Cole Bennett, 58, retired U.S. Forest Service ranger, has been perched on the same scuffed vinyl stool at The Pine Tap for 45 minutes. His work boots are caked with alfalfa dust from hauling 4H livestock trailers after the county farmers market, his flannel sleeves rolled up to show forearms crisscrossed with old chainsaw scars and a faded tattoo of a pine tree he got when he was 19. He’s nursing a hazy IPA, avoids making eye contact with the group of church ladies at the next table who have been trying to set him up with their widowed sister for three months. He’s made a point of avoiding any situation that could lead to a date since his wife Karen died seven years prior, convinced that pursuing anything new would be a betrayal, that his capacity for softness got buried with her. The bar smells like fried pickles and old pine, the jukebox spitting out a worn track of Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues”, the sticky vinyl under his thighs sticking to the back of his jeans when he shifts.
The door swings open, letting in a blast of warm summer air and the sound of kids yelling down the street, and Clara Marlow slides onto the stool six inches to his left. He recognizes her immediately. She’s the new county public health nurse, the one he argued with for 12 full minutes at the booster clinic two weeks prior, when he’d marched in ready to tell her exactly what he thought of “government overreach” before she’d calmly pointed out that his primary care provider had sent her his records, that his adult-onset asthma put him at high risk, and that she’d be happy to answer every single one of his questions if he stopped yelling long enough to listen. He’d stormed out without getting the shot, had felt like a grade-A ass ever since.
She flags the bartender, orders a cranberry cider, and her elbow brushes his forearm when she sets her canvas purse on the counter. He tenses, half ready to apologize, half ready to make a run for the door. She glances over, smirks, the corner of her mouth tugging up the same way it did when she called him out for being dramatic at the clinic. “You’re the pine sap guy, right?” she says, referencing his absurd offhand comment that the booster would turn his blood into tree resin. He flushes, rubs the back of his neck with a calloused hand, and mumbles an apology, says he’s been an idiot around medical stuff ever since Karen got sick, that he took his fear out on her for no reason. She nods, leans in a little, and her knee brushes his worn denim jeans under the counter. “I get it,” she says. “Half the county yelled at me during those clinics. I’m used to stubborn guys with something to prove.”
They talk for an hour, the jukebox switching from Johnny Cash to Patsy Cline, the bar growing more crowded as farmers and market vendors filter in, their laughter loud over the hum of the coolers. She’s 52, moved to Oregon from Phoenix six months prior, got sick of 115-degree summers and wanted to hike the trails she’d read about her whole life. She’s got a faint scar above her left eyebrow from a hiking fall when she was 20, chipped dark red nail polish, and a callus on her index finger from giving thousands of shots over the last three years. He finds himself telling her about the backcountry trails he knows, the hidden waterfall 3 miles up the ridge behind his house, the spot where you can watch the sun come up over the valley and see all the way to the coast on clear days. He offers to show her before he can stop himself, and panics for half a second, waiting for her to laugh it off. She leans in closer, so close he can smell the peppermint lip balm she’s wearing and the faint fizz of her cider, and says she’d love that.
A group of rowdy 4H kids carrying trophy buckets bumps into the back of her stool, and she lurches forward, falling into his chest. He catches her automatically, his hands settling on the soft curve of her waist under her linen button-down, and for a second their faces are three inches apart, his breath catching in his throat. She doesn’t pull away. Her eyes are dark, crinkled at the corners like she’s trying not to laugh, and he can feel the heat of her breath on his jaw. He doesn’t overthink it, just says “Tomorrow, 6 a.m. Before the heat hits. I’ll bring coffee. Oat milk creamer, if that’s what you drink. No booster talk, unless you bring receipts.” She snorts, taps the side of his face lightly with her palm, and says “I’ll bring extra band-aids for when you trip over a root trying to prove you know the trail better than me.”
She leaves 10 minutes later, scribbles her phone number on a napkin stained with cider, and presses it into his palm, her fingers lingering for a beat longer than necessary. He sits there for another hour, sipping his now-warm beer, twisting the napkin between his fingers, the spot on his waist where her hand rested when she pulled away still tingling. He’d spent seven years convinced that any spark of desire or connection meant he was failing Karen, that he owed it to her to stay frozen in time, alone. He doesn’t feel guilty, not like he expected to. He pulls his beat-up flip phone out of his jeans pocket, punches in her number, saves it under “Clara – Hikes & Bad Arguments”, and sends her a one-line text: Black coffee for me. No fancy creamer. Don’t be late. He tucks the napkin into the breast pocket of his flannel, flags the bartender for one last pint, and lets the corner of his mouth tug up into a real smile, no strings attached.
