Rafe Oliveira is 52, runs a vintage outboard motor restoration shop out of a weathered boathouse on the west edge of Lake of the Ozarks, and has held the exact same grudge for 31 years. He’s widowed six years, keeps his hair cut so short gray roots don’t show, chews cinnamon gum when he’s nervous, and has skipped the town’s annual summer catfish fry nine years running just to avoid running into Elara Voss. This year, his only employee begged him to come, said the boss owed him for covering a last-minute emergency repair over Fourth of July, so Rafe caved.
He’s standing in line, staring at the deep fryer bubble grease over a bed of hickory coals, when someone slams into his left side. A cold Bud Light sloshes over the rim of its can, soaking the cuff of his well-worn gray flannel, and he turns ready to snap. It’s Elara. She’s 50, her dark hair streaked with silver pulled back in a messy braid, freckles scattered across her nose, wearing steel-toe work boots and a cutoff flannel that shows tanned, muscled arms crisscrossed with tiny scars from rose thorns. She’d moved back to town three months prior, post-divorce, to start a small native plant landscaping business, and Rafe had gone out of his way to drive the long way to the hardware store just to not pass her shop.
He’s ready to mumble a half-assed it’s fine and bolt, but she leans against the metal food stand next to him, crosses her arms, and calls his bluff. “You’ve been avoiding me since I got back. Still mad about the lake house thing senior year?”
Rafe blinks. He’d never told anyone why he hated her, not even his late wife. “You ratted me out for sneaking in to swim after curfew. My parents grounded me for a month, I missed the state fishing tournament.”
Elara snorts, loud enough that the guy in front of them turns to look. “That was my sister. Your girlfriend at the time. She caught you staring at me in my bikini when I came out to get a soda that morning, got pissed, told our dad you’d broken in to steal beer. I tried to tell her she was being an idiot, she told me if I said anything to you she’d tell everyone I snuck out to make out with the boy from the auto shop.”
The words land like a punch to the chest. 31 years of resentment, of crossing the street when he saw her last name on a mailbox, of skipping the fry for almost a decade, all for nothing. He feels stupid, and a little hot under the collar, and suddenly he can’t stop staring at the way her smile crinkles the corners of her eyes, the same way it did when they were 17.
She buys him the promised beer, and they sit at a splintered picnic table at the edge of the crowd, far enough away that no one they know will stop to bug them. Their knees brush under the table every time one of them shifts, and Rafe doesn’t move his leg away. She tells him about her landscaping jobs, about the 1972 Evinrude she found rotting in the boathouse of the old lake house she’s renting, the same one they’d gotten in trouble at all those years ago. He tells her about the rare 1960 Mercury he just finished restoring for a client in St. Louis, about how his wife loved coming to the catfish fry before she got sick.
She leans in when he talks, like she’s actually listening, not just waiting for her turn to speak. When a stray oak leaf falls into his hair, she reaches across the table and plucks it out, her fingertips grazing his temple, calloused from hauling potted plants and trimming branches. He feels his neck heat up, and for the first time in years, he doesn’t have a snarky comment ready.
“I always thought you were cute, you know,” she says, taking a sip of her beer, like she’s commenting on the weather, not dropping a bomb he’s low-key waited 30 years to hear. “Even when you were dating my sister. I felt guilty about it for ages. Figured you hated me, so there was no point saying anything.”
Rafe laughs, rough and surprised. “I used to make up excuses to stop by your house when I knew my ex was working at the mall just so I could talk to you. Thought I was being so subtle.”
Rafe doesn’t hesitate. He nods, crumples his empty beer can and tosses it in the trash can next to the table. He opens the passenger door of her beat-up Ford F-150 for her, and when she hands him a paper bag with two leftover hushpuppies to hold, their hands brush again, deliberate this time. He settles into the passenger seat, the sweet tang of her perfume mixing with the warm lake wind blowing through the open window, and doesn’t even think about the 31 years of grudge he left back at the fry.
