Moe Pritchard is 59, spent the last 12 years as an antique fishing lure restorer out of the back of the shuttered bait and tackle shop he and his late wife Ellie ran outside Asheville, North Carolina. His biggest flaw is he’s spent the seven years since Ellie died turning down every casual social invite that doesn’t involve a regular dropping off a beat-up lure to fix, convinced letting anyone new in would be some kind of betrayal to the 38 years he spent with his high school sweetheart. The only reason he’s at the county fire department’s annual chili cookoff at all is because his old college roommate, now the station chief, showed up at his shop at 2 p.m. and threatened to tow his beat-up Ford F-150 if he didn’t make an appearance.
He’s been camped by the back exit for 45 minutes when he decides he’s put in enough face time, half-eaten bowl of five-alarm chili in one hand, flannel sleeves rolled up to show forearms crisscrossed with tiny hook scars and stiff with cured resin. He makes a beeline for the condiment table to dump a little extra hot sauce in the bowl before he bails, and his hand collides with someone else’s mid-reach for the same neon red bottle of Texas Pete.
He yanks his hand back like he touched a live wire, mumbles a gruff apology, and glances up. The woman in front of him is maybe 52, wearing a faded knit sweater dotted with small pine sap stains, dark hair pulled back in a loose braid, laughing so hard her shoulders shake. “Guess that’s a popular choice today,” she says, and her voice is warm, a little rough around the edges like she spends half her day yelling over loud music, and she smells like cinnamon gum and pine needles, the same kind Ellie used to bring home from her weekend hiking trips.
He nods, not sure what to say, already shifting to step away so he can leave, but she leans in a little, no awkward personal space buffer most people give him when they pick up on his “don’t talk to me” vibe, and nods at the resin stains on his wrist. “You’re Moe, right? The lure restorer? I’ve been asking around about you for weeks. I’ve got a 1952 Heddon Dowagiac my dad left me when he passed, the paint’s chipped all to hell and the treble hook’s rusted shut. Half the people in town said you’d tell me to get lost if I showed up at your shop unannounced.”
He blinks, surprised anyone’s even been asking about him. Most folks around town know to leave him be unless they’ve got a lure and cash upfront. He shrugs, staring at the scuffed toes of his work boots for a second before he meets her eyes again—hazel, flecked with gold, crinkled at the corners like she smiles a lot, nothing like the tight, polite grins people give him when they’re pitying the widower. “They’re not wrong, usually,” he says, and he’s shocked when she laughs again, not offended at all.
The bluegrass band set up by the front doors launches into a cover of a Johnny Cash song he and Ellie used to dance to in the shop after closing, and the noise gets so loud she has to step closer to hear him, her elbow brushing his bicep when she leans in. He doesn’t move away. “I brought beer,” she says, nodding at the cooler sitting by her feet at the edge of the table. “I’ll trade you a cold IPA for 10 minutes of your time to tell me if the Heddon’s even worth fixing.”
He should say no. He had plans to go home, rewatch an old western, eat the rest of the leftover meatloaf he made Sunday, and sand down a 1948 Creek Chub he’s been working on for a regular. But the chili’s burning the tip of his tongue, the beer looks cold, and she’s not looking at him like he’s a broken thing that needs fixing. “Fine,” he says, and she grins so wide her dimples show, grabs his wrist lightly to pull him toward the picnic tables set up by the side of the station, her hand warm even through the thin flannel of his sleeve.
They sit down at a table far enough away from the band that they don’t have to yell, and she passes him a beer, condensation dripping down the side of the can onto his palm when he takes it. She tells him she’s Clara, the new part-time librarian at the small town branch, moved to the area six months prior after a 22-year marriage ended because her ex decided he hated small towns and wanted to move to Miami to sell timeshares. He tells her about Ellie, about the bait shop, about how he only restores lures now because running the whole shop without her felt too empty. She nods, doesn’t give him the usual “I’m so sorry” speech, just says “Grief sucks, no matter what form it comes in” and takes a sip of her beer.
By the time they finish their chili and their second beer, the sun’s dipping low over the Blue Ridge Mountains, painting the sky pink and tangerine, and the crowd’s thinned out to a handful of firemen packing up the grills. She leans back against the picnic table bench, her knee brushing his where they’re sitting side by side, and pulls her phone out to show him a picture of the Heddon, chipped red paint, rusted hook, sitting on top of a stack of library books on her kitchen counter. “It’s worth fixing,” he says, before she even asks. “I’ve got the exact red paint for that model back at the shop. You can bring it by Wednesday, after 5, when the last of the regulars are gone.”
He pulls a small lure out of the front pocket of his flannel, a tiny minnow-shaped one he restored the week before, iridescent silver paint, bright red eye, and holds it out to her. “Test run,” he says. “If you like how that looks, you know I won’t mess up your dad’s.” Their fingers brush when she takes it, and this time he doesn’t pull away, lets his hand linger for half a second, feels the small callus on her index finger from turning hundreds of book pages. She tucks the lure into the pocket of her sweater, patting it like it’s something valuable.
She stands up a few minutes later, slinging her canvas tote bag over her shoulder, and squeezes his shoulder lightly, her palm warm and firm through his flannel. “I’ll be there Wednesday,” she says, and winks, before she turns and walks toward her small hatchback parked down the street.
He sits there for another 10 minutes, watching the last of the sun sink below the mountains, the empty beer cans and crumpled chili bowls scattered across the table in front of him, the faint sound of the firemen laughing as they haul a cooler into the station. He’d forgotten what it felt like to talk to someone who didn’t treat him like a ghost stuck in the past. He tucks his cold, empty chili bowl under one arm and heads for his truck, already mentally clearing a spot on his workbench for her Heddon.
