Manny Rios, 62, spent 38 years as a commercial beekeeper before scaling back to 12 hives tucked in the hills outside his small Oregon town, selling wildflower and blackberry honey at the weekly farmers market. He’s gruff by design, avoids chit chat unless it’s about hive mites or apple cider fermentation, and has turned down every blind date his older sister has set up for him in the seven years since his wife, Lynn, passed from ovarian cancer. His only consistent social outings are dropping off bulk honey orders for local breweries and the annual fall harvest festival, where he gets a free pitcher of spiked cider as partial payment.
He’s hauling three crates of honey to the festival’s craft beer tent just after seven, when the kid-focused activities have wrapped and the crowd has thinned to locals lingering over fried oreos and bluegrass sets, when his work boot catches on the edge of a stray hay bale. He stumbles forward, one hand flying out to steady himself, and knocks straight into a woman holding a plastic cup of deep purple blackberry cider. The liquid sloshes over the rim, soaking a splotch on her cream wool sweater, and his palm brushes the curve of her hip for half a second before he yanks it back, already apologizing.
It’s Elara Voss, the 58-year-old librarian who moved to town three months prior, the woman every local has complained about at least once for yelling at teens for eating chips near the rare book collection and refusing to extend checkout periods even for regulars. Manny has only spoken to her twice, both times to drop off jars of honey she’d ordered online, and he’d written her off as cold, stuck up, not worth the effort of talking to for more than 30 seconds. He expects a sharp retort, maybe a demand he pay for her sweater, but instead she snorts, swiping at the damp spot with the back of her hand.
“Relax, I spilled spaghetti sauce on this thing last week, the stain was already a lost cause,” she says, brushing a strand of chestnut hair streaked with silver away from her face. She’s wearing scuffed work boots under her midi wool skirt, and Manny can smell lavender hand cream and pine on her, like she’d been hiking earlier that day. He offers to buy her another cider to make up for it, half expecting her to turn him down, but she nods, following him to the beer tent.
They sit at a splintered pine picnic table tucked between two food trucks, far enough from the stage that they don’t have to yell to hear each other. Manny expects the usual small talk, questions about how long he’s lived in town, if he has kids, but instead she asks about the mite infestation he posted about on the local agricultural co-op Facebook group two months prior, says she’d done research on integrated pest management for hives when she was writing a display for the library’s farming section. He leans forward without thinking, explaining how he’d used thyme oil and screened bottom boards to save 10 of his 12 hives, and notices she doesn’t pull back when their knees brush under the table, that she keeps tilting her head in, her dark eyes locked on his face like what he’s saying matters more than the group of people yelling over a cornhole game 10 feet away.
He’s halfway through a story about a tourist who tried to take a selfie with one of his hives and got stung 17 times on the face when the guilt hits, sharp and unexpected. It’s been seven years, Lynn would have told him to stop moping, he reminds himself, but part of him still feels like he’s doing something wrong, like laughing so hard his sides hurt with a woman who isn’t his wife is a betrayal. He goes quiet, picking at a splinter on the table, and Elara doesn’t push him to keep talking, just passes him a napkin when he spills a drop of cider on his flannel shirt, her fingers brushing his for longer than necessary.
By 10 PM, the festival staff are taking down the stage, packing up folding chairs and rolling coolers back to trucks, and a light, cold drizzle has started to fall. Manny offers to walk her to her truck, parked two blocks over by the hardware store, and she agrees, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow when they step off the curb to cross the street. They stop under the hardware store’s faded red awning to wait for a pickup truck to pass, and Elara looks up at him, her thumb brushing the thin, pale scar on his left forearm from a bad hive swarm 10 years prior. He doesn’t pull away.
He kisses her slow, the rain tapping on the awning above their heads, and she tastes like blackberry cider and peppermint gum, her hand coming up to rest on the back of his neck, her fingers tangled in the gray hair at his nape. No one is around to see them, no one would believe it if they did, the gruff beekeeper and the icy librarian making out under a hardware store awning at 10 o’clock at night. He doesn’t care.
They pull away after a minute, both grinning like teenagers who just snuck out past curfew. She hands him a slip of paper with her cell phone number scrawled on it in neat blue ink, tells him to meet her at the diner on Main Street Saturday morning for pancakes, no pressure, no expectations. He tucks the paper into the pocket of his flannel shirt, nods, and watches her climb into her beat up Ford Ranger, wave, and pull out onto the empty street.
He stands there for another minute, the drizzle seeping through the collar of his shirt, and pulls the slip of paper out of his pocket, running his thumb over the ink. He doesn’t feel guilty anymore, just warm, lighter than he has in years. He pulls his phone out of his other pocket, shoots her a text that says “Pancakes sound good. I’ll bring the honey,” and shoves his hands in his pockets, turning to walk to his own truck parked down the block.
