Elias Voss, 52, makes his living restoring vintage campers out of a converted barn on the edge of a tiny Blue Ridge mountain town, and he’s spent the last six years perfecting the art of avoiding small town social events. He only showed up to the fire department’s annual chili cookoff because his best friend, the fire chief, threatened to stop towing broken down camper frames to his shop for free if he bailed again. He’d been camped by the industrial beer cooler for 45 minutes, nursing a cheap lager and ignoring the neighbors who kept trying to ask him about the 1969 Winnebago he was fixing up for a retiree from Florida, when he spotted her.
Mara Carter, the new county public health inspector, was leaning against a picnic table 10 feet away, picking at a plate of cornbread, wearing a faded red flannel over her work uniform instead of the starched blazer she’d had on when she showed up to his shop three weeks prior. He’d been a total asshole to her that day, snapping when she cited him for a rusty fire extinguisher behind his workbench, calling the rule “pointless government red tape” even though he knew he’d been meaning to replace the thing for six months. She’d just written the ticket, handed it to him, and said “Fix it by the 15th, or I’ll have to fine you. No hard feelings.” He’d felt like an idiot the second she left.
He was about to duck behind the cooler when she turned, spotted him, and started walking straight over. The air smelled like wood smoke and cumin and wet fallen leaves, the bluegrass band’s fiddle wailing loud enough that he could feel the vibration in the soles of his work boots. She reached the cooler at the same time he did, both of them stretching for the last mango hard seltzer he didn’t even know he wanted, their knuckles brushing. His skin burned where they touched, her hands were cold from carrying her iced tea, calloused at the fingertips. He pulled his hand back fast, mumbled an apology.
“First time I’ve ever seen you out of that barn,” she said, popping the top on the seltzer and leaning against the cooler next to him, her shoulder pressed just barely against his bicep. She was close enough that he could smell pine soap and vanilla on her, the faint tang of chili powder on her breath. He rubbed the back of his neck, his ears going pink, and apologized again for how he’d acted when she inspected his shop. She laughed, loud and warm, and said she got it, half the guys in the county treated her like she was a federal agent come to take their guns just because she made them follow basic food safety rules.
They talked for 20 minutes, the crowd swirling around them, neither of them moving to step away. She told him she’d seen his 1972 Airstream parked at the trailhead for the Raven’s Ridge hike the weekend before, teased him that she’d almost stopped to cite it for “unauthorized historic landmark display”. He teased back that he’d have fought her on it, that Airstream was his personal project, the first thing he’d bought after his wife left him eight years prior, when he’d realized he could do whatever he wanted with his time and money. He didn’t usually tell people that part, didn’t like the pitying looks they gave him, but she just nodded, like she got it, no sympathy required. He noticed the thin, pale scar along the left side of her jaw, asked her about it, she said she’d gotten it when she fell off a horse as a teen, tried to jump a fence she was way too inexperienced to clear.
He didn’t even hesitate when he asked her if she wanted to come back to his shop. Told her he had a pot of venison chili he’d made the night before stashed in his mini fridge there, way better than any of the watery stuff at the cookoff, and he had a six pack of good IPA he’d been saving for a rainy day. She smiled, nodded, said she’d follow him in her truck.
He unlocked the barn door 10 minutes later, flipping on the string lights strung above his workbench, the space smelling like sawdust and old canvas and the lemon polish he used on camper cabinetry. He heated the chili up on the small hot plate he kept by his desk, handed her a bowl, and when their fingers brushed as she took it, neither of them pulled away. She hopped up on the edge of his workbench, kicking her mud-caked boots off, and took a bite, moaning loud enough that his ears went pink again, saying it was the best chili she’d ever had. Outside, the rain taps soft and steady against the corrugated metal roof, and for the first time in eight years, Elias doesn’t feel the urge to check the front window to see if any neighbors are watching.
