Ron Voss, 62, retired high school woodshop teacher, slid into the cracked vinyl booth at The Rusty Tap an hour before trivia kicked off, his work boots still dusted with fine oak shavings from the Adirondack chair he’d been sanding all afternoon on his back porch. He’d avoided small talk with every regular who waved him over, his usual move—he’d spent 31 years fielding half-assed questions about splinters and DIY birdhouse plans, and his biggest flaw, per his late wife Ellen, was that he held grudges longer than he kept his saw blades sharp. He’d carried one against Mara Hale for 12 years, ever since her then-husband, the school principal, fired his best friend and fellow shop teacher over a dumb dress code dispute he swore she’d pushed for as PTA president.
The trivia host yelled out random team pairings ten minutes later, and Ron’s jaw tightened so hard he could feel a headache coming on when Mara’s name was called right after his. She slid onto the stool across from him at the scuffed high top they’d been assigned, her wool sweater the color of burnt sienna, a silver hoop earring catching the neon Pabst Blue Ribbon sign glow as she nodded a quiet greeting. He sat as far back as he could, his shoulder pressed to the cinder block wall, ready to half-ass the whole night just to not have to make forced small talk with her. The first round was 90s home renovation trivia, and he aced every question, even the obscure one about the discontinued DeWalt nail gun model that was prone to jamming mid-project. Mara laughed so hard at his rant about that exact nail gun taking a quarter-inch chunk out of his left thumb in 1997 that she snort-laughed, and he found himself grinning before he could stop himself.
She reached for the frosty pitcher of IPA at the same time he did, their knuckles brushing for half a second, and he caught the scent of vanilla lotion and cinnamon gum off her, warm and not overdone, nothing like the heavy floral perfume he’d remembered her wearing at tense school board meetings. She leaned in, her knee bumping his under the table when she pointed at the crumpled answer sheet, and said she’d never agreed with her ex about firing his friend. She’d filed her own complaint with the school board back then, she said, and left the principal six months later when he refused to reverse the call, sick of his power trip. Ron sat forward, the grudge he’d carried for 12 years feeling lighter than a pine shaving, and realized he’d gotten her entirely wrong. He’d only ever seen her in the principal’s office, stiff and in a tailored blazer, never like this, her wavy brown hair half pulled back with a frayed elastic, a smudge of barbecue sauce on her chin from the pulled pork slider she’d eaten earlier, talking about how she still had the walnut cutting board he’d made for the PTA silent auction in 2010, uses it every single day for chopping vegetables and rolling out pie crust.
They won trivia by 12 points, splitting the $200 cash prize and a free basket of fried pickles they ate standing by the door while they waited for the rain to slow down. It was drizzling by the time they walked out to the potholed parking lot, the asphalt glistening under the yellow sodium streetlights, the air sharp with fallen oak leaves and wood smoke from the fire pit behind the bar. Mara tripped over a cracked curb halfway to her Honda sedan, and Ron reached out automatically, his calloused hand wrapping around her waist to steady her, her knit sweater soft under his palm, her cold hand coming to rest on his forearm for a beat before she pulled back, a faint flush on her cheeks. She said she’d been coming to trivia every Wednesday for three months, ever since she saw him loading cedar fence posts at the downtown hardware store, hoping they’d end up paired together eventually.
Ron blinked, the cold rain dotting his forehead, and asked her if she wanted to get pancakes at the 24-hour diner on Main Street in 20 minutes, after he dropped his prize money off at his truck and swapped his work boots for something less covered in sawdust. She smiled, tucking a strand of wet hair behind her ear, and said she’d meet him there, she’d even spring for the side of crispy pepper bacon he’d mentioned loving earlier when the trivia question about pork processing came up. He watched her get in her sedan, her taillights glowing bright red as she pulled out of the lot, and he wiped a raindrop off his cheek, the heavy grudge he’d carried for 12 years gone entirely, replaced by a warm buzz he knew wasn’t just from the two IPAs he’d drunk. He unlocked his beat-up Ford F-150, tossed the envelope of cash on the worn vinyl passenger seat, and pulled out of the lot, heading for the diner, already looking forward to teasing her about snort-laughing at his stupid nail gun story over syrup-sticky pancakes.
