Arlo Mendez, 62, retired air traffic controller out of Phoenix, still scans every crowd like he’s tracking incoming flights, waiting for the blip on the radar that signals something’s about to go wrong. It’s a flaw he can’t shake, three years out from his last shift, two and a half years out from burying his wife, Carol. He’d driven up to Flagstaff for the annual fall craft festival to sell the hand-carved walking sticks he whittles in his garage, mostly to get out of the house, not because he needs the cash. The air smells like fried dough, pine, and wood smoke, aspen leaves crunching under scuffed work boots as he arranges his stock on the folding table.
The woman setting up the honey stand next to him leans across the gap between their tables to adjust a stack of mason jars, and her lined flannel sleeve brushes his bare forearm. He freezes. He’d know that thin, silvery scar curling around her left wrist anywhere, from the time she burned herself flipping burgers at his daughter Lila’s high school graduation party in 2005. Clara Hale, Lila’s best friend’s mom. They’d barely spoken in 18 years, not since Carol had joked once, late that night after the party, that Clara had looked at him like he was the only cold beer in a cooler full of warm soda. Arlo had brushed it off, guilty even for the split second he’d wondered if Carol was right.
He avoids eye contact for the first three hours of the festival, hyper-focused on answering questions from customers about the different oak and cedar types he uses, pointedly not glancing over at her stand, not noticing when she laughs loud enough to carry over the bluegrass band playing at the far end of the field, not thinking about how her hair had been the same warm honey color back then, streaked with silver now at the temples. Mid-afternoon, she walks over and sets a paper cup of spiced cider on the edge of his table. Their fingers brush when he reaches for it, and he feels a jolt up his arm, like static from a wool sweater. Her nails are chipped, caked with faint yellow beeswax at the cuticles, and she smells like clover and cedar. “Figured you’d be tired of drinking that lukewarm water you brought,” she says, grinning, the corners of her hazel eyes crinkling the same way they did back in 2005. She mentions she saw Lila’s wedding photos on Facebook, says she looks happy, that she’s still in touch with her daughter, who’s teaching elementary school in Portland now. She says she split from her husband seven years ago, runs the honey business full time on 10 acres outside town.
He talks to her on and off for the rest of the afternoon, half guilty, half giddy, like he’s sneaking a cigarette when he’s supposed to be on shift. He keeps waiting for the blip, the sign that this is wrong, that he’s betraying Carol, that he’s going to mess this up like he almost messed up that 747 landing in 2019 when he was distracted by a migraine. But there’s no blip. She teases him about the terrible dad jokes he tells the kids who stop by his stand, he teases her about the way she chases off the stray dogs that keep trying to steal her honey sample crackers.
By 6 p.m., a surprise cold front rolls in, dark clouds dumping cold, hard rain across the field. The festival organizers announce an early close over the loudspeaker, and everyone scrambles to pack up their stock before it gets soaked. Arlo and Clara huddle under the small awning over his booth, shoulders pressed tight together, holding down the edges of the tarp covering his walking sticks while the wind whips at their clothes. Her hair is stuck to her wet cheek, and he reaches out before he can think better of it, tucking the strand behind her ear, his thumb brushing the soft, cool skin of her jaw. She doesn’t pull away. She just looks up at him, holding eye contact for three long seconds, no joke, no deflection, just the quiet hum of the rain hitting the tarp, distant thunder rumbling over the San Francisco Peaks, the faint catch of her breath. He doesn’t feel guilty anymore. He just feels awake, for the first time in years.
The rain lets up 10 minutes later, and she helps him load his unsold walking sticks into the bed of his beat-up Ford F-150. When they’re done, she pulls a jar of wild orange blossom honey from the last crate in her booth, shoves it into his hand. “You mentioned you liked this back at that graduation party,” she says. He can’t even remember saying that. He asks her if she wants to get meatloaf and mashed potatoes at the diner down the highway, the one with the neon pie sign in the window. She nods, tucking her cold hand into the crook of his arm as they walk across the wet parking lot, the asphalt smelling like petrichor and leftover cotton candy. The little bell above the diner door jingles when she pulls it open, and she holds it for him, grinning over her shoulder.
