Javi Mendez is 52, makes his living keeping 47 hives of honeybees across 12 acres of Appalachian foothills outside Asheville, and hasn’t so much as flirted with anyone since his wife, Lena, died of ovarian cancer eight years prior. His biggest flaw, if you ask his older sister, is that he’s turned stubbornness into a personality trait: he refuses to upgrade his 2007 Ford F-150 even though the AC died three summers ago, he still buys Lena’s favorite peach iced tea every grocery run even though he hates peach, and he’s avoided the town’s annual July block party every year since she passed, until his 16-year-old niece begged him to set up a honey booth to raise money for her high school environmental club. He caved, because he’s never been able to say no to that kid.
The air hangs thick enough to sip by 2 p.m., sweat sticking the collar of his faded Carhartt work shirt to the back of his neck, the sharp sweet smell of wildflower honey mixing with charcoal fumes from the brat stand three booths down and the faint, flowery scent of lavender coming from the woman running the used book stall pressed right up against his. Her name is Elara, she tells him 10 minutes after he finishes setting up, she opened the used bookstore on Main Street three months prior, and she’s been buying his honey from the general store downtown for months, had no idea the guy who bottles it has a scar snaking up his left forearm from a hive break last spring. He mumbles a reply, avoids eye contact, busies himself rearranging jars of sourwood honey on the table, because he’s already too aware of how close she’s standing, their elbows brushing every time either of them reaches for something on their respective displays.
A group of kids tearing through the crowd with water guns knocks a full quart jar of honey off the edge of his table 20 minutes later, glass shattering, golden sticky liquid spreading across the asphalt between their booths. They both bend down to clean it up at the same time, their foreheads knocking hard enough to make them both wince, and she laughs, a bright throaty sound that makes the back of his neck heat up like he’s standing too close to a smoker. He’s annoyed with himself immediately, angry that a random laugh is making his chest feel tight, like he’s doing something wrong, like he’s betraying Lena by even noticing how the sun hits the freckles across her nose, how her calloused fingers (from turning thousands of book pages, she tells him later) brush his when they both reach for the same wad of paper towels to sop up the honey.
The bluegrass band at the end of the block cranks up their set as the afternoon wears on, so she has to lean in close to talk to him, her breath warm against the shell of his ear, and he can’t stop glancing down at her lips, chapped a little from the heat, the faint scar on her chin from a bike crash when she was a kid. She asks about the scar on his arm, and before he can stop himself he’s telling her about the hive that got spooked by a black bear last April, how he got stung 17 times before he could get the hive box closed back up, how Lena used to tease him for being too soft on the bees, too willing to risk getting stung if it meant he didn’t have to smoke them too harshly. He never talks about Lena to strangers, ever, and he’s not sure why he’s doing it now, but she doesn’t look at him with that pitying stare most people give him when they find out he’s a widower, she just nods, asks if the bear ever came back, then asks if she can touch the scar. He freezes for half a second, then nods, and her fingers are soft when they brush the raised pale skin, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from shivering.
A sudden sharp clap of thunder cuts through the music right as the sun dips behind the mountains, and fat warm raindrops start pouring down before anyone has time to react. The crowd scrambles, people grabbing coolers and folding chairs, kids screaming and running for cover, and Elara grabs the edge of his stack of honey jars before they can topple over from the wind, helps him haul boxes to his truck. They’re both soaked to the bone by the time they get the last box loaded, his shirt clinging to his shoulders, hers transparent enough that he can see the tiny bee tattoo inked into the top of her left shoulder, and they’re both laughing so hard they’re gasping for air when they duck under the raised truck bed awning to catch their breath.
She leans in first, her hand resting on his damp bicep, and kisses him, slow at first, like she’s giving him time to pull away, and for half a second he thinks he should, that he’s too old for this, that he doesn’t get to have this kind of soft stupid fun anymore, but then her other hand cups the side of his face, and he kisses her back, his hands fisting in the back of her wet shirt, and he doesn’t feel guilty, not even a little. He remembers Lena telling him a month before she died that if he didn’t get off his ass and find someone to make him laugh after she was gone, she’d come back and haunt him, and he smiles against Elara’s mouth.
He asks her if she wants to come back to his farm, tells her he has dry clothes in the cab, and he can make honey butter biscuits that taste just like the ones Lena used to teach him to bake, and she nods, wiping a raindrop off his cheek with her thumb. She grabs her bag from her own car, climbs into the passenger seat of his truck, and he turns the key, the radio clicking on to an old Willie Nelson track he and Lena used to dance to in the kitchen when they were first married. She hums along, her hand resting on the center console half an inch from his, and he laces his fingers through hers as he pulls out of the parking lot, the rain tapping soft against the windshield.
