Moe Kapowski, 59, retired high school woodshop teacher, hauled his stack of hand-carved cedar birdhouses out of his beat-up F150 at 7 a.m. sharp, the August air sticking to the back of his neck like a damp bandana. He’d held the same spot at the West Milton farmers market for four years, right next to the peach stand where the old lady always slipped him a free fruit for fixing her cart wheel two seasons back, so when he saw the neon “HAZEL’S HOT HONEY” pop-up tent pitched in his spot, his jaw clenched so hard his molars ached.
He stormed over, ready to tear into whoever had the nerve to steal his plot, and skidded to a halt when the woman behind the folding table looked up. Hazel Marlow. Ex-wife of Jim Marlow, the football coach he’d bickered with for 12 straight years over budget cuts that gutted his shop class supply budget, the same guy who’d stolen his favorite retractable tape measure in 2017 and lied about it until Moe found it in the gym equipment closet three months later. He’d only ever spoken to her twice, both times at mandatory faculty holiday parties, where she’d hid in the corner drinking spiked eggnog and rolling her eyes at Jim’s loud war stories from the playoff games.
She leaned against the table, holding a jar of honey up to the sun so the gold liquid glinted through the glass, and grinned. “You’re the birdhouse guy, right? The organizer said I could take this spot since you bailed last week for your niece’s graduation.” Moe’s face heated up. He had bailed last week, and he’d forgotten to shoot the organizer a text to hold his spot. He mumbled an apology, shifting his weight from one boot to the other, the rough edge of a birdhouse digging into his forearm.
She held out a cracker slathered in goat cheese and a dollop of bright amber honey, her hand outstretched so far the cuff of her flannel shirt slid down her wrist. Their fingers brushed when he took it, the pad of her thumb grazing his knuckle, and he caught a whiff of lavender and fresh-cut clover off her hair. She had a streak of silver at her temple that caught the sun, and her nail polish was chipped the exact same shade of teal his late wife Linda used to wear. It didn’t sting like he thought it would. It just felt familiar.
The honey burned slow on his tongue, sweet first then sharp with chili, and he made a face that made her laugh loud enough that the peach stand lady glanced over. She teased him about the scowl he’d worn when he first marched up to her tent, said she’d been ready to squirt honey straight in his face if he started yelling. He found himself laughing back, carrying his birdhouses over to the empty spot two stalls down, stopping by her tent every 20 minutes between customers to bullshit. He showed her the cedar birdhouse he’d carved a blue jay into the roof of, his best piece that week, and she leaned in so close her shoulder pressed against his bicep, her breath fanning over his wrist as she pointed out the tiny carved feathers on the bird’s wing.
The entire time, a little voice in his head screamed that this was wrong. He’d sworn he wouldn’t date after Linda died, six years earlier, had turned down every blind date his sister had tried to set him up on, had convinced himself he was better off alone. And this was Jim’s ex-wife, for Christ’s sake, the woman married to the guy he’d hated for more than a decade. But then she told him she’d divorced Jim three years prior, after he’d cheated on her with the cheerleading coach, and that she’d always thought Jim was an idiot for picking fights with Moe. She said she still had the birdhouse his 10th grade shop class had made for the school garden in 2019, hanging on her back porch.
By 1 p.m., the market was wrapping up. He’d sold all but two of his birdhouses, she’d sold out of every jar of honey she’d brought. He helped her carry a box of empty glass jars to her Subaru, the cardboard digging into his palms, and when they set the box in her trunk she turned to face him, her hip inches from his, her eyes bright in the afternoon sun. “You wanna grab a beer at The Rusty Tap?” she asked, no hesitation. “I owe you for not yelling at me this morning, and I wanna hear all about the time you glued Jim’s whistle to his clipboard.”
Moe froze for half a second, half of him ready to make up an excuse about having to mow the lawn, the other half buzzing like the bees that hung around her honey jars all morning. “Only if you buy the first round,” he said, grinning. “And you let me hang that blue jay birdhouse on your porch. I got a feeling the sparrows by your place will love it.”
They walked the two blocks to the bar, the air still thick with summer humidity, the distant sound of a lawnmower humming a few streets over. They sat in a scuffed vinyl booth by the window, she ordered a pale ale, he got his usual Budweiser. When the server dropped a basket of salted fries on the table, she stole one before he could even reach for it, a fleck of salt sticking to her lower lip. He laughed so hard he snorted, a sound he hadn’t made since he was 17 messing around with his friends at the local drive-in. He wiped the corner of his eye, reached across the table to brush a crumb off the shoulder of her flannel, and didn’t overthink it when his fingers lingered on the soft cotton for an extra beat.
