Ronan O’Malley, 59, vintage outboard motor restorer and lifelong Astoria, Oregon, resident, had dragged three restored 1960s Evinrudes to the annual coastal beer and seafood festival fully expecting a boring, profitable day of swapping fishing stories with old cronies and ignoring anyone under 40. He’d spent 32 years commercial salmon fishing before a rotator cuff injury forced his retirement, and the last 8 years since his wife passed had honed his routine so tight he could recite his weekly schedule down to the minute he brewed his morning coffee. His biggest flaw, as his best friend Tom never tired of pointing out, was that he’d walled himself off from any kind of new connection, convinced dating or even making new friends at his age was a fool’s game for people who’d never known real loss.
The festival organizers had messed up the booth assignments at the last minute, so instead of being sandwiched between the custom fishing rod builder and the smoked salmon vendor like he’d requested, he was stuck next to a woman selling beeswax candles. He didn’t recognize her at first, not until she turned around, holding a cold hazy IPA in one hand, and he spotted the tiny salmon tattoo curled around her left wrist, identical to the one he’d gotten inked on his bicep in 1992. It was Lila Carter, Tom’s youngest daughter, the kid he’d taught to bait a hook when she was 7, the same girl who’d once thrown up on his favorite work boots after a rough day out on his boat when she was 10. He’d not seen her in 12 years, not since she’d left for college in Portland.
She was 42 now, sun streaks running through her auburn hair, a smudge of beeswax on her left cheek, wearing cutoff denim shorts and a faded Flogging Molly tee that hung loose off one shoulder. She grinned when she spotted him, and the sound of her laugh cut through the noise of seagulls and cover band country music drifting from the main stage. She crossed the two feet between their booths, holding out the extra IPA she’d grabbed from the beer tent, and when he reached out to take it, their fingers brushed for half a second. The can was ice cold, her skin was warm, and he felt a jolt run up his arm that had nothing to do with the busted electrical outlet under his booth table. He fumbled the can a little, sloshing beer onto his work jeans, and heat crawled up his neck.
He spent the next two hours alternating between berating himself for noticing how the sun hit her shoulders when she leaned over to rearrange her candle displays, and trying to avoid her attempts at conversation. It was wrong, he told himself. That was Tom’s kid. He’d changed her diapers once when her mom was stuck at work and Tom had gotten held up on a fishing trip. He had no business noticing that she smelled like coconut sunscreen and raw honey, or that her nails were chipped the same shade of navy blue his wife used to wear. Every time she leaned over his booth to get a closer look at the restored Evinrudes, her arm brushed his, and he had to physically stop himself from leaning into the contact.
The conflict came to a head when a sharp gust of coastal wind blew a stack of her custom candle labels off her table, sending them skittering across the grass between their booths. They both bent down at the same time to grab them, their foreheads bumping softly, and suddenly they were kneeling on the sun-warmed grass, faces less than six inches apart. He could see the gold flecks in her hazel eyes, the faint laugh lines around her mouth, and she didn’t pull away. She reached up, brushing a strand of gray hair off his forehead, her thumb grazing the scar on his jaw he’d gotten from a rogue fishing hook the year she was born. “I remember that,” she said, her voice softer than he’d ever heard it. “Mom made meatloaf for you for three straight weeks after that. You complained the whole time but you ate every bite.”
He’d spent 8 years convincing himself he didn’t deserve any kind of softness, that he was too old, too set in his ways, too stuck on the life he’d lost to want anything new. But right then, kneeling in the grass with the smell of salt and fried calamari drifting from the food booths down the row, he didn’t pull away either. He didn’t care that Tom would give him endless grief if he found out, didn’t care that his buddies at the VFW would tease him for months for dating a woman 17 years younger than him, didn’t care that he’d spent the last decade mocking anyone who tried to shake up their routine after 50. For the first time in years, he didn’t feel like he was just going through the motions.
They spent the rest of the festival laughing, swapping stories about the old days and her recent move back to Astoria after her divorce, her arm brushing his every time she reached for a new candle to show a customer, his hand brushing hers when he passed her extra napkins to wipe beeswax off her hands. When the festival wrapped up at 8 pm, the sun dipping low over the Pacific and painting the sky pink and orange, he helped her load her boxes of candles into the bed of his beat up 1998 Ford F150. He asked her if she wanted to get dinner at the dive bar down the road, the one with the $2 oyster shooters and the jukebox that only played Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard. She nodded, climbing into the passenger seat, and when he turned the key in the ignition, Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues” blared from the speakers. She reached over to turn it up, her hand resting on his forearm for three slow beats before she pulled away.
