Elias Voss, 59, spent 31 years as an antique book restorer, his fingers calloused from sanding leather spines and mixing period-accurate glue, his mind stuck on one stupid, bitter fact for 12 years: his ex-wife left him for a 32-year-old ski instructor she met on a girls’ trip to Aspen. He’d told himself he’d never waste time on any woman within 10 years of her age again, convinced they all had one eye on his retirement savings and the other on someone younger and more exciting. Most Fridays, he holed up at the local VFW post outside Akron, Ohio, sat at the far end of the bar, drank Bud Light, ate fried cod, and ignored anyone who wasn’t a 70-something vet ranting about the NFL’s new kickoff rules.
The first time he saw Clara, he almost walked right back out. She was behind the bar, wiping down beer mugs with a frayed rag, and she had the same thin, silvery scar above her left eyebrow that his ex had, the one she’d gotten crashing her bike into a mailbox when they were 26. He grit his teeth, slid onto his usual stool, and stared at the football game playing on the mounted TV above the taps, determined not to say a word.
She brought his order over 10 minutes later, two pieces of crispy cod, a side of hushpuppies, extra tartar sauce like he always got, no request needed. Her faded red flannel sleeve brushed his forearm when she set the plate down, and he caught a whiff of pine hand soap and vanilla lip balm, sharp and warm under the heavy smell of fryer grease and Old Spice from the table of Korean War vets next to him. Her fingers brushed the cold rim of his beer mug when she set it next to his plate, and she held eye contact for a beat longer than the usual generic server check-in, dark brown eyes crinkling at the corners. “Heard you’re the guy who can fix a 1890s poetry collection that got chewed up by a golden retriever,” she said, nodding at the vintage poetry pin he wore on his denim jacket. “My dad left a beat-up copy of Frost behind when he passed, water damage from the roof leak in his old trailer. Figured I’d ask you about it sometime.”
He grunted a noncommittal reply, stared down at his cod, and tried to ignore the stupid flutter in his chest. He’d spent 12 years shutting that part of himself off, and he wasn’t about to let a pretty bartender with a familiar scar undo all that work.
The rowdy group of 20-something guys showed up an hour later, loud, drunk, wearing fraternity rush shirts, yelling about their college football team’s win that afternoon. They catcalled Clara every time she walked past their table, made lewd comments about her jeans when she turned her back. Elias tensed, his grip on his beer mug tightening until his knuckles went white, but he told himself it wasn’t his business. Until one of them reached out, grabbed the end of her messy auburn braid, and yanked hard when she was carrying a tray of IPAs over to their table.
She yelped, the tray clattering to the floor, glass shattering everywhere, beer soaking the linoleum. Elias was on his feet before he even registered moving, 6’2 and 220 pounds of former part-time forest service worker who still split his own firewood every winter, his voice low and graveled when he grabbed the kid’s wrist hard enough that his face went pale. “Apologize to her. Then get the hell out. The sheriff’s my first cousin, and he’d love to lock a bunch of drunk frat boys up for disorderly conduct on a Friday night. Your call.”
The kid sputtered out a shaky apology, his friends yanking him out the door before he could say anything else. Elias knelt down to help Clara pick up the broken glass, his hand brushing hers when they both reached for the same jagged shard, and he looked up to see her staring at him, cheeks pink, the corner of her mouth tugging up in a small, grateful smile. “You didn’t have to do that,” she said, wiping a smudge of fryer grease off her cheek with the back of her hand.
“Nobody gets to act like that in here,” he said, shrugging like it was no big deal, even as his heart was hammering in his chest. “Half the guys in this room fought wars so they could drink beer in peace without some entitled little punk causing trouble.”
They stayed long after the last regular left, the fryer turned off, the TV muted, Clara bringing him a slice of pecan pie on the house, sitting on the stool next to him, her knee brushing his every time she shifted. He told her about his book restoration business, about the 17th century Bible he’d spent 6 months fixing for a local church, about the 1972 Ford F-100 he was restoring in his garage. She told him about her dad, an Army vet who’d been a regular at the VFW for 40 years, how he’d taught her to rebuild small block engines when she was 16, how she’d taken the bartending job after he passed so she could feel close to him.
When she asked if she could come by his garage the next afternoon to take a look at the F-100, he said yes without hesitation, that old bitter grudge he’d carried for 12 years feeling smaller than a grain of sand, like he’d been an idiot all that time, painting every woman with the same stupid brush.
She wrote her phone number on a napkin, slid it across the bar to him, her fingers lingering on his for half a second before she pulled away. He folded the napkin carefully, tucked it into the pocket of his denim jacket, and walked out to his truck, the cool September air hitting his face, a stupid, giddy smile on his face he hadn’t felt in decades.
