Elias Voss, 62, retired high school woodshop teacher, wipes a bead of sweat off his forehead with the back of his calloused hand, the grain of oak dust still caught in the creases of his knuckles. He’s manning the county fair woodworkers’ booth, same spot he’s taken every August for 18 years, stacks of hand-cut cutting boards and birdhouses lined up on the folding table in front of him. A styrofoam cup of lukewarm lemonade sweats through its napkin next to his drill bit case, the hum of the country cover band three booths over vibrating through the plywood under his feet. He’s spent the last eight years sticking to a rigid, unspoken rule: no surprises, no risks, nothing that would make the town gossips say he’s dishonoring his late wife Maggie’s memory. It’s a boring, safe routine, and he’s never once considered straying from it, not until Clara Bennett steps up to his booth.
Clara’s 48, the new mayor’s wife, moved to town six months prior when her husband won the special election. She’s wearing a linen sundress dotted with tiny yellow daisies, the fabric fluttering around her calves in the thick August breeze, and she’s carrying a half-empty cup of peach iced tea in one hand, silver hoop earrings catching the golden late afternoon sun. She’s stopped by his booth every day of the fair so far, always asking about the grain patterns in the walnut cutting boards, always lingering a little longer than necessary, and Elias has always kept a polite three foot distance, eyes fixed on his work, too aware of the other vendors watching, too aware of who she’s married to. Today, though, she leans in closer than usual, her shoulder brushing his bicep when she points at a curly maple sample propped against the table leg. He smells coconut sunscreen and sweet peach, and his throat goes dry.
She says she wants a custom cutting board for her sister’s birthday, wants it engraved with her sister’s dog’s name, and she kneels down to sift through the pile of scrap wood he’s set out for kids to take, her knee brushing his calf through his khaki work pants. He should step back, should make space, should keep the interaction polite and impersonal, but he can’t bring himself to move. She mentions offhand that her husband’s been working 12 hour days since he took office, hasn’t asked her how her day went in three months, hasn’t even noticed she’s been painting her nails deep cherry red for the first time in 10 years. Elias nods, his chest tight, because he remembers what that felt like, the last year of Maggie’s illness, when he was so focused on taking care of her he forgot to ask how she felt about the small, stupid things, too. The guilt hits him first, sharp and hot, because he’s supposed to be better than this, supposed to be the respectable widower, not the guy flirting with the mayor’s wife at the county fair. The desire hits right after, softer, warmer, a feeling he hasn’t had in close to a decade, like he’s being seen for something other than Maggie’s husband, other than the guy who used to teach shop class.
A kid in a baseball cap runs past, chased by his little sister, and slams into the edge of the table, knocking Clara’s iced tea out of her hand. It spills across Elias’s pants, dark wet splotch spreading right above his knee, cold through the fabric. Clara yelps a quiet apology, grabs a handful of napkins from the dispenser on the table, and leans down to dab at the mess, her hand brushing his thigh through the damp fabric. She looks up at him then, their eyes locking, and she doesn’t look away for three full seconds, the noise of the fair fading to a low hum in the background, the smell of fried dough and cut grass mixing with her coconut sunscreen. She whispers, so quiet only he can hear, that she’s been looking for an excuse to talk to him alone for weeks, asks if he’ll meet her at the old abandoned boathouse on the west edge of the lake at 8 pm, right when the fair closes for the night.
Elias freezes, every rule he’s followed for the last eight years screaming no, every part of him that’s been lonely, that’s been bored, that’s been dying to feel something other than quiet grief screaming yes. He nods before he can overthink it, and she smiles, tucks a scrap of curly maple into her purse as a reminder, and walks away, glancing over her shoulder once before she disappears into the crowd. He packs up his booth an hour early, shoves the cutting boards into the bed of his beat up 2008 Ford F-150, turns down the old Willie Nelson CD he keeps in the player when he drives out to the lake. He gets to the boathouse 10 minutes early, sits on the weathered wooden dock, kicks off his work boots, dips his feet into the cool lake water, the soft lap of the waves against the pilings drowning out the distant noise of the fair.
He hears the crunch of gravel behind him a few minutes later, recognizes the coconut sunscreen before he turns around. She sits down next to him, her bare leg pressing against his, the sun dipping below the treeline painting the sky pink and orange. He doesn’t move away, just reaches into his pocket and pulls out the small engraved keychain he carved that morning, the little oak tree he’d made on a whim, and hands it to her. Her fingers brush his when she takes it, and he feels the tight knot he’s carried in his chest for eight years finally loosen.
