Rafe Mendez is 53, spent 28 years teaching woodshop at the local upstate New York high school before taking early retirement two years back, after his wife’s breast cancer came back for the third time. His biggest flaw? He’d rather chew through a plank of white oak than rock the small-town social boat. For four years, his routine hasn’t wavered: 6 a.m. coffee on his screened porch, three hours in his workshop building custom pieces for folks around town, meatloaf special at the Main Street diner every Wednesday, no exceptions. He’s turned down three different setups from well-meaning neighbors, says he’s not looking for anything, and for the most part, he’s believed that himself.
That’s when she bumps into him. He’d seen Karen Hale around town for years, of course—she’d been married to Jim, the high school football coach, for 20 years, started working as the town librarian two years back after their youngest kid left for college. Rafe had shared lunch with her and Jim a dozen times in the teacher’s lounge, always kept the conversation strictly about lesson plans or town park upgrades, never let himself look at her too long. She’s wearing cutoffs that hit just above her knees, a faded 1977 Fleetwood Mac tour tee that’s thin at the neckline, leather sandals caked with dust from the fairgrounds, sun streaks in her dark brown hair that he swears weren’t there last time he saw her. Her elbow catches his, his beer sloshes over the rim, splattering the front of his unbuttoned gray flannel shirt.
“Shit, I’m so sorry,” she says, laughing a little, grabbing a handful of napkins from the stack on the table next to them. She steps closer, close enough that he can smell the coconut sunscreen she’s wearing and the faint, sweet vanilla of her lip gloss, dabs at the wet spot on his shirt with the napkin, her knuckle brushing the skin of his chest through the thin white tee he wears under the flannel. Her hazel eyes lock onto his for a beat longer than casual politeness calls for, and he feels his throat go dry.
His first instinct is to step back, make a self-deprecating joke, go find his buddy who’s running the cornhole tournament, avoid the whole thing entirely. Everyone in town still talks about Jim and Karen’s divorce, messy and full of rumors about Jim’s affair with the new cheerleading coach, and Rafe’s never been the kind of guy to get tangled up in that kind of gossip. But then she says, “I love the oak leaves you carved into the armrests of the chairs you dropped off at the library last month. No one else noticed, but I did. They’re perfect for the back reading nook, the one that looks out over the creek.”
He blinks. He’d carved those leaves on a whim, late one night in his workshop when he couldn’t sleep, thinking about how his wife used to press oak leaves in her journal every fall. No one had mentioned them, not even the library board that commissioned the chairs. “You noticed that?” he says, and his voice sounds rougher than he means it to.
She nods, leans against the post next to him, their shoulders brushing every time someone squeezes past them to get to the beer tap. They talk for 40 minutes, he finds out she’s been divorced for eight months, she’s been taking pottery classes at the community center, she hates the formulaic romance novels the publisher keeps forcing the library to stock, she thinks his plan to build a set of carved birdhouses for the town park’s nature trail is the best idea he’s ever heard. Every time she laughs, she tilts her head back a little, and he has to fight the urge to tuck the stray strand of hair that keeps falling in her face behind her ear. He forgets about the cornhole tournament, forgets about the unwritten small town rules he’s spent his whole life following, forgets how long it’s been since he talked to someone who felt like they actually saw him, not just the widowed woodshop teacher who builds nice furniture.
When the band starts playing a slow, syrupy country song, she tilts her head toward the edge of the fairgrounds, where the old grain elevator looms, now converted into a tiny community art gallery. “Wanna get away from the noise?” she says, and he nods before he can overthink it.
They walk across the dewy grass, her bare arm brushing his the whole way, the sound of the band fading behind them, crickets chirping in the tall grass at the edge of the property, the air smelling like cut clover and fried Oreos from the food stall near the entrance. She leans against the warm brick wall of the grain elevator, the last of the sun hitting her face, making the gold flecks in her hazel eyes stand out. “I’ve wanted to talk to you for months,” she says, quiet, like she’s admitting something she’s been holding onto for a long time. “I just didn’t want to push. I knew you were still grieving.”
He stares at her for a second, feels that tight knot of resistance he’s carried around for four years loosen, just a little. He’s spent so long scared of being seen as moving on too fast, scared of the town gossip, scared of feeling something that isn’t grief, that he forgot what it feels like to want something. He reaches out, brushes that stray strand of hair behind her ear, his calloused thumb brushing the soft skin of her cheek, and she doesn’t pull away, just leans into his touch a little. “I’m glad you waited,” he says.
She smiles, reaches up, rests her hand on his wrist, her fingers warm against his sun-warmed skin. The last of the sun dips below the treeline, fireflies start flickering in the grass at their feet, and for the first time in four years, Rafe doesn’t feel the urge to run back to his safe, predictable routine. He leans down, kisses her slow, the faint taste of her vanilla lip gloss and the peach seltzer she’s been drinking mixing with the bitter aftertaste of his IPA, and he doesn’t care if anyone from town drives past and sees them. Somewhere in the distance, a kid yells as they win a giant stuffed bear at the ring toss, and a firefly lands on the frayed cuff of his flannel shirt, glowing bright green for half a second before it flutters off into the dark.
