Rafe Marquez, 53, makes his living restoring vintage travel trailers out of a cinder block shop on the edge of La Grande, Oregon, and he hasn’t willingly attended a town event in seven years. He’s got a rule against it, honed after eight years of local retirees cornering him at the grocery store to set him up with their divorced nieces, their widowed bowling partners, any woman they think can “fix that grumpy streak he’s got.” He only agreed to come to the summer food truck rally because his 16-year-old apprentice, Javi, begged him, said the brisket truck from Pendleton was only in town for one night, and Rafe owed him for working three weekends straight to finish a 1965 Avion restoration for a client in Boise.
He’s standing in the brisket line, boots still caked with aluminum shavings and driveway gravel, faded Carhartt dotted with grease stains from fixing a trailer water heater that morning, half-smoked cheroot tucked behind his ear, when someone bumps hard into his left side. A jar of golden wildflower honey sloshes, and a warm, sticky dollop lands on his exposed wrist. He turns, ready to snap, and stops. The woman in front of him is in faded canvas overalls, white tank top smudged with what looks like beeswax on the hem, dark hair braided down her back with a daisy tucked behind one ear, laughing so hard her shoulders shake. “Sorry about that,” she says, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “I was chasing a stray cat that stole a piece of my funnel cake, didn’t look where I was going. Don’t make me waste my best honey on your work clothes, yeah?”
She dabs at the honey on his wrist with a crumpled paper napkin first, then notices a smudge on her own thumb, and licks it off without a second thought, slow, like she doesn’t even realize he’s watching. The air smells like hickory smoke, cut grass still dewy from the afternoon rain, and her perfume, jasmine mixed with something earthy, like pine and honeycomb. Rafe’s throat goes dry. His first instinct is to mumble a dismissive apology, step back into line, avoid the conversation entirely, the same way he’s avoided every personal interaction in this town that doesn’t involve trailer parts or Javi’s terrible taste in rap music. The voice in his head that he’s listened to since his ex-wife left him for a Portland real estate developer eight years prior is screaming that this is a bad idea, that everyone in town will be gossiping by sunrise, that he’s fine alone, doesn’t need anyone messing up the quiet routine he’s built.
She doesn’t take the hint. She follows him when he steps back to his spot in line, says she’s Clara, moved to town three months ago from Seattle, quit her six-figure marketing job to keep bees and sell honey and beeswax candles out of a stand on her property. She says she’s seen the polished 1962 Airstream sitting in his front yard for weeks, has been driving out of her way to pass his house on her way to the post office just to look at it. She says she bought a beat-to-hell 1971 Scotty Sportsman for $800 off Facebook Marketplace last week, wants to turn it into a mobile honey stand, but doesn’t know the first thing about fixing rusted aluminum frames or replacing old propane lines.
He’s halfway through saying he’s booked solid for three months, doesn’t take side jobs, when she leans in a little, close enough her shoulder brushes his, and grins. “I can’t pay you cash right now,” she says, nodding at the brisket truck as they move up in line, “but I make a peach pie from the trees in my backyard that’ll make you forget you ever wanted money. Plus all the honey you can eat for a year. My bees make the best stuff east of the Cascades, I swear.” Their knees brush when they step up to the order window, and Rafe feels a jolt run up his spine he hasn’t felt since he was a kid sneaking into drive-in movies with his high school girlfriend. He looks at her, at the tiny black bee tattoo peeking out from under the cuff of her overalls, at the daisy still tucked behind her ear, and the voice in his head goes quiet. She doesn’t look at him like he’s the poor guy whose wife left him, like everyone else in town does. She looks at him like he’s the guy who knows how to fix old trailers, who has answers for the thing she wants to build.
She reaches up without asking, brushes a fleck of dried aluminum sealant out of his sideburn, her fingers warm against his cheek, and he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t pull away. He tells her he’ll be at her place Saturday at 10 a.m., to have the pie ready, and he’s bringing his own tools, no exceptions. She whoops, loud enough the guy working the brisket truck looks over at them, and hands him the full jar of wildflower honey she was holding earlier as a down payment. Their fingers brush for half a second when he takes it, and the contact makes his ears burn, stupid, like a teenager holding a girl’s hand for the first time.
She waves, turns to walk back to her small honey stand at the edge of the park, and Rafe spots a group of the town’s regular retirees staring at him from the next picnic table, nudging each other, grinning so wide their cheeks are stretched. He twists the lid off the honey jar, dips his index finger into the golden liquid, and pops it into his mouth. It’s sweet, bright, a little floral, with a faint tang of pine from the mountains surrounding the town, better than anything he’s tasted in eight years.
