Manny Ruiz, 52, makes his living tending 12 hives of Italian honeybees on 5 acres of wildflower land outside Asheville, North Carolina. He’s lived there eight years, ever since his ex-wife filed for divorce and moved to Miami with her personal trainer, and he’s perfected the art of keeping his head down: sells his honey at the weekly Saturday farmers’ market, chats only long enough to answer questions about sourwood vs clover blends, turns down every invitation to neighborhood cookouts and church potlucks. His biggest flaw, one he’ll never admit out loud, is that he’s terrified of letting anyone get close enough to leave him again.
It’s 94 degrees on the last Saturday in August, the air thick enough to sip, humidity curling the edges of his honey jar labels and sticking his faded Carhartt shirt to his shoulders. He’s wiping sweat off his brow with the back of a calloused hand when he sees her walking toward his stall, yellow linen sundress swishing around her calves, freckles dark across her nose from the summer sun. She’s Clara Bennett, the new pastor’s wife, moved to town three months prior, and she’s stopped by his stall every Saturday for six weeks straight, always buys one small jar of wildflower honey, never stays longer than 90 seconds. He’s noticed she doesn’t wear much makeup, that her wedding ring is a thin plain silver band that catches the sun when she hands him cash, that she always smells like lavender soap.
Today she leans against the edge of his stall, close enough that he can smell the peach iced tea she’s sipping from a plastic cup, and asks if he tracked down that small batch sourwood honey he mentioned last week. He nods, bends to reach into the cooler under the table, and when he straightens up to hand her the frosted glass jar, their fingers brush. It’s only a split second, but he feels a jolt run up his arm, like when he accidentally brushes a live wire when fixing his hive boxes. She doesn’t pull away right away, just holds his gaze for three full beats, a small half-smile tugging at the corner of her mouth, before she takes the jar and tucks it into her canvas tote bag.
He notices the silver ring is missing from her left hand. He doesn’t ask, but she volunteers the information anyway, twisting the bare ring finger between her thumb and index finger like she’s already thinking about it. “Took it off this morning making blackberry jam,” she says, laughing soft, the sound warm, like melted butter. “Got it all sticky, left it on the kitchen counter. Husband’s at a men’s church retreat all weekend, so no one’s gonna nag me about forgetting it.”
He nods, doesn’t know what to say, so he starts wiping down the already clean counter of his stall. She doesn’t leave. She shifts her weight closer, their knees almost touching through the slats of the wooden stall, and says she’s been dying to explore the hiking trails around town but doesn’t know where to go, doesn’t want to get lost by herself. He mentions the trail that cuts through his property, leads up to a clearing where he keeps three of his hives, has a full view of the Blue Ridge ridgeline, that he’s heading up there around 4 when the heat dies down to check on the bees. He immediately kicks himself, thinks she’s gonna call him a creep, tell her husband, get him run out of the farmers’ market for hitting on the pastor’s wife.
Instead she grins, bright, and says she’d love to come. She scribbles her cell number on the back of a grocery receipt and shoves it into his hand, says she’ll meet him at the gravel turnoff for his property at 4 sharp, then turns and walks away before he can back out. He stands there staring at the receipt for five full minutes, customers waving cash in front of his face for jars of honey, his brain racing half terror, half something hot and tight in his chest he hasn’t felt in nearly a decade.
4 o’clock rolls around, and she’s already there, leaning against the hood of her beat up Subaru, wearing cutoff shorts and a white tank top, hiking boots caked in dust from a morning walk. They hike the half mile up to the clearing in near silence, the only sounds the crunch of pine needles under their boots, the distant buzz of cicadas, the soft hoot of an owl waking up for the evening. When they reach the clearing, the hives are humming soft in the dappled shade of an oak tree, the air thick with the smell of clover and fresh cut hay.
They sit down on a fallen oak log at the edge of the clearing, and she leans into him, her shoulder pressed firm against his bicep, and says she’s been miserable for three years, that her husband cares more about church attendance numbers and the approval of the old ladies in the congregation than he does about her, that she’s thought about him every single time she’s opened a jar of his honey at home, wondered what his hands would feel like, calloused from working with bees, on her skin.
He’s torn. Every logical part of his brain is screaming that this is a terrible idea, that if anyone finds out the whole town will turn on him, that he spent eight years building this quiet, safe life and he’s about to throw it all away for a fling with a married woman. But then she tilts her head up and kisses him, her lips tasting like peach iced tea and mint, her hand sliding up to rest on his forearm, the weight of it warm through the thin fabric of his t-shirt. He stops resisting. He kisses her back, one hand tangling in the soft hair at the nape of her neck, the sound of the bees humming and the wind rustling the oak leaves drowning out every anxious thought in his head.
They stay there till the sun dips below the ridgeline, painting the sky streaks of tangerine and lavender, the air cooling enough that he gives her his flannel shirt to wrap around her shoulders. He sends her home with the small batch sourwood honey she came for, and his cell number scribbled on a scrap of paper from his hive maintenance notebook, tucked into the pocket of the flannel. He stands at the edge of the clearing and watches her car kick up dust down the gravel drive, then leans against the fence post, pulls a cold beer out of the cooler he brought up with him, twists off the cap and takes a long, cold sip. For the first time in eight years, he doesn’t give a single damn what anyone in town has to say.
