Ronen Voss, 62, retired wildland fire crew supervisor, had not sat across from a woman who wasn’t a neighbor or old crewmate’s wife at the weekly Elk Rapids community fish fry in seven years. His go-to spot was the far corner table, plastic salt shaker sticky with years of fryer grease, view of the lake through the smudged cinder block window, no one bothering him while he picked at cod and listened to the old timers argue about ice fishing limits. He’d moved to the Michigan town 11 months prior, chasing the quiet he thought he needed after his wife’s lung cancer diagnosis and rapid decline, his only consistent social outings the fish fry and monthly fire department training sessions for new volunteer recruits. His biggest flaw, the one his late sister used to nag him about nonstop, was that he’d frozen every part of his life that didn’t tie back to the 38 years he’d spent with his wife, convinced even a casual conversation with another woman was a betrayal he couldn’t stomach.
The table filled up fast that Friday, a rare warm spell in mid-March drawing twice the usual crowd, and Elara Marlow had nowhere else to sit. She was 58, the new town librarian, moved up from Chicago six weeks prior after a messy divorce that left her craving small-town anonymity, and Ronen had only seen her once before, restocking the nature section when he’d dropped off a stack of old wildfire safety manuals. She hauled her paper plate of fried cod and side of vinegar-drenched coleslaw over, one hand curled around a cold can of peach iced tea, and nodded at the empty seat across from him. “Mind if I crash? Every other table’s got at least three guys arguing about snowmobiles already.”
He grunted an affirmative, pushing his own iced tea glass out of the way to make space, and her wrist brushed his when she set her plate down. Her skin was cold from holding the can, the soft hair on her forearm catching the fluorescent overhead light, and he yelped a little when her elbow knocked his glass, sloshing sweet tea onto the frayed cuff of his Carhartt jacket. She laughed, loud and unselfconscious, dabbing at the spill with a crumpled napkin, and her hazel eyes locked onto his for three full seconds before she looked away, the corners of her mouth still tugged up in a grin. The air between them smelled like fried batter, white vinegar, and the faint lavender of her shampoo, and Ronen’s chest tightened, half guilt, half a flutter he hadn’t felt since he was 22 and first asked his wife out to a drive-in movie.
They talked for 45 minutes, him mostly listening as she complained about the 120-year-old cast iron book press rotting in the library basement, the previous librarian leaving it behind when she retired, no one in town knowing how to fix the rusted gear assembly. Ronen knew exactly how to fix it; he’d spent 20 years patching up broken fire truck pumps and heavy equipment in the middle of remote forest fire zones, rusted gears were second nature. He offered to stop by the next morning, no charge, just to take a look, and she agreed so fast she knocked over her own iced tea can, soda fizzing across the tablecloth.
The library basement was warm the next day, the air thick with the smell of old paper and lemon Pledge she’d used to dust the shelf of vintage local history books lining the walls. They huddled over the book press, Ronen on his knees running a flathead screwdriver along the rusted gear housing, her leaning in over his shoulder to point at the crack along the main lever. Her breath fanned across the back of his neck, soft and warm, and when she reached past him to tap the cracked part of the assembly, her hip pressed against his shoulder, the soft flannel of her shirt catching on the frayed edge of his work jeans. He kept waiting for the familiar wave of disgust at himself, the sharp voice in his head screaming that he was cheating on the wife he’d loved for almost 40 years, but it never came. All he felt was the low hum of her radio playing old Patsy Cline tracks in the corner, the rough texture of the cast iron under his palms, the quiet thud of his heart beating faster than it had in years.
He fixed the press in two hours, digging a replacement gear out of the spare parts bin he kept in his truck, tightening the bolts until the lever moved smooth as butter. They tested it on a sheet of thick cream cardstock, the old oak leaf embossment on the plate pressing clean into the paper, no smudges, no tears. She pulled the cardstock out, held it up to the dim basement light to look at it, and handed it to him, their fingers brushing for longer than was strictly polite. “I’ve been wanting to ask you to dinner since the fish fry,” she said, no hesitation, no demure look away, and Ronen didn’t even have to think about it.
They ate at the tiny 24-hour diner on Main Street, split a slice of peach pie with vanilla ice cream, talked about his old fire crew stories, her time working at a big Chicago library, the way the northern Michigan sun set pink over the lake this time of year. He noticed her nail polish was chipped the same pale shade of sky blue his wife used to wear every summer, and for the first time in seven years, the reminder didn’t make his chest ache. It just felt like a nice, quiet sign that he wasn’t doing anything wrong.
The waitress dropped the check on the table between them, and Ronen reached for it before she could, his hand closing over hers where she’d already set her wallet down.
