Moe Pritchard, 62, retired high school woodshop teacher, showed up to the town’s annual summer cookoff with a crumpled paper bag of his homemade rib rub and a scowl. His daughter had signed him up as a prank, saying he spent too much time holed up in his garage sanding Adirondack chairs and too little time talking to anyone who didn’t ask for a custom stain color. He’d almost bailed, figured he’d rather spend the Saturday scraping sap off pine planks than make small talk with strangers, but he hated letting the kid win. The first thing he saw when he walked through the park gates was his assigned partner, leaning against a charcoal grill, twisting a strand of gray-streaked brown hair behind a silver hoop earring. He recognized her instantly: Elara Voss, ex-wife of his former high school principal, the woman he’d spent 12 years stealing glances at during staff meetings, back when she was off limits, married to the guy who signed his paychecks.
He froze halfway to the grill, considered turning around and leaving, but she waved first, grinning like she’d been waiting for him. He trundled over, boots crunching on loose gravel, the smell of grilled corn and lighter fluid thick in the humid July air. She was wearing a linen apron dotted with barbecue sauce, her forearms freckled, a smudge of charcoal on her left cheek. “You still chew on the end of your pencil when you’re nervous, huh?” she said, nodding at the pencil he’d tucked behind his ear, the eraser end gnawed half away. He flushed, fished the pencil out and stuck it in his Carhartt pocket, mumbled that it was an old habit.
They worked side by side for the next two hours, the heat from the grill seeping through the front of his shirt, sweat beading at his hairline. She stood so close their elbows bumped every time she stirred the baked beans, every time he flipped a rack of ribs. When a group of kids sprinted past, one of them slamming into the grill table, she grabbed his bicep to steady herself, her palm warm and calloused through the thin fabric of his shirt, holding on a beat longer than she needed to before pulling away. He found himself watching her when she wasn’t looking: the way she bit her lower lip when she tasted the sauce to adjust the seasoning, the way she laughed loud and unselfconscious when a dog trotted past and stole a hot dog bun off the next table over. He’d spent seven years telling himself he was done with this, done with wanting anything, that dating after his wife passed was some kind of betrayal. Every time he felt that flicker of interest, he’d shut it down, disgusted with himself for being too greedy, too old to be chasing butterflies. But this was Elara, the woman he’d thought was untouchable for half his adult life, and he couldn’t make himself look away.
She told him she’d divorced the principal 12 years back, caught him cheating with the school nurse, kept it quiet so she wouldn’t disrupt the school year. He stared at her, shocked, he’d had no idea, had always thought their marriage was perfect, the kind of quiet, polished couple that showed up to PTA meetings in matching sweaters. She snickered, stirring the coleslaw with a wooden spoon. “Please. I always thought you were the only guy in that whole school who didn’t kiss his ass. Used to leave extra coffee for you in the teacher’s lounge, too. You never noticed.” He felt his face go hot again, thought of all those early mornings, the extra mug of black coffee sitting on the counter next to his lunch pail, he’d always assumed it was the secretary leaving it for him.
When the judges announced they’d won first place, the small crowd around them cheered, and she jumped a little in excitement, grabbing his hand and squeezing it tight, her fingers lacing through his like they belonged there. He didn’t let go, even when the judge handed them the $200 prize check and a blue ribbon. When they stepped away from the table, she leaned in close, her hair brushing his cheek, smelling like lavender and the fresh lemon she’d been squeezing into the iced tea all afternoon. “I go to the farmers market every Saturday just to look at your chairs,” she said, quiet enough no one else could hear. “Never had the nerve to come talk to you. Figured you were still married, or hated people, or something.”
He laughed, a rough, rusty sound he hadn’t heard come out of his mouth in years. He told her he had no plans to stick around for the after party, asked if she wanted to go get peach ice cream at the old dairy stand down the road, then swing by his shop, she could pick out any chair she wanted, on the house. She grinned, tucking the blue ribbon into the pocket of her apron. “That sounds a hell of a lot better than listening to the mayor give a speech about community spirit.”
They walked to his beat-up Ford F-150, the sun dipping low over the oak trees, painting the sky pink and tangerine, the distant sound of the county fair ferris wheel’s music floating through the air. She didn’t let go of his hand the whole walk, her thumb brushing the scar across the back of his knuckle from a table saw accident 15 years prior. He opens the passenger door for her, and when she climbs up, her knee brushes his hip, and he doesn’t even bother pretending he doesn’t want to feel that again every day for the rest of the summer.
