Elias Voss, 58, retired commercial beekeeper turned small-batch mead maker, had avoided the Oceana County Fall Harvest Fair for seven straight years. The fair always smelled like Ellen’s favorite fried apple fritters, sounded like the bluegrass band she’d dragged him to see every Saturday night for 22 years, felt like the kind of place he wasn’t supposed to be without her. He’d only agreed to run a mead booth this year because his 16-year-old niece had begged, big wet eyes and a promise to man the register for free all weekend.
The first three hours ran smooth. He poured samples of wild blackberry and clover mead, laughed at the old farmers who complained his 12% ABV brew was “fancy beer for city folks”, ignored the few neighbors who gave him that sad, pursed-lip look they always did when they saw him out alone. Then Maren Hale walked up to his booth, and his jaw went tight enough to crack a tooth.
He’d recognize that silver streak at her left temple, that half-smirk that always looked like she was holding a secret, anywhere. She was 18 the last time he’d spoken to her, when she’d ratted him out to her parents for sneaking into their family cabin with her older sister Lila, his high school girlfriend. He’d been banned from the property, Lila had dumped him two weeks later, and he’d carried a petty, stupid grudge ever since. She was 54 now, a botanical illustrator based out of Portland, from what he’d heard through the town grapevine, only back in town to visit her ailing mom.
She leaned over the rough pine folding table, her wavy auburn hair falling forward to brush the label of his raw honey mead, and he caught a whiff of jasmine and cedar. She tucked the hair behind her ear, her fingers smudged with charcoal and ink, and held eye contact for a full beat longer than casual interaction required. “Wild blackberry,” she said, nodding at the tap. “Grew those all over the cabin property, right?”
Elias grunted, poured a two-ounce sample, and slid it across the table. Their fingers brushed when she grabbed the cup, his calloused from lifting bee boxes and hauling 5-gallon carboys of mead, hers rough at the pads from holding drawing pencils for 10 hours a day. He pulled his hand back like he’d touched a hot hive tool. “You still drink, or you just here to rat me out to someone again?”
Maren laughed, a warm, raspy sound that cut through the distant scream of kids on the Tilt-a-Whirl. She took a sip of the mead, hummed, and leaned further over the table, close enough that he could see the faint freckles across her nose that he’d never noticed when they were younger. “I owe you an apology for that, by the way. I didn’t tell my parents because I cared if you drank beer. I was 18 and had a massive crush on you. Hated watching you make out with my sister on the porch.”
Elias stared at her, blinking, for a full 10 seconds before he burst out laughing. He’d carried that grudge for 36 years, and it was all because a teenaged girl had a crush on him. He shook his head, poured himself a sample of the blackberry mead, and clinked his cup against hers. “That’s the dumbest reason anyone’s ever had to ruin my weekend. I’ll take it, though. Better than you thinking I was a bad influence.”
She stayed for the rest of the afternoon, helping him pour samples when the line got long, bantering with customers about the difference between mead and wine, teasing him about the old “BEWARE OF BEE MAN” sticker on his cooler. Their knees knocked under the table when they sat down during a lull, neither of them pulling away. When a bumblebee landed on her wrist, she held perfectly still, a soft smile on her face, and said, “They’re only mean if you act like you’re scared of ‘em.” It was exactly what Ellen used to say, and for the first time in years, the thought of her didn’t feel like a sharp pain in his chest. It felt like a nudge, like she was laughing at him for being an idiot for holding a grudge for so long.
He fought the pull of it for an hour, told himself he was being stupid, that everyone in town would talk if they saw him with Lila’s little sister, that he was betraying Ellen by even thinking about kissing someone else. But Maren kept leaning in when he talked about his bees, kept laughing at his terrible jokes about fermented honey, kept brushing her hand against his when they reached for the same bottle of mead. By the time the fair closed down, the bluegrass band packing up their gear and the food stalls dimming their lights, he’d stopped fighting it entirely.
They loaded crates of empty mead bottles into the back of his beat-up 2008 Ford F-150, the air sharp with wood smoke and the first cold bite of October. He dropped a crate of glass samples, and they both bent down to pick them up at the same time, their heads bumping softly. They laughed, and he reached out to brush a piece of hay out of her hair, his fingers lingering on her cheek. She didn’t pull away. She leaned into his touch, and he kissed her, slow, the taste of blackberry mead and peppermint lip balm mixing on his tongue. The wind bit at his ears, but his chest felt warm, loose, like a weight he didn’t know he was carrying had finally lifted.
They drove back to his small cottage on the edge of the Manistee National Forest, the radio playing old Johnny Cash, her sketchbook open on her lap. He pulled a jar of raw wild honey from his pantry when they got inside, and she flipped through her sketchbook to show him drawings of wildflowers she’d done on her drive from Portland, desert marigolds and mountain columbine and prairie clover. The last page was a drawing of him, leaning against his fair booth that afternoon, a bumblebee perched on his shoulder, his half-smile captured perfectly in charcoal.
They took a wool blanket out to his front porch, sat on the weathered wooden steps, and passed a bottle of clover mead back and forth, watching the harvest moon rise over the rows of apple orchards down the road. When she rested her head on his shoulder, the distant call of a great horned owl cut through the quiet, and he didn’t even think to reach for the old photo of Ellen tucked in his flannel shirt pocket for the first time in seven years.
