Manny Ruiz, 52, vintage RV restorer, is at the Crook County Fair only because 16-year-old Jase, the kid next door, begged him to vouch for his steer’s training before the 4-H auction. He’d tried to get out of it, said he had a 1968 Winnebago engine to pull before the client picked it up Monday, but Jase showed up at his barn at 7 a.m. with a plate of his mom’s green chile rellenos, still steaming, so he caved. He’s been ducking crowds all afternoon, dodging the church ladies who keep trying to press their granddaughters’ phone numbers into his hand, leaning against a splintered split-rail fence by the adult beverage tent. His work shirt is still dusted with pine sawdust from the cabinet he’d been building before he left, the IPA in his hand sweating through the paper coaster, popcorn crunching under his work boots every time he shifts his weight.
He spots her 20 feet away first: Elara Voss, 49, the new county extension agent, the one everyone in town tiptoes around like a fresh grave. Her husband had been a third-generation rancher outside Prineville, dead 18 months from pancreatic cancer before they even finished unpacking when they moved back from Boise. Manny has talked to her exactly twice: once when she dropped off a permit for his new shop septic system, once when she helped him corral a loose cow off the road in front of his property last winter. He’s thought about her more than he cares to admit, feels guilty every time, like he’s stealing something from a guy he never even met.
A pack of hyped-up 4-H kids sprint past, chasing a runaway mini-lop rabbit, and she stumbles sideways, slamming her elbow into his bicep, her lemonade sloshing over the cup rim onto his jeans. She laughs, a low, rough sound that makes the back of his neck tingle, and dabs at the wet spot with the napkin tucked in her belt loop, her hand brushing his thigh through the grease-stained denim for half a second before she pulls back. She apologizes, says those kids have been hopped up on cotton candy and corn dogs all day, and he shakes his head, says it’s nothing, his jeans were already ruined with paint and transmission fluid anyway. She leans against the fence next to him, close enough that he can smell the lavender shampoo in her hair mixed with the alfalfa she’s been handling all day, the toe of her scuffed cowboy boot almost touching his.
They talk for 40 minutes, standing there while the steer auction wraps up behind them, and he finds out she has a 1972 Airstream Sovereign parked behind her house, half-gutted, the project her husband had started before he got sick. She says everyone keeps telling her to sell it, that she shouldn’t go gallivanting across the country alone, that it’s disrespectful to his memory to do the Alaska road trip they planned without him. Manny nods, knows what it’s like to have strangers dictating how you grieve, how his own family had kept pushing him to date again six months after his divorce, like 18 years of marriage could be wiped clean that fast. She pulls her phone out of her flannel shirt pocket, holds it up to show him photos of the Airstream, and when he reaches for it their fingers brush, he feels the thick callus on her index finger from roping, the cold of the cracked phone case against his knuckles.
The first firework goes off overhead, bright red, bursting so wide it bleaches out the stars for a full second, the boom vibrating deep in his ribcage. The crowd around them cheers, kids screaming so loud their voices crack, and she leans in, so close her breath is warm against his cheek, says she’s been meaning to call him about the Airstream for weeks, but she was scared he’d turn her down, scared everyone would talk if she was seen hanging around his shop alone. He’s about to say he wouldn’t have turned her down, that he doesn’t care what any of the town gossips have to say, when she kisses him, soft at first, like she’s testing the water, and he doesn’t pull away. He can taste the lemonade on her lips, the faint tang of spearmint gum, and for a second he forgets about the crowd, about the gossip, about the stupid guilt he’s been carrying for months for even thinking about her this way.
The fireworks end 10 minutes later, the crowd dispersing, people herding cranky, sugar-crashed kids toward the parking lot, the air still smelling like gunpowder and caramel corn. She pulls back, grinning, her cheeks pink from the heat and the kiss, and scribbles her address on the back of a crumpled 4-H entry slip, shoves it in the breast pocket of his work shirt. She says he can come over next Saturday, look at the Airstream, she’s got brisket smoking in the freezer and a case of the exact IPA he’s drinking tucked in the back of her fridge. She says she’s tired of letting other people decide what she’s allowed to want, and he nods, because he’s tired of hiding out in his barn alone, too.
She waves and turns to walk toward the goat barn, where she’s supposed to judge the senior showmanship category, and stops halfway, turning back to toss him a crinkly paper bag from the bake sale table. He opens it, finds a piece of pecan pie, still warm, the flaky crust oozing sticky syrup through the parchment paper. He takes a bite of the sweet, salty pie, tucks the crumpled 4-H slip deeper into his shirt pocket, and starts mapping the fastest route to her ranch before he even finishes chewing.
