Russell Voss, 62, spent the three years after his wife’s death perfecting the art of being left alone. The retired high school woodshop teacher’s only flaw, if you asked his adult daughter, was that he refused to admit he was lonely. He’d turned down every dinner invite, every community volunteer pitch, every half-hearted setup from neighbors, until his 16-year-old granddaughter begged him to man the FFA bake sale booth at the town’s annual summer street fair. He caved faster than he cared to admit.
The July heat hung thick enough to sip by mid-afternoon, the air smelling like fried Oreos, cut clover, and the faint char of the BBQ truck three booths down. Russell was already counting the minutes until he could go home to his workbench and a cold root beer when a stray peach pie slid off the wobbly card table he’d dragged out of his garage. He reached for it the same time the woman running the adjacent plant swap booth did, her sun-warmed shoulder brushing his bare forearm as she caught the tin before it hit the asphalt.
He knew who she was, instantly. Marisol Reyes, 58, ex-wife of the high school principal who’d cut his woodshop budget by 70% his second to last year teaching, the same man who’d told him “kids don’t need to learn to build things anymore when they can code apps.” Russell had avoided her for decades by default, lumping her in with every choice her ex-husband had made. She held the pie out to him, her silver hoop earrings catching the golden hour light, and laughed when he grumbled about the table’s uneven leg. “I got a shim you can borrow,” she said, nodding back at her stack of terracotta succulent pots. “Used to fix wobbly display tables at the library all the time before I retired.”
He didn’t say anything at first, just took the shim she handed him, his calloused fingers brushing hers when he reached for it. The wood was sanded smooth, he noticed, like someone had run fine grit over it a dozen times. “You made this?” he asked, before he could stop himself. She nodded, leaning against the edge of her booth, her hip a foot away from his, close enough that he could smell lavender hand cream and fresh cut mint from the herb bundles stacked next to her. “Took your woodshop class back in 1998, actually,” she said, and he blinked, surprised. “I fought Greg on cutting that budget, you know. Told him he was an idiot for getting rid of the only class half the boys in that school actually looked forward to. He didn’t listen.”
Russell felt the old, familiar anger at her ex soften, sharp around the edges like a piece of rough oak he’d started sanding. They talked through the rest of the fair, him selling lemon bars and peach pies to passersby, her handing off potted succulents and herb bundles, their arms brushing every time they both reached for something on the edge of their shared table space. When a group of kids ran past chasing a stray dog, they knocked over a tray of small succulents, and they both knelt to pick them up at the same time, their hands landing on the same tiny terracotta pot. His knuckles grazed her wrist, and she didn’t pull away, her fingers lingering against his for a full beat before she picked up the next pot.
By 9 PM, the fair was wrapping up, the country cover band packing up their gear, the last of the food trucks pulling out. Russell helped her load her plant trays into the back of her beat-up Ford Ranger, his hands brushing the small of her back once when he passed her a stack of herb bundles. She paused, her hand on the truck’s tailgate, and looked up at him, her dark eyes steady. “Got a case of cheap lager in my fridge out at the farmette,” she said, like she was offering him a spare hammer, no pressure. “Wanna come split a couple? I got that old cutting board you made for the school auction in 2010 hanging above my kitchen sink, even. Still use it every day.”
Russell hesitated for half a second, his brain running through the list of excuses he’d memorized over the past three years: I got a bird feeder to fix, I have to let the dog out, I’m tired. None of them felt real, not anymore. He nodded, and she grinned, unlocking the passenger side door for him. The drive to her place was 10 minutes down a gravel back road, the windows rolled down, crickets chirping loud enough to hear over the truck’s old radio. They sat on her back porch after they drank the first two beers, fireflies blinking in the tall grass at the edge of her yard, and she leaned over, resting her hand lightly on his denim-clad knee. He didn’t move, just took a slow sip of his beer, and laced his fingers through hers.
