Roland Voss, 52, has built custom fishing rods out of his clapboard garage in coastal Maine for 15 years, and he’s held the same grudge for 12 of them. Stubbornness is less a flaw for him than a default setting—he’d rather drive 20 minutes out of his way to avoid the local animal rescue’s fundraiser than cross paths with Clara Hale, his ex-wife’s former maid of honor, who he was convinced sold the coordinates of his secret striped bass spot to a tourism company back in 2011. He only leaves his shop twice a month for supplies, and once a year for the town’s annual lobster festival, where he sells affordable rod blanks and hand-carved keychains to tourists who don’t know the difference between a spinning rod and a fly rod.
The August air smells like melted butter, fried clam batter, and salt that sticks to the back of his throat by 7 PM, when most of the festival booths are starting to pack up. He’s wiping down a stack of bamboo blanks when a scuffed white canvas sneaker nudges the toe of his work boot, soft, accidental. He looks up, and there she is. Clara’s 49, her dark hair streaked with gray and pulled back in a messy braid, a tattoo of a dog paw wrapping around her left wrist, holding a plastic cup of blueberry lemonade that sweats down the sides onto her cut-off jean shorts. She leans against the edge of his booth, close enough that he can smell lavender sunscreen and the faint, sharp tang of pine from the dog shampoo she uses at the rescue, and holds his gaze for three full beats before she smirks.
“Was beginning to think you’d bolt early again this year,” she says, and her voice is lower than he remembers, rougher, like she spends half her day yelling to be heard over barking dogs. He fumbles the blank he’s holding, knocks a stack of business cards off the edge of the table, and when they both reach down to grab them, his calloused knuckle brushes the soft skin of her forearm. He yanks his hand back like he’s been burned, and she laughs, a warm, throaty sound that cuts through the scratch of the bluegrass fiddle playing three booths over.
They make awkward small talk first, him grunting short answers about his shop, her telling him about the 12 new rescue puppies they’d picked up from a hoarder house down the coast the week before. He can’t stop staring at the way the fading sun hits the silver streaks in her hair, the way she licks a drop of lemonade off her lower lip when she’s talking about the golden retriever puppy she’d adopted last month. The memory of his lost fishing spot itches at the back of his skull, and before he can stop himself, he snaps at her, asks her why she even bothered talking to him after she sold his spot out to the tourists who now crowd it every weekend.
She blinks, then laughs so hard she snorts, ice clinking loud in her cup. “You think that was me?” she says, shaking her head. “Your ex sold those coordinates. I found the email chain in her old laptop when I helped her move out after you two split. She was mad you spent more time on the water than with her, thought if the spot got crowded you’d stay home more.” Roland feels his face go hot, stupid, 12 years of resentment curdling in his stomach for no reason. He apologizes, gruff, and she waves it off, says she knew he’d figure it out eventually, that she’d stopped by his booth every year for a decade trying to tell him, but he always packed up and left before she could get two words out.
The last of the festival vendors fold up their tables as the sun dips lower, painting the sky pink and tangerine over the Atlantic. She asks him if he wants to walk down to the old public dock to watch the sunset, and he hesitates for half a second before he nods, locks up his booth, and falls into step beside her. The boardwalk creaks under their feet, salt wind tangling their hair, and when a group of rowdy teens on bikes blows past them, she steps closer, her shoulder pressing firm against his bicep for a full ten seconds before she pulls back. He doesn’t say anything, but his skin tingles where she touched him, warm even through the thick flannel of his work shirt.
They sit on the edge of the dock, their legs dangling over the cold, dark water, and she passes him her half-empty lemonade cup. He takes a sip, sweet and tart, better than any beer he’s drunk all month. He remembers the small, 5-foot custom rod he’d built for a local kid who never showed up to pick it up, stashed in the back of his truck, and he stands, walks to get it, brings it back to her. It’s wrapped in brown paper, the grip carved from cedar he’d cut down on his property, the guide wraps a soft blue that matches her eyes. “For when you want to take a break from rescuing dogs,” he says, and his voice is rougher than he intends. “I’ve got a spot no one else knows about now. We could go out next Saturday, if you want.”
She takes the rod, her fingers wrapping around his where he holds the base, and holds his gaze, no smirk this time, just soft, open interest. The last sliver of sun slips below the horizon, and a group of seagulls cries overhead as they fly back to their nests on the nearby island. She squeezes his hand once, slow, before she lets go to run her finger over the carved cedar grip. “I’ll bring the lemonade,” she says.
