Elias Voss, 52, makes his living patching leaks in 1960s campers and refinishing their faded wood paneling, and he hasn’t voluntarily attended a town event since he moved to rural Ohio seven years prior, right after his wife left him for a traveling pharmaceutical sales rep. His next door neighbor Marnie had shown up on his porch at 4 PM that Saturday, holding a tupperware of cornbread and a threat to leave her yappy schnauzer in his workshop if he didn’t come to the fire department chili cookoff, so he’d caved, pulling on the same flannel he’d worn to fix a water heater that morning, work boots still caked with fiberglass resin.
He leaned against a splintered picnic table on the fairground’s blacktop, holding a paper bowl of chili so spicy his sinuses had been burning for ten minutes straight, scrolling through parts listings on his phone to pass the time until he could leave without Marnie throwing a fit. He’d only looked up when a linen sundress swished into his line of sight, the fabric soft sage, dotted with tiny white clover flowers, paired with scuffed brown cowgirl boots caked in mud at the toes. The woman wearing it was Lena Hale, wife of the new county commissioner, the same woman whose face had been plastered on every campaign sign along the main road three months prior, and she was dabbing at a streak of chili on her wrist with a crumpled napkin, muttering under her breath.
She reached for the stack of napkins next to his elbow, and their hands brushed. Her skin was cool, calloused at the tip of her index finger, the contact light but enough to make him fumble his phone half an inch out of his grip. She held eye contact for a full beat longer than polite, the corner of her mouth tugging up in a smirk when she noticed his runny nose and the bright red hue of the chili in his bowl. “You picked Hank’s batch, huh?” she said, nodding at his bowl as she sat down on the bench next to him, close enough that her shoulder brushed his when she shifted to cross her legs. “Guy puts ghost pepper in every single year just to watch out-of-towners sweat through their shirts. I’ve judged this contest four years running, I know better than to take more than a tiny taste.”
He laughed, a rough, rusty sound he hadn’t heard come out of his own mouth in months, and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “Marnie told me it was the mild one,” he said, and she snickered, popping a saltine cracker into her mouth. He could smell her perfume then, sandalwood and bright citrus, nothing like the cloying rose stuff his ex-wife had worn every day for 18 years. He tensed up a little, half expecting someone to stare, half furious at himself for even noticing how the freckles across her nose dusted all the way down to her collarbone, how she kept twisting a tiny silver ring on her thumb like she was nervous. He’d spent seven years deliberately not paying attention to anyone who might make him feel something other than mild annoyance, and here he was, hung up on a stranger who was married to the most powerful man in the county.
The volunteer band struck up a slow, twangy old George Strait track a few minutes later, and someone yelled over the crowd that they were doing a casual dance circle for anyone who wanted to join. She turned to him, her brown eyes bright, and nudged his boot with hers under the table. “Wanna dance?” she asked, and he froze, already shaking his head before he thought about it. “I’m terrible,” he said, and she grinned, standing up and holding her hand out to him, her palm calloused and warm when he hesitated, then took it. “Me too,” she said, pulling him to his feet. “That’s the whole point.”
They stood close once they made it to the edge of the dance circle, his hand resting light on her waist, hers curled around his shoulder, their faces only six inches apart when they swayed off-beat to the music. She leaned in, her breath warm against his ear, and he tensed up again, half expecting her to make a joke about his bad dancing, half convinced he was going to get chewed out by the commissioner in front of the whole town. “My husband’s been cheating on me with his intern for six months,” she said, so quiet only he could hear it. “I’m filing for divorce next week. I’ve seen you at the farmers market selling those custom camper cabinet pulls every Saturday for three months. I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to talk to you this whole time.”
The knot that had been tight in his chest since he sat down dissolved so fast he almost laughed. He pulled her a little closer, his hand settling firmer on her waist, and she smiled, resting her head on his shoulder for a second before pulling back to look at him. No one was watching them, everyone too busy yelling about chili scores or passing around coolers of cheap beer, the music loud enough to drown out any noise they made.
When the song ended, she didn’t let go of his hand. She told him she had a half-restored 1972 Airstream shell sitting in the barn on her property, along with a pottery studio she’d built when her husband was too busy campaigning to pay attention to her, and asked if he wanted to come take a look, give her a quote on finishing the camper. He nodded, not even bothering to text Marnie to say he was leaving, and followed her to her beat-up silver pickup parked at the edge of the fairground. He held the passenger door open for her, and when he leaned in to hand her the half-eaten bowl of chili he’d grabbed for her border collie, she brushed a strand of gray-flecked hair off his forehead, her fingers lingering on his cheek for half a second before she slid into the seat.
