Cliff Beaumont, 58, retired TVA lineman with a scar slashing across his left forearm from the 2010 tornado response, had spent the last three months grumbling about the new city hall bureaucrat who’d made him jump through six permit hoops to run the beer tent at his small Tennessee town’s annual chili cookoff. He’d labeled her a stuck-up, out-of-touch kid who cared more about “safety compliance” than the tradition that had funded the local food bank for 22 years running, and he’d made that opinion loud and clear at two separate city council meetings. He had a flaw he’d never bothered hiding: he held grudges like they were pension checks, and he’d written off every woman under 50 as gold diggers ever since his ex-wife left him for a 46-year-old real estate broker three years prior.
The October air bit at his cheeks as he hauled a case of IPA onto the dented aluminum cooler behind the tent, beer foam crusted to the laces of his scuffed work boots, the smell of smoked pork and ancho chili thick enough to taste on his tongue. He’d just cracked open a cold one when he spotted her walking toward him, high-waisted jeans tucked into work boots of her own, flannel tied around her waist, a smudge of red chili on the edge of her jaw. He tensed, ready to snap about the $50 fire extinguisher she’d forced him to buy, but she held up a paper plate stacked with first-place brisket chili and a cornbread muffin, her free hand lifted in surrender.
She sat down on the cooler next to him, close enough that he could smell lavender hand lotion tangled with campfire smoke, their shoulders two inches apart and not moving any further apart. He didn’t move either, even when she passed him the cornbread and their fingers brushed, the jolt going up his arm like the faint tingle of a live wire he’d forgotten was hot. He half expected her to launch into a lecture about crowd capacity, but instead she apologized, said she’d known the permit hoops were ridiculous, but the new fire marshal had threatened to shut the whole event down if they didn’t dot every i, and she’d grown up coming to the cookoff with her grandma every year. She teased him about the way he’d yelled about “government overreach” at the last council meeting, her laugh bright over the Johnny Cash cover playing from the stage 30 feet away, and he found himself laughing back, surprised.
He spent ten minutes mentally kicking himself for even noticing how her eyes crinkled when she smiled, how the golden hour sun hit the streaks of auburn in her messy bun. He told himself he was being a fool, that the whole town was watching, that she was 36 and had no business being nice to a guy old enough to be her dad, that he should get up and walk away before he embarrassed himself. The disgust warred with the warm buzz in his chest when she pointed at his forearm scar, asked if he was the lineman who’d climbed the pole in the middle of the tornado rains to fix her grandma’s power line after it went down for nine days. She said her grandma had baked him cookies that he’d never stopped to take, too busy rushing to the next house.
The sun dipped below the cornfield at the edge of the park, painting the sky pink and tangerine, the air getting cold enough that he could see his breath when he exhaled. She leaned in a little, their knees bumping, and said she’d been wanting to talk to him alone for weeks, that all the guys at city hall made fun of him for being a gruff old bear, but she thought he was the only one there who actually cared about the town more than his next re-election campaign. He didn’t say anything for a beat, just lifted his thumb and wiped the streak of paprika she’d smudged on her cheek when she’d wiped the earlier chili smudge away, his calloused skin brushing the soft curve of her jaw. She didn’t flinch, just held his gaze, her smile softening.
They sat there for another hour, talking about nothing and everything, no more sniping, no more assumptions. He learned she restored 1980s Ford F-150s in her garage on weekends, hated kale smoothies with a passion, knew every word to every Garth Brooks album ever made. She learned he still did free electrical work for low-income seniors in town, had a rescue hound named Hank, had never been on a plane in his life. When her roommate called to yell at her for missing the afterparty at the downtown dive bar, she slipped her phone back in her pocket and asked if he wanted to come with her, said the bar had his favorite bourbon on tap. He nodded, stood up, and held out his calloused hand to help her off the cooler. Her palm fit perfectly in his, warm and small, and he didn’t let go when she stepped down onto the grass.
