Rico Marquez, 53, vintage trailer restorer with a permanent smudge of aluminum polish under his left fingernail and an 8-year grudge against his ex-wife tucked tight in the back of his throat, had only stopped at the Coconino County Fall Festival for a beer and a shot at finding a rare 1960s Airstream water pump someone had listed on the local swap meet page. The dust off the dirt parking lot coated the cuffs of his worn work jeans, and the plastic cup of amber ale in his hand sweated through the paper napkin wrapped around it, leaving a damp ring on the side of his flannel shirt pocket.
He’d almost given up on finding the pump when he spotted the table of homemade jams and pickles, the prickly pear jars glowing deep magenta in the late afternoon sun. He reached for the closest jar at the same time a woman on the other side of the table did, their knuckles brushing hard enough that he felt the rough callus on her index finger, the faint stickiness of fruit syrup on her wrist. He pulled his hand back fast, then looked up, and recognized her immediately. Lila, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, the one his ex had always dismissed as too reckless, too unkempt, too happy doing nothing that looked good on Instagram. She had a smudge of raspberry stain on her left cheek, silver hoop earrings that glinted when she laughed, and her dark hair was pulled back in a braid streaked with a single strand of premature gray that caught the light.
“Rico,” she said, leaning across the table so her shoulder brushed his bicep when a group of kids ran past, her voice warm like she was actually glad to see him. “I’d know that scar above your eyebrow anywhere. You still have that beat-up F-150 you tried to tow that half-crushed Airstream up Mingus Mountain with?”
He blinked, surprised she remembered. He’d only met her a handful of times when he was married, usually at awkward family holidays where his ex spent the whole night complaining about him to her relatives. He hesitated, half ready to mumble an excuse and walk away, but she pushed the jar of prickly pear jam across the table to him, no charge, and he found himself leaning against the wooden table leg, talking to her longer than he’d talked to anyone who wasn’t a customer in months. She told him she’d moved up from Tucson three years prior to take care of her ailing grandma, who’d passed last spring, and now she ran a 5-acre farm on the west side of town, growing heirloom fruit and vegetables and selling preserves at local markets. She snickered when he mentioned his ex’s nonstop Facebook posts of Caribbean cruises and fancy resort dinners, and leaned in closer, her breath carrying the sharp, sweet smell of vinegar and lavender when she said, “She always cared more about looking happy than actually being happy. I told her she was an idiot to leave you, back when it happened. She didn’t listen.”
The sun dipped below the pine trees as they talked, the string lights strung between the festival stalls flickering on, the distant bluegrass band shifting to slow, twangy love songs. When the festival coordinator announced they were closing in 10 minutes, Lila gestured at the stack of heavy wooden crates full of unsold jars under the table, and he offered to help carry them to her truck without even thinking about it.
The parking lot was mostly empty by the time they hauled the last crate into the bed of her beat-up pickup, the air cool enough that he could see his breath when he exhaled. She shut the tailgate, turned to face him, and rested her hand on his forearm for a full three seconds, her thumb brushing the frayed edge of his flannel sleeve, before she said, “I’ve had a crush on you since I was 19, you know. Always thought you were the good one that got stuck with the wrong person.”
He didn’t hesitate. He leaned in, kissed her soft, the taste of peppermint candy and faint prickly pear sugar on her lips, her hand curling into the front of his shirt to pull him closer, the distant sound of the bluegrass band wrapping up their last set fading into the background. When they pulled apart, she laughed, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, and nodded toward the driver’s side of her truck. “I got a fresh peach pie cooling on my kitchen counter, and a porch swing that overlooks the peaks. You wanna follow me back?”
He nodded, climbing into his own truck a few spaces over, rolling the windows down so the cool pine-scented air hit his face as he followed her taillights down the dark rural road, the jar of prickly pear jam sitting on the passenger seat next to him. For the first time in 8 years, he didn’t feel the heavy weight of that old grudge sitting in his chest at all.
