Moe Sorrentino, 61, retired high school industrial tech teacher, had only showed up to the county fire department’s annual July carnival because his grandson Jax begged him to watch the 12-and-under pie-eating contest. He’d spent four years avoiding any event that drew more than 10 people from their small western Pennsylvania town, convinced every other attendee was either a church lady angling to set him up with a widowed friend or a former student who’d ask him to fix their lawnmower for free. The humidity clung to the back of his neck under his frayed Steelers cap, the air thick with the smell of fried Oreos, diesel from the Tilt-a-Whirl, and burnt hot dogs from the grill by the fire truck. He leaned against a splintered wooden post, sipping a root beer he’d paid $5 for, and planned to slip out as soon as Jax finished his contest.
He didn’t see her until she bent down right in front of him, her cutoff denim shorts brushing the laces of his scuffed work boots as she snatched a paper napkin that had blown against his ankle. Her knuckles grazed his bare calf through the rip in his jeans, and he jumped like he’d touched a live wire, the root beer sloshing over the edge of his cup onto his wrist. She looked up, holding eye contact for three full beats too long for a stranger, a half-amused smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. She had a smudge of pink cotton candy on her left cheek, a tattoo of a vintage table saw wrapped around her forearm, and was wearing a faded 1984 Born in the U.S.A. tour tee that had seen better days. “Sorry about that,” she said, wiping her hand on the side of her shorts. “Recognized your boots. You dropped off three boxes of your wife’s romance novels at the library last month. Had sawdust caked in the treads then, too.”
Moe’s throat went dry. He’d barely spoken to the new librarian when he dropped the books off, had kept his head down, mumbled a thank you, and bolted before she could ask any personal questions. He’d spent four years feeling like a ghost in his own town, everyone tiptoeing around him like mentioning Linda would make him shatter. He’d brushed off three different women who’d asked him out for coffee, told himself any interest in anyone else was a betrayal, that he was too old, too set in his ways, too broken to start over. “I’m Maeve,” she said, nodding at the empty spot on the picnic bench next to her. She had a half-eaten plate of cheese fries in front of her, a condensation-ringed cup of cherry Kool-Aid beside it. “Got extra fries if you want ‘em. They’re too salty for me.”
He hesitated for 10 full seconds, then sat. Her shoulder brushed his when she pushed the plate toward him, and he caught a whiff of coconut sunscreen and vanilla lip balm, a scent that made his chest feel tight in a way that wasn’t sad, for the first time in years. He grabbed a fry, his fingers brushing hers when he reached, and he felt a jolt he hadn’t felt since he was 17, sneaking Linda into the back of his dad’s pickup at the drive-in. He told himself he was being stupid, that he was making something out of nothing, that she was just being nice. But then she asked him about the vintage radial arm saw he’d posted in the town Facebook group two days prior, said she’d been looking for one to build floating bookshelves for the library’s new kids’ section, and he forgot how to breathe for a second. He’d posted that at 2 a.m. when he couldn’t sleep, hadn’t thought anyone even looked at that group except people selling old lawn furniture.
They talked for 45 minutes, the noise of the carnival fading into background static. She told him she’d moved to town six months prior from Cleveland, left a corporate publishing job after her ex-husband left her for a 28-year-old paralegal, that she’d been restoring old furniture as a hobby for 10 years. He told her about Linda, about Jax, about the workshop he ran out of his garage, how he restored old power tools for guys who didn’t want the cheap plastic crap they sold at Home Depot. He didn’t feel like anyone was pitying him, didn’t feel like he was being sized up as a date for someone’s cousin, just felt like he was talking to someone who got the appeal of a heavy, well-made tool that would last longer than the person using it.
When Jax ran over, covered in blueberry pie filling, yelling that he’d won second place, Moe almost didn’t want to leave. Maeve laughed, wiped a smudge of pie off Jax’s cheek with her napkin, and handed him a lollipop she’d won at the ring toss. Moe stood, brushed crumbs off his jeans, and before he could talk himself out of it, told her she could come by his workshop next Saturday, he’d give her the saw for half price, and even help her cut the wood for the shelves if she brought beer. She leaned in, her mouth close enough to his ear that he could feel her breath on his neck, and said she’d bring peach pie, extra crust, like the grocery list he’d tucked between the pages of one of Linda’s old novels said he liked. He froze, and she grinned, winked, and said she’d found the list when she was sorting the books, had thought it was too sweet to throw away.
He walked Jax to the car, the kid chattering a mile a minute about his prize, a $20 gift card to the local ice cream shop. Moe didn’t hear a word of it. He kept replaying the feel of her knuckles on his calf, the smell of her sunscreen, the way she’d looked at him like he wasn’t just the sad widowed shop teacher everyone avoided. He didn’t feel guilty, for the first time in four years. He felt light, like he could breathe again. When he got home, he pulled the tarp off the radial arm saw in his garage, wiped the sawdust off the table, and left the porch light on all night, just in case she decided to show up early.
