He tensed immediately. He’d know that lavender laundry detergent scent anywhere, even mixed with citronella and dog fur. Marnie Cole, 52, his ex-wife’s second cousin, the woman he’d spent 20 years hating for allegedly snitching on him for skipping out on his daughter’s first birthday to go bass fishing on Lake Erie. He’d not spoken a single word to her since the blowup that followed, had avoided family gatherings for years just to skip running into her, and here she was, leaning past him to grab a Miller Lite from the cooler, a silver streak slicing through the dark braid slung over her shoulder, calloused fingers wrapped around the cold glass. She turned, recognized him, and smirked, the corner of her mouth tugging up the same way it had the night they’d almost kissed in his ex-wife’s basement after a Fourth of July party 21 years prior.
“Still wearing that beat up hat, I see,” she said, wiping condensation off her beer bottle on the leg of her denim skirt. His jaw clenched, ready to snap a retort about it being none of her business, before she held up a hand, cutting him off. “Before you start, I never told Linda you skipped Lila’s birthday. Janice saw your truck at the boat ramp, ran her mouth, and let me take the fall because she was mad I turned down her brother for a date. I’ve been waiting 20 years to tell you that.”
Dale froze, the cold of his beer cup seeping through the cardboard sleeve to make his fingers ache. He’d carried that grudge for two full decades, had let it fester so long it had become a comfortable, familiar weight in his chest, and now she was telling him it had all been for nothing. He stared at her, at the laugh lines fanning out from the corners of her hazel eyes, the faint scar across her left eyebrow from when she’d crashed a dirt bike as a teen, the way she leaned in a little like she was waiting for him to yell, and he couldn’t summon a single angry word. He nodded, grunted, and gestured to the empty spot across from him at the splintered picnic table tucked in the shadow of the tent, out of the way of the passing crowds.
She sat, her knee brushing his under the table by accident, and he felt a jolt shoot up his spine that he hadn’t felt since he was a kid sneaking his dad’s beer out on the porch. They talked first about the fair, the way the Tilt-a-Whirl had broken down mid-ride that afternoon, the terrible fair food, then she told him about the animal rescue she ran out on the edge of town, how she’d picked up three beagles from a hoarder house two days prior, all matted and skittish. He told her about the 1978 Alumacraft fishing boat he’d been restoring in his garage since he retired last year, the scar on his left forearm from climbing a power line in the middle of a 2012 ice storm, how his grandkids kept begging him to take them tubing on the river.
The band switched to a slow, twangy cover of Something Like That, and the remaining couples in the fairground swayed together under the string lights strung between the oak trees. Marnie leaned in a little closer to be heard over the music, her shoulder pressing against his now, not by accident, and he could see the flecks of gold in her eyes when she looked up at him. She admitted she’d always had a thing for him back then, thought he was the only guy in the family who didn’t treat her like a dumb reckless kid, that she’d regretted not telling him Janice had ratted him out for years, but she’d been too stubborn to track him down after the divorce. He admitted he’d thought about that almost-kiss in the basement more times than he’d ever admit to anyone, even when he was still married, that he’d hated her for so long mostly because he was embarrassed he’d gotten caught, not because he was mad she’d told.
The fair started winding down around them, vendors turning off their fryers, kids yawning as their parents herded them to parked cars, the band packing up their gear. Marnie grabbed a napkin from the dispenser on the table, scrawled her phone number on it in blue ballpoint, and slid it across the table to him, her hand brushing his when he reached for it. He folded it carefully, tucked it into the band of his hat, and asked if she wanted to come out to the river tomorrow, first to meet the beagles at the rescue, then to take the Alumacraft out for a sunset ride, he had a case of cold Miller Lite stashed in the boat cooler already. She grinned, stood up, and tapped the brim of his hat with her bottle.
“Only if you promise not to ditch me to go fishing by yourself,” she said, turning to walk to her beat-up 4Runner parked at the edge of the fairground, the hem of her skirt swishing against her calves as she went. Dale leaned back against the picnic table, sipped the last of his warm beer, and watched her taillights disappear down the main street, already mentally crossing the weekly men’s church breakfast he’d attended every Sunday for 12 years off his to-do list for the next morning.
