Ray Voss, 58, retired electric lineman with 32 years of patching power lines through Ohio ice storms and tornado touchdowns, leaned against the splintered wooden rail of the small town’s annual summer fair beer tent, nursing a cold Pabst. He’d ducked out of his sister’s birthday cookout for his 7-year-old granddaughter an hour prior, the familiar tightness in his chest flaring when someone brought up his daughter’s college graduation, the one he’d missed because a derecho took out half the county’s grid the night before. He still carried that guilt like a 50-pound tool belt slung over his shoulder, even after his daughter had told him a hundred times she didn’t care.
The air smelled like fried oreos, cut clover, and the faint diesel fumes from the carnival’s tilt-a-whirl. A terrible 80s cover band crooned “Jessie’s Girl” off key from the main stage, and kids screamed as they ran past, cotton candy stuck to their cheeks. He was halfway through his second beer when a woman reached past him for the plastic cup of hard seltzer the bartender set down, her knuckles brushing the thick, rough callus on his right hand—one he’d gotten from gripping utility poles in subzero temperatures his third year on the job.
She paused, squinting up at him, and he recognized her immediately: Clara Bennett, 49, his daughter’s high school art teacher, the woman he’d dropped a $500 personal check off for 12 years prior, when the art department couldn’t afford supplies for the state competition. She wore a faded Tom Petty tee, cutoff denim shorts, and scuffed white sneakers, a thin scar curling around her left wrist from a pottery kiln accident she’d mentioned offhand that day they’d first met. Silver streaks ran through her wavy brown hair, pulled back in a messy ponytail, and she had a smudge of blue paint on her jawline, like she’d been working on a canvas that morning.
“Ray Voss, right?” she said, grinning, and her voice was warmer than he remembered. He tensed up at first, the familiar guilt pricking at him—anyone tied to his daughter’s high school years felt like a reminder of all the events he’d missed for work. He nodded, shifting his weight, ready to mumble a polite greeting and go back to staring at his beer, but she leaned against the rail next to him, close enough that he could smell lavender soap and turpentine on her shirt, her shoulder brushing his when a group of teens darted past. She didn’t move away. Neither did he.
They talked for 40 minutes, first about the fair, then about the time a raccoon chewed through a transformer he was fixing in 2019, leaving him covered in raccoon urine and without power for three hours while he waited for a backup crew. She laughed so hard she snort-laughed, and he felt the tightness in his chest loosen, something he hadn’t felt in years, not since his wife got sick. She mentioned she remembered his daughter winning the state art award senior year, how she’d given her speech and thanked her dad for “keeping the lights on for everyone else even when he couldn’t be here for me.” Ray’s throat went tight. He’d never heard that part before, his daughter had never told him.
The sun dipped below the tree line, painting the sky pink and orange, and the beer tent started to empty out as people headed to the field for the closing firework show. She passed him a paper bag of cheese curds she’d gotten for free from her cousin’s food truck, her fingers brushing his again when he took it, and he noticed her nails were chipped, painted the same blue as the smudge on her jaw. She held his gaze for three full seconds, longer than a friend would, and said she’d thought he was cute that day he dropped off the check, too, but she’d been too nervous to say anything, figured he was married and happy.
His first thought was that this was wrong, she was his daughter’s old teacher, 9 years younger than him, he hadn’t dated anyone since his wife died six years prior, what would people say? The sharp, self-critical disgust at his own urge to lean in and kiss her warred with the warm buzz in his chest, the feeling that for the first time in years, someone was seeing him, not just the retired lineman, not just the dad who missed graduations.
The first firework boomed overhead, bright red, and she jumped, grabbing his arm, her fingers wrapping around the thin, pale scar on his forearm from a 2017 line surge that almost killed him. He looked down at her hand on his arm, then up at her face, lit up blue and purple by the next burst of fireworks, and the overthinking melted away. He asked her if she wanted to get coffee at the little diner on Main Street the next morning, no fair crowds, no loud music, just the two of them. She nodded, grinning so wide her cheeks dimpled, and pulled a crumpled napkin out of her pocket, scribbled her number on it, pressed it into his palm, her thumb brushing the lifeline on his hand for half a second longer than necessary.
She waved over her shoulder as she walked off to meet her friend waiting by the fair exit, and Ray stood there for a minute, holding the napkin crumpled in his fist, his now-warm beer forgotten on the rail next to him. He pulled out his beat-up iPhone, first texted his sister to say he’d be at his granddaughter’s birthday Saturday, he’d bring the strawberry shortcake she loved. Then he typed Clara’s number into his contacts, saved it under “Clara (cheese curds & fireworks)” before tucking his phone back into the pocket of his flannel shirt, watching the last gold firework burst over the oak trees at the edge of the fairground.
