Javi Ruiz, 57, retired wildland fire crew superintendent, leans against a splintered utility pole at the Flagstaff Fourth of July street fair, twisting the tab of a cold root beer between calloused, scarred fingers. He’s avoided the fair for 18 years straight, only showed up because his niece begged him to come watch her compete in the pie contest, and he can’t say no to that kid. The air smells like charred grilled corn, cherry bomb sulfur, and pine drifting down from the peaks, warm asphalt sticking a little to the soles of his scuffed work boots. He wears a faded 2010 fire season hoodie, the left sleeve frayed where a cedar branch caught it during a controlled burn, and keeps his hands stuffed in his pockets when he’s not holding his drink, old habit from years of not wanting people to ask about the burn scars crisscrossing his forearms.
He’s just watched his niece take second place in the peach pie category, grinning so wide his cheeks hurt, when a woman he recognizes steps through the crowd, holding a blue ribbon in one hand and a quart jar of wildflower honey in the other. Elara, 54, his new next door neighbor who moved into the old Miller place three weeks prior, runs the beekeeping supply shop downtown. He’d only spoken to her once before, when she brought over a jar of honey as a housewarming gift and he’d mumbled a thank you before shutting the door, too skittish to make small talk. She stops a foot away from him, close enough he can smell lavender shampoo and beeswax on her shirt, her sun-weathered cheeks pink from the heat. She teases him about the “RETIRED FIRE BOSS” sticker on the back of his beat up Ford F150, the one he forgot to peel off when he left the service four years ago, and he huffs a laugh he didn’t know he had in him.
He’s just about to ask how she won the blue ribbon when she mentions her ex-husband, Gary, his old crew superintendent, the man he hasn’t spoken to since he called Gary out for cutting a safety corner on the 2013 Schultz Fire that left two of his crew members with second degree burns. His jaw tightens immediately, old anger and a weird, unnameable guilt coiling in his gut. He knows the unspoken rule: you don’t fraternize with your old boss’s ex, even if you hate the guy’s guts. He’s already mentally drafting an excuse to leave, to go back to his empty cabin and watch the fireworks from his porch alone like he always does, when she reaches out to brush a stray fleck of firework ash off his hoodie sleeve, her palm brushing the raised scar on his forearm for two beats too long. He freezes, can feel the rough calluses on her fingers from handling hive tools, the warmth of her skin seeping through the thin fabric of his sweatshirt.
She tells him she left Gary eight years prior, that he drank too much, resented her for running her own business instead of staying home to cook his meals and iron his uniforms, that he used to yell at her for hours after work when Javi would push back on his bad calls. She says she always thought Javi was right, that he was the only one on the crew brave enough to call Gary out when he was putting people in danger, that she’d wanted to tell him that for years. She nods at the empty picnic bench ten feet away, and he follows her before he can talk himself out of it, sitting so close their knees brush under the table when she slides him a cup of honey lemonade she’d stashed in her tote bag. Their fingers brush when he takes the cup from her, and he doesn’t pull away, even though every instinct he’s honed over 20 years of isolation is screaming at him to run.
The first distant pop of the fireworks show rumbles through the air as she leans in a little closer, her shoulder pressing against his, her eyes bright in the dusk from the string lights strung above the fairgrounds. He tells her he’s been avoiding people for two decades, ever since his wife left him while he was on a fire assignment in Oregon, convinced anyone he let get close would just leave eventually. She nods, like she gets it, and hands him the blue ribbon jar of honey, says it’s a do-over of the housewarming gift he barely accepted three weeks prior. The first firework bursts red above the peaks, painting the side of her face pink, and he wraps his fingers around the warm glass of the jar, letting his knee stay pressed firm against hers under the table.
