Leo Marquez, 62, retired air traffic controller, spent 37 years making split-second calls that kept hundreds of people safe, but he still won’t jaywalk across an empty residential street at 2 a.m. if the crosswalk sign is red. Widowed eight years, he’s spent most of his retirement walking his golden retriever, refurbishing old CB radios, and avoiding any situation that felt like it might break the quiet, rigid routine he built to stop himself from feeling too much. He only showed up to the town’s annual summer street fair because his 16-year-old niece begged him to man her face-painting booth for an hour while she ran to get a corn dog, and he’d never been able to say no to her.
He didn’t see her walk up until her denim jacket brushed his forearm, soft and worn at the cuffs. “Leo Marquez. I’d know those scuffed steel-toe boots anywhere.”
He looked up, and his throat went dry. Clara Bennett, 58, ex-wife of his old shift partner Jake, who’d left her for a 28-year-old realtor in Phoenix 12 years prior and hadn’t spoken to either of them since. She held a mason jar half full of wildflower honey sticks, the ones she sold every year to fund the community garden she ran on the west side of town. Her hair was streaked with silver, pulled back in a messy braid, and she smelled like lavender and clover and something warm, like vanilla candle wax. She leaned against the table next to him, close enough that he could see the faint smattering of freckles across her nose that he’d always thought were cute, back when he’d forced himself not to look.
He’d spent 12 years actively avoiding her, if he was honest. Jake had been his friend for 20 years, even if he’d been a selfish asshole to her, and Leo had always abided by the unwritten rule: you don’t mess with your friend’s ex, no matter how badly the friend messed up. Add to that the quiet guilt he carried every time he even thought about talking to a woman who wasn’t his late wife, and he’d crossed the street twice in the last year just to avoid walking past her garden stand on Saturday mornings.
She didn’t give him time to stammer out an awkward greeting. She slid onto the folding chair next to him, her knee brushing his under the table, and flagged down the bartender for a hard seltzer. “You’ve been avoiding me,” she said, no malice in her voice, just a lazy, teasing smirk that made his ears feel hot. “I see you walk that goofy golden retriever past my garden every single Saturday. You always look straight ahead like you’re scared I’m gonna bite you.”
He laughed, shaky, and took a long sip of his beer. “Old habits,” he said. “Jake was my friend. Always felt like talking to you was breaking some kind of rule.”
She snorted, loud enough that the couple at the next table glanced over. “Rules are for people who haven’t wasted half their lives listening to other people’s dumb opinions. Jake left me. You don’t owe him anything. You especially don’t owe him the right to make you act like a stranger to someone who’s always thought you were way too nice to be friends with that idiot.”
They talked for an hour, the band cycling through 90s country and classic rock, the crowd around them getting louder and looser as the sun went down. She told him about the fox that had been stealing eggs from her chicken coop, he told her about the CB radio he’d just finished restoring that could pick up transmissions from truckers as far south as California. When she reached across the table to grab a napkin next to his beer, her knuckles brushed his, and he felt a jolt go all the way up his arm, sharp and warm, like he’d touched a live wire. He didn’t pull away. She held his gaze, her thumb brushing the back of his hand for half a second before she sat back, and he realized he hadn’t felt that kind of spark, that kind of quiet giddiness, since his first date with his wife 35 years prior.
The conflict he’d carried around all night felt stupid, suddenly. The rule he’d clung to for 12 years was written by a guy who’d thrown his whole marriage away for a woman who didn’t even know his birthday. The guilt he’d felt about moving on from his wife? She’d told him, two weeks before she died, that she wanted him to be happy, that she didn’t want him to spend the rest of his life alone. He’d just been too scared to listen.
The band finished their set to raucous cheers, and the fairy lights strung across the tent flickered a little. He leaned in, close enough that he could smell the cherry seltzer on her breath, and asked her if she wanted to walk down to the old ice cream parlor on Main Street, the one that still made their own rocky road with peanuts from the farm outside of town.
She smiled, bright, and stood up, slinging her tote bag over her shoulder. He grabbed his jacket, and they walked out of the tent together, his golden retriever, tied to a post outside, wagging his tail so hard his whole body shook when he saw them. Their hands brushed three times on the walk down the sidewalk before he worked up the courage to lace his fingers through hers. She squeezed his hand, warm and firm, and didn’t let go.
