought you were the better one back then,” she said, quiet, like she was afraid someone would hear. “Jake was just loud. You were the one who stopped to help me pick up my books when he tripped me in the hallway senior year. I never forgot that.”
He didn’t say anything for a long time, just stared at her, the rain tapping against the truck windows, the radio playing an old Johnny Cash song low in the background. He’d spent three years locked up in his cabin, convinced he’d never feel anything but grief again, convinced any kind of joy was a betrayal of the 35 years he’d had with Linda. But he didn’t feel guilty right then. He felt light, like the weight he’d been carrying around since the funeral had lifted just a little. She invited him in for sweet tea, and he said yes. They stayed up till 10 sitting on her couch, going through old high school yearbooks, laughing at the terrible 70s haircuts, sharing a jar of her dill pickles. When he left, he set the jar of wildflower honey he’d kept in his truck for weeks on her counter, and she leaned in, kissing him soft on the corner of his mouth before he opened the door. He turned the key in his truck, the warm taste of her peppermint lip balm still lingering on the edge of his lips, and smiled for the first time in three years without feeling guilty about it.
