Rafe Mendez is 62, retired three years prior from a 31-year career as a wildlife refuge ranger in East Texas’s Big Thicket National Preserve. His biggest flaw, if you asked his niece, is that he’d rather spend three days patching a leak in his barn roof in 95-degree heat than admit he’s lonely four years after his wife Carol passed from ovarian cancer. He’d only shown up to the town’s annual crawfish boil fundraiser because his niece had threatened to stop bringing his favorite peach pie every Sunday if he didn’t get out of the house for once.
He stood propped against the gnarled trunk of a live oak, cold Shiner Bock in one hand, paper plate piled high with spice-crusted crawfish and buttered corn in the other, watching the crowd warily. The air reeked of cayenne, boiled shellfish, and cut grass, and the local cover band was grinding through a terrible version of a Johnny Cash track off in the corner. He’d already rolled his eyes twice at the stack of neon flyers taped to the beer tent: summer gathering safety guidelines, posted by the new county public health nurse, the one half the town was mad at for suggesting they skip the boil last year when a stomach bug ripped through the county.
He was mid-bite into a crawfish tail when he saw her trip over an exposed oak root ten feet away. She was carrying a fresh stack of those same flyers, and she would’ve face-planted straight into a bucket of discarded crawfish shells if Rafe hadn’t stepped forward fast, one calloused hand wrapping around her bare elbow to steady her. Her skin was warm, soft, and she smelled like jasmine cuttings and cinnamon gum when she turned to look at him, hazel eyes crinkling at the corners in a sheepish grin. She was mid-50s, with a streak of silver running through her dark curly hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, a tiny silver nose stud glinting in the sun, and a faded public health polo that fit a little snug across the shoulders.
“Nice save,” she said, brushing dirt off her cutoff jean shorts. “I swear these roots are out to get every new person in town. I’m Lena.”
Rafe grunted, wiping crawfish spice off his jeans with his free hand. “Rafe. Figured you’d be the one everyone’s mad at for the safety rules.” He nodded at the flyers in her hand, half-teasing, half-defensive, still smarting from the argument he’d had with his neighbor last week about whether the guidelines were unnecessary government overreach.
Lena laughed, a loud, throaty sound that cut through the noise of the crowd. “Guilty. Though for the record, I don’t care if you share a crawfish head with your cousin, I just don’t want 15 people in the ER with salmonella this weekend. Last boil I worked in Baton Rouge, we had a guy get airlifted because he ate a raw oyster he found in the ice chest. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna make you sanitize your hands before you finish that plate. Unless you want me to.” She winked, then nodded at the log next to his feet. “Mind if I sit? My feet are killing me from walking around passing these out all afternoon.”
He hesitated, then shrugged, shifting over to make room. She sat down so close their knees brushed when she leaned over to pluck a crawfish off his plate without asking. He froze for half a second, the heat of her leg through his worn work jeans searing straight up his spine, and he didn’t move away. They talked for 40 minutes, easy, no awkward silences: she told him she’d moved to the county three months prior after a messy divorce from a lawyer who’d cheated on her with his paralegal, she loved birding, she’d been dying to explore the refuge’s back trails but was scared she’d get lost. He told her about the time he’d gotten chased up a pine tree by a feral hog during a nesting survey, the best spots to find red-cockaded woodpeckers in the spring, how Carol had loved to come out on the trails with him before she got sick.
He didn’t even notice when the band switched to a zydeco track, fast, accordion-heavy, until Lena stood up, wiping crawfish juice off her hands on her shorts, and held out her palm to him. “C’mon. I haven’t danced to zydeco since I left Louisiana. I know you probably think this is stupid, but humor me.”
His first instinct was to say no. He hadn’t danced since Carol’s 50th birthday party. Part of him felt sick, like even considering it was a betrayal, like he was breaking some unspoken promise he’d made to her when she died. But then he looked at Lena, grinning, her hand still held out, the sun catching the silver streak in her hair, and he found himself standing up, taking her hand. Her palm was warm, a little rough from the gardening she’d mentioned she did in her spare time, and they swayed awkwardly at first, a foot of space between them, until a group of drunk college kids stumbled past, and he pulled her close to keep her from getting knocked over. Her chest pressed against his, and he could feel the fast thud of her heart through her polo shirt, the heat of her breath on his neck when she laughed and rested her head on his shoulder for half a second.
When the song ended, they didn’t let go of each other’s hands right away. She tilted her head up, looking at him like she could see every stupid, messy, guilty thought running through his head, and she didn’t look judgmental at all. “You wanna get another beer?” she said, nodding at the beer tent. “And maybe you can tell me when the best time to see those woodpeckers is. I’ll even bring the peach pie my mom taught me to bake. No strings attached.”
He nodded, squeezing her hand a little, the knot he’d carried in his chest for four years loosening just a fraction. They walked toward the tent side by side, their shoulders brushing every other step, and when she leaned into his arm for half a second to avoid a kid running past with a dripping blue raspberry snow cone, he didn’t pull away.
