Ron Jablonski, 62, retired high school woodshop teacher, had shown up to the county fire department’s annual chili cookoff only because his neighbor left a free ticket on his porch three days prior. He’d spent the last eight years turning down almost every social invite that crossed his path, content to split his days between refinishing vintage Adirondack chairs in his garage and fishing the coves of the mountain reservoir alone, his only company a beat-up cooler and a stack of old western paperbacks. His biggest flaw, the one his ex-wife had yelled at him about the night she packed her bags, was that he held grudges so tight they carved permanent grooves in his bones. He still had a crumpled photo of his 1979 senior year homecoming court tucked in his toolbox, the guy standing next to him, the one who’d beat him out for king by 12 votes, staring back like a permanent reminder of every loss he’d ever refused to let go of.
He was leaning against a splintered pine picnic table, halfway through a bowl of five-alarm chili that made his eyes water, when he heard a laugh warm enough to cut through the crisp October wind. He looked up and saw the woman who’d been renting the cottage three miles down his dirt road, the one he’d only waved at from the cab of his rusted Ford F-150 for the last six months, walking toward him holding a crinkly bag of peanut M&Ms and a can of hard seltzer. Her auburn hair was streaked with silver, pulled back in a loose braid, and she had a faint scar slicing through the left edge of her upper lip, from a horse riding accident she’d mentioned once on a neighborhood Facebook thread. She stepped close enough that he could smell vanilla lotion and pine sap on her flannel shirt, and when he fumbled his beer bottle and sloshed a drop onto his sleeve, she held out a crumpled paper napkin, her calloused fingers brushing his wrist for a beat longer than necessary.
Mara, he’d learned her name from the neighborhood group chat, was 58, ran a mobile pet grooming service out of a converted white van covered in hand-painted dog decals. She sat down next to him on the picnic bench, their shoulders brushing when she leaned in to grab a saltine off his plate, bit into a peanut M&M, the shell crunching loud between her teeth, and told him she’d recognized his truck from the road, had seen him hauling stacks of cedar planks home a dozen times. He tensed up when she mentioned her last name, the same last name as the guy in his crumpled homecoming photo, and his first instinct was to mumble an excuse and leave. He’d spent 43 years resenting that guy, had even turned down a job offer at a better high school in 2001 just because the guy was the athletic director there. But Mara was rolling her eyes, saying her ex had been a cheating, egotistical jackass who’d spent their entire marriage complaining that Ron was the only guy in their graduating class who’d ever actually done something useful with his hands, and the tight knot in his chest loosened a little.
They talked for an hour, the sound of the fire department’s siren raffle and kids screaming on the bounce house fading into background noise. He told her about the chairs he built, the way he still carved a small oak leaf into the underside of every seat, and she didn’t check her phone once, leaning in so close he could see the flecks of gold in her hazel eyes, her knee pressing against his under the table. When the announcer called her raffle number for the 50/50 pot, she grabbed his hand hard, her palm rough from clipping dog nails and hauling heavy grooming tubs, and pulled him up to the front with her, not caring that half the town was staring. They split the $820 prize, tucking half the cash into each other’s jacket pockets, and she said they should spend it on tickets to the bluegrass show at the old downtown theater next weekend, plus a plate of the fried green tomatoes at the diner down the street. He almost said no, almost told her he didn’t date ex-wives of guys he’d hated for half his life, but then she brushed a stray oak leaf off his collar, her thumb grazing the edge of his jaw, and he said yes before he could overthink it.
By 9 p.m. the cookoff was winding down, the last of the picnic tables being folded up, the smell of chili and burnt hot dogs fading into the cold mountain air. He walked her to his truck, she’d walked to the cookoff because her van was in the shop, and she asked if he could stop by her cottage the next afternoon to fix the loose step on her back porch, said she’d have a six pack of his favorite IPA waiting, the one he’d mentioned he drank while fishing. He opened the passenger door for her, and she paused on the step, leaning in just enough that he could feel her breath on his cheek for half a second before she climbed in. He got in the driver’s seat, turned the key, and the old radio flickered to life, playing the Johnny Cash song he’d danced to at his senior prom, the same night he’d lost the homecoming king vote. He glanced over at her, she was unwrapping another peanut M&M and tapping her boot to the beat, and he didn’t even think about the guy in the crumpled photo once the entire drive down the dirt road.
