Roy Nakamura, 62, retired high school woodshop teacher, leans against the scuffed linoleum bar of the neighborhood dive, the rye and ginger in his hand sweating through the crumpled paper napkin wrapped around its base. He didn’t want to come to the block party afterparty. His 28-year-old daughter practically shoved him out the door, said he’d spent four years holed up in his garage sanding birdhouses and fixing other people’s patio furniture like that was all he had left. His wedding band presses heavy against his ring finger, a habit he can’t shake, even when all three of his kids keep telling him it’s okay to take it off, that Linda wouldn’t mind. The jukebox spits out a worn Johnny Cash track, the kind he and his wife used to dance to in the kitchen when the kids were asleep, and he almost gets up to leave right then.
A woman slides onto the bar stool two inches from his elbow, and the faint smell of jasmine shampoo and cut lime wraps around him before he can look over. She’s wearing a faded denim jacket and cutoff shorts, her silver hair pulled back in a messy braid streaked with a faint streak of pale blue she must have added on a whim, and when she leans in to yell her margarita order over the crowd, her shoulder brushes his bicep, warm through the thin cotton of his well-worn gray flannel shirt. He recognizes her before she turns her head. Lila Marlow. Ex-wife of his old high school coworker Greg, the loudmouth PE teacher who used to steal everyone’s lunchroom sandwiches and make fun of Roy’s “sissy woodworking hobby” back in the 90s. Roy hadn’t seen her since their messy divorce in 2013, hadn’t even known she’d moved to the neighborhood six months prior, fixing up the little blue bungalow three houses down from his. She turns, catches him staring, and her face splits into a grin that’s the exact same one he used to sneak glances at between class periods 20 years ago.
She says his name like she’s been expecting to run into him, and when she holds her hand out to shake, her fingers brush his knuckles by accident, sending a jolt up his arm that he hasn’t felt since he was 17, asking his first girlfriend to prom. A hot flush crawls up his neck immediately, half embarrassment, half that old, buried crush he’d stomped down so hard back when they were both married he’d convinced himself it never existed. Guilt twists in his gut right after, sharp and familiar. This is wrong. He’s still married, technically, in his head. She’s Greg’s ex, for Christ’s sake, he used to go to their backyard barbecues, watch Greg ignore her while he bragged about his latest golf score to the other teachers. He mumbles a hello, takes a long sip of his drink to avoid eye contact, but she doesn’t take the hint. She leans in closer, the side of her bare leg pressing against his jeans now, the crowd around them jostling closer as a group of rowdy college kids push through to get to the pool table in the back.
She teases him about the custom oak bookshelf he built for her and Greg for their first wedding anniversary, says she still has it, even dragged it across three state moves when she left Greg, because it’s the only nice thing she got out of that 18-year marriage. He remembers building that shelf, staying late in the school woodshop for three weeks, sanding every edge until it was smooth as glass, thinking the whole time about how he wished he was building something for someone who actually looked at him like he was worth noticing. She brings up the chocolate chip cookies he used to slip her in the teacher’s lounge when Greg was out coaching football, how she knew he hid the good ones from Greg on purpose, and he laughs, surprised she noticed that small, stupid gesture he’d thought no one ever saw. The guilt is still there, but it’s softer now, fuzzy around the edges from the rye and the steady warmth of her leg against his.
A guy carrying a full pitcher of IPA stumbles past, slamming into the back of Lila’s stool so hard it screeches against the linoleum, and she grabs Roy’s forearm hard to keep from falling, her body pressing flush against his side for three full seconds before the guy stumbles off, apologizing slurred over his shoulder. She doesn’t let go of his arm right away, and when she looks up at him, her eyes are dark in the low pink neon light of the bar, no trace of the teasing grin left. “I always wondered if you knew,” she says, quiet enough only he can hear, over the clink of glasses and the roar of the crowd around them. “Wondered if you ever thought about saying something, back then. I would’ve said yes.” The words hang between them, thick as the smell of fried peanuts and beer, and Roy’s throat goes dry. He thinks of Linda, the way she’d laughed through the pain in her hospital bed when she told him if he spent the rest of his life moping she’d come back and haunt him, that he deserved to be silly and stupid and happy for once. He thinks of Greg, posting pictures of his third wife and his new fishing boat on Facebook every other week, no trace of regret for how he talked down to Lila for decades. The band on his finger feels heavier than it ever has.
He tugs his hand free, fumbles the wedding band off his finger, tucks it into the inner pocket of his flannel shirt, right next to the folded polaroid of Linda and the kids he keeps there. It’s not throwing it away. It’s just putting it where it belongs, as a memory, not a chain. He tells Lila he did think about it, all the time, but he thought it was wrong, thought he’d be hurting everyone even if he never acted on it. She smiles, soft now, no teasing edge, and slides her hand into his, her palm warm and a little rough from the vegetable gardening she mentioned she does part time for the local community garden. He asks her if she wants to come back to his place, see the woodshop, he’s working on a custom cedar bird feeder, has extra sunflower seeds if she wants to test it out on the bright red cardinals that hang around his backyard every evening. She nods, finishes the last sip of her margarita, stands up, still holding his hand, no hesitation.
He leads her through the crowd, out the front door of the bar, the warm, pine-scented summer air hitting his face, and he doesn’t look back.
