Rafe Marquez, 53, makes his living carving custom fishing lures out of reclaimed cedar from fallen old-growth on the Oregon coast. He spends 10 hours a day alone in his converted garage workshop, radio tuned to 70s classic rock, fine sawdust permanently caked in the creases of his knuckles, and he’d have skipped the annual Coos Bay summer craft fair entirely if his niece hadn’t blackmailed him into it—she’d fixed his e-commerce site after a malware crash six months prior, and “one weekend of selling to tourists” was her only payment request. His biggest flaw? He’s avoided every public town gathering since his wife left him for a real estate broker in Scottsdale eight years prior, convinced every local he runs into is just waiting to ask prying questions about his love life, or lack thereof.
The first thing he notices about the woman running the candle booth next to his is that she smells like coconut sunscreen and crushed pine. The second thing is that he recognizes her. Clara Mendez, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, the one who used to bring homemade pork tamales to their Thanksgiving dinners back when he was married, who he’d caught staring at his hands while he carved lures on the porch one 2014 holiday, who he’d forced himself to stop looking at because it felt like some sort of unforgivable sin back then. She’s 48 now, a little silver at the roots of her wavy dark hair, a thin silver hoop through her left nostril he doesn’t remember her having, and she’s leaning over the shared edge of their booth tables holding out an ice cold lemonade before he can pretend he doesn’t see her.
Her forearm brushes his when he takes the bottle, the skin warm and soft, calloused at the wrist from what he later learns is years of dipping candle wicks by hand. He mumbles a thank you, stares down at the display of lures shaped like salmon and steelhead, and feels his face heat up. He knows what this looks like. The whole town would side-eye them for even talking longer than 10 seconds, even if his ex has been gone for almost a decade, even if Clara got divorced two years ago and moved back to town three months prior, as she tells him while she rearranges her stack of cedar and fir candles. She holds eye contact when she says she specifically requested the booth next to his when she signed up, and he has to look away first, suddenly very interested in the crumpled fish taco wrapper at his feet.
A gust of wind off the bay hits at 3 PM, blows half his display of lure information cards off the table and onto the wet grass. They both bend down to grab them at the same time, his calloused carving hand covering hers on the top stack of cards, and he can feel the rough callus on the tip of her index finger, the faint smudge of beeswax on her knuckle. She doesn’t pull away for three full seconds, just looks up at him, that same small, teasing smirk she had back on that Thanksgiving porch playing on her lips, and he feels his chest tighten. Half of him is screaming that this is wrong, that everyone’s watching, that he’s going to be the talk of the local diner by morning. The other half is hyper aware of every inch of her hand under his, the sound of her quiet laugh when he stammers out an apology, the way her knee brushes his when they both stand back up.
By the time the fair wraps up at 8 PM, the sky is deep indigo, fat drops of rain starting to splatter on the booth canopy. He’s halfway loaded his lures into the bed of his beat up 2006 Ford F-150 when she walks over, holding a half-empty six pack of cold IPA in one hand, her faded canvas rain jacket slung over the other. She asks if he wants to drink the rest under the canopy before he heads out, says she doesn’t feel like going home to her empty rental house and the pile of unopened moving boxes waiting for her there. He hesitates for a beat, then nods, perching on the edge of his truck’s tailgate while she sits down next to him, their shoulders pressed tight together to stay out of the drumming rain.
She tells him she’d seen his lure posts on a local fishing group Facebook page three months prior, the second she moved back to town, and she’d been working up the nerve to message him before she saw he was signed up for the fair. She kisses him halfway through the second beer, tastes like IPA and cherry lip balm, and he doesn’t pull away. The rain taps steady on the canopy above them, the distant sound of the fair’s cleanup crew yelling to each other floats over the dunes, and for the first time in eight years, he doesn’t care who might be watching.
They finish the six pack 45 minutes later, he helps her load her heavy boxes of candles into her beat up Subaru Outback, and she scribbles her phone number on the back of a cedar candle label before sticking it to the front of his worn flannel shirt. She tells him to call her when he’s got time to test out his new steelhead lures on the bay, she’s got a two-person kayak tied to her deck that’s been gathering dust for months. He tucks the label into his shirt pocket, presses his hand over it to make sure it doesn’t blow away, and watches her taillights disappear down the road toward town. He picks up the cedar candle he bought from her earlier from the passenger seat of his truck, holds it up to his nose to smell the pine and beeswax, and turns the key in the ignition.
