Marlon Reed, 61, retired federal hotshot crew supervisor, only shows up to the Flagstaff mountain community Fourth of July potluck because his 19-year-old next-door neighbor corners him on his porch at 4 p.m., holding a lumpy peach cobbler still steaming in a disposable tin, and says if he bails again no one else will appreciate the extra cinnamon she dumped in. He drags his feet the whole three block walk, wearing a faded fire-retardant Nomex shirt with a frayed collar, scuffed steel-toe boots caked in trailer rust, a cold can of Pabst in his left hand he grabbed from his fridge on the way out. He stations himself by the overgrown horseshoe pits far from the crowd, ignores the waves from the guys who run the local hardware store, stares at the pine trees swaying in the light breeze like he’d rather be back home sanding the frame of the 1968 Scotty trailer he’s restoring for a client in Phoenix.
He’s halfway through his second beer when Elara stumbles into him. She’s the woman who runs the wild jam stand at the weekly farmers’ market, mid-50s, silver streaks braided through her dark curly hair, linen blouse dotted with berry stains, carrying a tray of jalapeño lemon bars balanced on one hip. Her boot catches on an exposed oak root, she lurches forward, and Marlon reaches out on instinct, one hand splaying across her upper back to steady her, the other catching the edge of the tray before it hits the dirt. Her elbow brushes his bare forearm where his shirt sleeve is rolled up, her skin is warm, she smells like pine smoke and wild blackberry and citrus. She laughs, loud and throaty, no polite tinkle to it, and leans back just far enough to meet his eyes, hazel with flecks of gold, crinkled at the corners like she smiles a lot. “You just saved my most popular recipe,” she says, and he realizes his hand is still on her back, he yanks it away like he touched a hot stove, mumbles that it’s no big deal.
She doesn’t leave. She sets the tray on the nearby picnic table, leans against the wood next to him, close enough that her shoulder brushes his bicep every time she shifts her weight. He tenses at first, ready to make an excuse to leave, but then she asks about the logo on his shirt, the crossed axes and the US Forest Service patch sewn above the pocket. He tells her he ran a hotshot crew for 28 years, retired after the 2017 Eagle Creek Fire, and he expects the usual polite nod and quick subject change, but she just nods slow, says her older brother was a hotshot based out of San Bernardino, died in the 2003 Cedar Fire when a wind shift trapped his crew. He doesn’t know what to say at first, no one’s ever responded to that part of his story without looking uncomfortable, so he just tells her about the kid he lost that day, 22, fresh out of college, wanted to be a park ranger. She doesn’t flinch, doesn’t tell him it wasn’t his fault, just passes him a lemon bar, the glaze sticky on his fingers, says loss sticks to you like pine sap, you don’t scrub it off, you just learn to live with the shine.
He’s so wrapped up in talking he doesn’t notice the fireworks start until the first red burst lights up the sky, the crack loud enough to rattle his molars, the crowd around them cheering. They’re standing closer now, her shoulder pressed firm to his, he doesn’t move away. A kid with a glow stick wrapped around his head runs past, slams into her side, and she grabs his forearm to steady herself, her fingers wrapping around the scar he got from a falling branch on a 2012 fire in Idaho. He covers her hand with his own, calloused from years of running chainsaws and sanding trailer frames, and for half a second he tenses, like he’s doing something wrong, like he’s betraying the wife he lost 8 years prior, but then he remembers she used to nag him constantly about closing himself off from everyone, told him if she went first she expected him to find someone to drink cheap beer and watch bad westerns with, so he doesn’t let go for three full bursts of blue and silver fireworks. When the smoke clears a little she looks up at him, grins, says she bought a beat-up 1972 Airstream last month, rusted out wheel wells, broken water heater, everyone in town keeps telling her Marlon’s the only guy who can fix it right. He almost says no, almost tells her he’s booked solid for the next three months, that he doesn’t take on side jobs for people he knows, but then she says she’s got a case of 12-year-old bourbon she’s been saving for whoever takes the job, plus a lifetime supply of huckleberry jam if he does a good job. He finds himself saying he’ll be at her place at 10 a.m. tomorrow, she can keep the bourbon, just save him a jar of that huckleberry stuff for the ride home.
She leans up then, presses a quick, warm kiss to his cheek, her lipstick leaving a faint pink mark he doesn’t bother wiping off. When the fireworks end, the crowd dispersing to their cars, she walks him to his beat-up 2006 Ford F150, pulls a small jar of huckleberry jam out of her canvas bag, shoves it in his hand, says it’s a down payment. He climbs in the truck, twists the key, the engine rumbles to life, and he looks in the rearview mirror to see her standing on the curb, waving, the glow from the streetlight gilding the silver in her braid. He twists the lid off the jar while he waits for a group of kids to cross the street, dips his index finger in, the jam sweet and tart and bright on his tongue, and he reaches over to turn the radio up, already mentally making a list of parts he’ll need to pull from his workshop for the Airstream in the morning.
