Russell “Rust” Pritchard, 59, makes his living restoring 19th and early 20th century regional maps from a sun-faded studio attached to his Asheville bungalow, and hasn’t willingly attended a community event since his ex-wife left him for a whitewater rafting guide 12 years prior. He only showed up to the fall craft beer festival because his childhood buddy, who owns the auto shop down the road, begged him to man his booth for an hour while he ran to pick up his kid from soccer practice. He’s leaned against a dented oak barrel table, nursing a hazy IPA he doesn’t even like, watching groups of tourists laugh and stumble between booths, when someone slams into his left side hard enough to slosh half the beer down the front of his worn gray flannel.
He’s halfway through a grumbly apology before he looks up, and his throat goes tight. It’s Elara Moore, his next door neighbor, the woman he’s avoided eye contact with for six straight months, the wife of the HOA president who’s sent him three certified letters about his overgrown native wildflower yard that the guy insists is “a blight on the block.” She’s not wearing the crisp cream blouses and tailored slacks he’s only ever seen her in at HOA meetings, though. Today she’s in ripped high-waisted jeans, a faded 1987 Dolly Parton tour tee, scuffed white sneakers, and her dark curly hair is pulled back in a messy braid stuck through with a sprig of goldenrod. She’s holding a half-empty cup of spiked hard cider, and her face is pink from the cold October wind and the three drinks she’s already had, by the look of it.
She grabs his forearm without thinking to dab at the beer stain on his flannel with a crumpled napkin she pulls out of her jacket pocket, and he can feel the heat of her hand through the thin fabric, smell pine soap and cinnamon perfume coming off her hair. “Oh my god, I am so sorry,” she says, grinning like she’s not actually that sorry at all, “my friend just dared me to chug half my cider and I tripped over a golden retriever’s leash. You’re Rust, right? The map guy? I’ve been dying to talk to you, my husband never lets me bring it up at meetings because he’s still mad you put that ‘HOAs can eat my entire ass’ bumper sticker on your beat-up Ford.”
Rust blinks, too stunned to speak for a second. He’d spent six months assuming she was just as stuck up as her husband, the kind of woman who judged him for working with his hands and letting his dandelions grow, and here she is making fun of the guy. He snorts, wiping the remaining beer off his chin with the back of his hand. “Yeah, that’s me. Guilty. For the record, the bumper sticker was a gift from my 17-year-old niece. I didn’t even know you noticed my truck.”
“Of course I noticed it,” she says, leaning against the barrel next to him so their shoulders are almost touching, close enough he can hear her over the roar of the bluegrass band playing on the main stage. “I also noticed the map restoration studio you have in the side addition. I saw you working through the window last week, touching up an old map of the Blue Ridge Parkway with that tiny little paintbrush, your face all squinted in concentration. It looked like magic. I have a 1872 map of the Appalachian Trail my grandpa left me when he died, it’s got a huge water stain down the middle from when his basement flooded in 2019, I’ve been too nervous to ask anyone to fix it.”
They talk for 40 minutes straight, ignoring the text alerts blowing up both their phones, and Rust can’t remember the last time he talked to anyone this easy, no pressure, no small talk about the weather or HOA rules. She tells him she’s a freelance graphic designer, her husband ran for HOA president without even asking her, she hates every minute of it, she’s been planning to leave him for three months, she’s just waiting for her lease on a little cottage downtown to go through. He tells her about the map he’s currently restoring for a museum in Charlotte, about his ex wife leaving, about how he planted all the wildflowers in his yard for the bees, because his mom used to keep bee hives when he was a kid growing up outside Knoxville.
When the festival starts to wind down, she grabs his wrist and tugs him over to the split rail fence at the edge of the field, their boots crunching over crumpled oak leaves the whole way, overlooking the French Broad River, where the sun is setting pink and orange over the water. They sit side by side on the fence, their knees knocking every time one of them shifts, and she pulls up a photo of her grandpa’s map on her phone, holding it so close their faces are almost touching. He can feel her warm breath on his cheek when she points out a little X her grandpa drew on the map, marking the spot where he proposed to her grandma in 1962.
Her husband texts her right then, the screen lighting up with his name, and she rolls her eyes so hard she almost strains something, shoving the phone back into her jacket pocket without replying. She turns to him, her dark eyes glinting in the sunset, and leans in quick, kissing him soft on the mouth, tasting like hard cider and cinnamon gum. She pulls away before he can even process what’s happening, grinning, and hops off the fence.
“I’ll bring the map by your studio Saturday around 2,” she says, backing away slowly, already turning to go find her friend who’s calling her name from the crowd. “Don’t leave the side door locked, okay?”
Rust sits there for another ten minutes after she’s gone, watching the last of the sun dip below the tree line, listening to the crickets start to chirp in the grass at his feet. He lifts the sleeve of his flannel where the beer spilled earlier, presses the still damp, cold fabric to his warm cheek and laughs for the first time in months.
