Earl Hagstrom, 62, retired high school woodshop teacher, had made the same 10-minute trip to the county farmers market every Saturday for three years straight. He wore the same faded Carhartt shirt, scuffed work boots, and carried the same frayed canvas tote, all to grab one thing: the peach pie from the Mennonite stand that sold out by 9 a.m. sharp. His only personality flaw, if you asked the few people who still talked to him, was that he held grudges like they were custom walnut shelves he’d built himself—solid, unshakable, built to outlast him. He’d refused to speak to anyone associated with the city council for two years, ever since Clara Voss had won the mayoral race, because he’d heard she was the one who’d pushed to cut his old woodshop program before she took office. His wife Lorraine had died five years prior, that program had been the only other thing he’d ever loved, so he’d written her off entirely.
It was 92 degrees that Saturday, the air thick enough to chew, buzzing with crickets and the high-pitched squeal of kids chasing each other around the snow cone stand. He’d just tucked his pie into his tote, turned to head back to his beat-up Ford F-150, when his boot caught on a raised crack in the sidewalk. He twisted his left ankle hard, went down hard on one knee, the tote flying out of his hand. The pie hit the concrete with a wet, squelching thud, peach oozing out into the cracks between the slabs, the crust crumbled to dust. He cursed loud enough that the old lady selling homemade jams three stalls over looked up and glared.
Before he could push himself up, a shadow fell over him. He looked up, and there she was. Clara Voss, 48, mayor, the woman he’d hated on sight for two years, kneeling right next to him, her knee brushing his through the thin fabric of his work pants. She was wearing linen khaki shorts, a faded band tee for a 90s country band he’d loved back in the day, white canvas sneakers caked with sawdust. Her sun cream smelled like coconut and lime, the same kind Lorraine used to wear to the beach. She held out a hand, calloused at the palms, rough around the fingertips, not the soft, manicured hand he’d expected from a politician. “You okay?” she said, no fake concern, no patronizing lilt, just like she was talking to a guy she’d known for decades.
He wanted to swat her hand away, tell her he was fine, he didn’t need her help. But his ankle was throbbing so bad he could barely move it, so he grunted, let her pull him up, let her sling his arm over her shoulder to hold him steady. Her shoulder was solid, warm through her shirt, she didn’t flinch when he leaned most of his weight on her. “I know who you are, Earl,” she said, as they hobbled toward the line of parked cars. “My daughter Lila took your woodshop class when she was 12. Still has that bluebird house you helped her carve, hangs it on her porch over in Columbus.” He froze mid-step, his jaw going slack. He’d heard she’d pushed to cut the program, that she thought trade classes were a waste of tax money. “I tried to save that program, you know,” she said, like she could read his mind. “School board overruled me. Spent three hours arguing with them, got nowhere. I’ve been wanting to talk to you about it for months, but you always bolted the second you saw me coming.”
She helped him into her SUV, insisted she’d drive him home, no argument. She stopped at the Mennonite stand on the way out, bought two pies, slid one across the seat to him, still warm through the paper bag. “I buy one every week too,” she said, grinning, a little dimple in her left cheek he’d never noticed before. “Figured you’d earned a replacement.”
At his house, she helped him onto his front porch swing, ran inside to grab a bag of ice from his freezer, wrapped his ankle in the old red bandana he kept hanging by the front door. Her hands brushed his when she passed him the pie, the rough callus on her thumb grazing his knuckle, and he felt a jolt go up his arm he hadn’t felt since Lorraine was alive. She sat down next to him on the swing, their thighs pressed together, the heat from her leg seeping through his pants. “I’m trying to start a free community woodshop for kids down at the rec center,” she said, looking him right in the eye, no agenda, no sales pitch, just honest. “Was scared you’d tell me to go to hell if I asked you to run it.”
He laughed, the first real, unforced laugh he’d had in months. He took a bite of the pie, sweet, sticky, juice running down his chin. “I might consider it,” he said. “As long as you bring a pie every Saturday. No exceptions.”
She leaned in then, her shoulder pressing hard against his, the coconut lime scent of her sun cream mixing with the smell of warm peach and crust. She kissed his cheek, soft, warm, her lips lingering just a second longer than she had to. “I can do better than that,” she said, grinning, when she pulled back.
She left a half hour later, after making sure he had ice on his ankle and her cell number saved in his flip phone. He sat on the porch swing for another hour, the half-eaten pie in his lap, his ankle throbbing dull and steady, but he barely noticed. He picked up his flip phone, scrolled to the rec center number he’d saved six months prior, when he’d first heard rumors they might start a woodshop program, and hit call.
