Rayford Pritchard, 62, retired air traffic controller, had driven the 7 miles to Hog’s Breath Saloon every Thursday for 11 months straight, so he was caught off guard when he pulled into the parking lot and saw neon fair week signs strung across the front entrance. He’d spent 27 years talking jumpy student pilots through fogged-in landing strips, had never once lost his cool mid-shift, but the thought of wading through a crowd of drunk line dancers just to get his usual brisket sandwich and draft beer made his jaw clench. He almost turned around. Almost. But he’d skipped lunch fixing a 1978 Cobra CB radio for a kid who drove three hours from eastern Tennessee, and his stomach was growling too loud to ignore.
He squeezed through the front door, shoulders hunched, trying not to bump anyone, when his hip caught the side of a woman standing by the jukebox. Her peach seltzer sloshed over the rim of the plastic cup, splattering the cuff of his gray flannel shirt. He opened his mouth to apologize, already bracing for the sharp edge of a stranger’s irritation, but she laughed first, bright and unapologetic, and grabbed a crumpled napkin from her purse to dab at the wet spot. She was his next door neighbor, the one he’d avoided for 6 months because he’d seen her planting rose bushes along the property line and assumed she was the type to file HOA complaints about the 2-foot tall dandelions growing on his side of the fence. Her name was Maren, he remembered, 58, ran a mobile dog grooming service out of a white van parked in her driveway. Her shoulder brushed his chest as she leaned in to wipe the last of the seltzer off his sleeve, and he smelled lavender shampoo and the faint fried salt of onion rings on her clothes.
He mumbled a thanks, already planning to escape to his usual stool in the back corner, but she leaned against the jukebox, crossed her ankles, and nodded at the CB radio patch sewn onto his jacket. “Heard static coming through your garage walls at 2 a.m. last Tuesday,” she said, grinning. “Figured you were either talking to truckers or hiding a very loud old TV.” He blinked, stunned. He’d thought she was the one who left the passive aggressive note on his mailbox last month about the dead oak branch hanging over her roof. Turns out it was the retiree three houses down. She admitted she’d been avoiding him too, because she’d left a jar of homemade dill pickles on his porch as a welcome gift his first week there, and he’d never said a word about it. He laughed, loud enough that a couple people glanced over. He’d thought the pickles were a warning from the HOA, so he’d left them in his fridge unopened.
The DJ yelled over the speaker that it was time for the partner shuffle, and the crowd around them started pairing off like grade school kids at a sock hop. Maren shifted her weight, tucked a strand of gray-streaked blonde hair behind her ear, and rested her hand lightly on his forearm. Her palm was calloused, from clipping dog nails and lifting 40-pound grooming tubs, and the contact sent a weird, warm jolt up his arm. “I’m terrible at this,” she said, nodding at the dance floor, “but my sister bailed on me 20 minutes ago, and if I have to stand here and watch the guy in the cowboy hat grind on his cousin any longer I’m gonna pour my seltzer on his head. Wanna save me?”
Ray hadn’t danced since his wedding, 31 years prior, before his ex-wife left him for a commercial airline pilot she’d met on a cross-country flight. He hated being the center of attention, hated looking like an idiot in front of strangers, and every stubborn bone in his body wanted to say no. But she was looking up at him, eyes crinkling at the corners, and he couldn’t make the word come out. He let her pull him onto the dance floor, his hands hovering awkwardly over her waist at first, like he was afraid she’d break if he touched her too hard. He stepped on her black work boot twice in the first 30 seconds, and she snort-laughed, leaning her head on his shoulder for half a second when he stumbled over a turn, her hair brushing his jaw. The crowd around them faded into a blur of neon and denim, the twang of the country song thudding in his chest, and he realized he wasn’t embarrassed. He was having fun. The sharp, bitter disgust he’d carried for small town social events since he’d moved there melted away, replaced by that tight, light feeling he hadn’t felt since he was a kid sneaking into drive-in movies with his high school girlfriend.
When the song ended, they stumbled off the dance floor, both laughing, and grabbed another round of drinks at the bar. He told her about the kid who’d driven three hours for the CB radio that morning, she told him about the golden retriever she’d groomed that week that kept trying to lick her face mid-haircut. By the time the bar started closing up, it was pouring rain, and they ran the three blocks back to their houses, shoes squelching in the puddles, their jackets soaked through. He stopped at his porch steps, fumbling for his keys, and nodded at the side door leading to his garage. “Got that CB collection in there,” he said, his voice quieter than he meant it to be. “And that jar of pickles you gave me. We could crack it open, if you want.”
She paused, wiping rain off her cheek with the back of her hand, then smiled, and nodded. He flicks on the garage light, and the low hum of half-restored equipment wraps around them before the door clicks shut behind their backs.
