Rudy Voss, 62, retired high-voltage lineman, leans against the leg of a folding picnic table, one boot propped on the lower rung, a half-empty bottle of IPA in his hand. The October air nips at his cheeks, sharp with wood smoke from the bonfire at the edge of the fairgrounds, cinnamon and cumin curling off the pot of venison chili simmering in front of him. He only agreed to enter the fire department’s annual cookoff because his 14-year-old granddaughter begged, said her friends would lose their minds if his famous chili took first place. He’d planned to drop off the pot and bolt, avoid the crowd he’d spent 18 years intentionally dodging ever since he’d broken three of Jake Hale’s ribs in a bar fight over a botched commercial line bid.
The crunch of maple leaves under scuffed work boots makes him look up. It’s Maren Hale. Jake’s widow. She’s 58, he remembers, runs the used bookshop downtown that just opened three months prior, after she moved back north following Jake’s heart attack last spring. She’s wearing a faded navy crewneck, flannel tied around her waist, silver hoop earrings that catch the glow of the fairy lights strung above the cookoff stalls. His jaw tightens automatically, old anger coiling in his gut, but she just smiles, slow and easy, and stops half a foot from his table, close enough that he can smell lavender lotion mixed with campfire smoke in her hair.
“Venison chili, right?” She nods at the pot, and her voice is lower than he remembers, warm as melted butter. “I had some at that Fourth of July cookout out on Torch Lake, 2004. Before you and Jake decided to turn the Tiki Bar into a boxing ring.”
He snorts, surprised. He’d forgotten she was at that cookout. He’d spent most of the night avoiding Jake’s loudmouth boasting, had only talked to Maren once, when she’d handed him a plate of potato salad and told him Jake was an idiot who didn’t know a good line bid when it was right in front of him. He reaches for a stack of sample cups at the same time she does, their hands brushing, his calloused, scar-flecked lineman’s hands against hers, soft, with faint blue ink stains on the fingertips from stamping book spines. He yanks his hand back like he’s been shocked, the way he used to when he’d accidentally graze a live line on the job.
She doesn’t mention the fight, doesn’t mention Jake, doesn’t even tease him for flinching. She just takes a sample cup, ladles a scoop of chili into it, blows on it slow, and takes a sip. Her eyes widen, and she laughs, loud enough that a couple of the firemen glance over. “Holy shit, that’s even better than I remembered.”
They end up talking for 45 minutes, leaning against the picnic table, the space between them shrinking inch by inch until their shoulders are almost touching, the heat of her arm radiating through the thin fabric of his flannel shirt. She tells him Jake had been cheating on her for 10 years, that she’d found out six months before he died, that she didn’t even cry at his funeral, that she moved back north because this was the only place she’d ever felt like she belonged. He tells her he’s skipped every community event for 18 years just to avoid running into Jake, that he’d even skipped his own niece’s high school graduation party because he heard Jake was going to be there. She pokes his bicep playfully, her fingers warm against his skin, and teases him for being the most stubborn man she’s ever met. He doesn’t argue.
When the cookoff winners are announced, he takes second place, beaten out by a 72-year-old retired nurse who adds chocolate to her beef chili. Maren claps so hard her palms turn pink, whooping loud enough that the emcee waves at her from the stage. The crowd starts to disperse as the bonfire dies down, the air growing colder, the fairy lights dimming a little. She leans in close, her mouth right by his ear, her breath warm against his neck, and says she’s got a bottle of 12-year bourbon back at her apartment above the bookshop, if he’s not too scared to hang out with the widow of his old rival.
He hesitates for half a second, the old, stupid anger flaring for half a beat before it fizzles out, gone as fast as it came. He looks at her, the faint crinkles around her eyes when she smirks, the streak of silver in her dark hair right at the temple, the chipped navy polish on her fingernails, and nods. He grabs his dented chili pot, tucks the second place ribbon into his jacket pocket, and follows her across the fairgrounds to her beat-up pickup truck. She opens the passenger door for him, and when he climbs in, she rests her hand on his knee for a beat before she turns the key, old Johnny Cash blaring from the truck’s speakers. The heat of her palm seeps through the frayed knee of his work jeans, and for the first time in decades, he doesn’t feel the urge to pull away.
