Rudy Galvan is 62, a retired high school woodshop teacher who’s lived in the same upstate New York cottage for 31 years. His worst flaw is that he collects rules like other people collect baseball cards, unwritten ones he’s clung to since his wife Linda died four years prior: no dating anyone who ever worked for the local school district, no staying out past 8 PM on weeknights, no letting anyone else handle the vintage table saw in his garage. He’s spent the last nine months building six solid oak Adirondack chairs for the town’s annual farmers’ market cider press fundraiser, and he’s hauling the last one to the silent auction tent when the drizzle picks up, turning the grass under his work boots slick with wet maple leaves.
He slips, one foot skidding out from under him, and the chair lurches sideways before a pair of calloused hands grab the armrest to steady it. He looks up, meets hazel eyes crinkled at the corners, the woman in front of him wearing a faded navy flannel and scuffed work boots, a smudge of cider pulp on her left cheek. That’s Marnie Carter, 58, the new elementary school principal who moved to town six months ago, the one he’s avoided running into for weeks because she works for the district, which falls directly into his first forbidden category. She smells like cinnamon and hard cider and damp pine, and when their hands brush as they adjust the chair on its dolly, the spark of contact zips up his arm fast enough that he almost yanks his hand away.
She laughs, low and warm, over the patter of rain on the tent canvas. “You’d think after hauling desk assemblies around for 20 years I’d be better at not dropping heavy furniture,” she says, nodding at the chair’s carved oak armrests, the little leaf detail he burned into each one by hand. “These are yours, right? I’ve been staring at the fundraiser flyer for weeks. My grandma had a set just like this, she’d let me drag them out to her porch every summer to watch fireflies.”
Rudy’s throat feels tight. He’s supposed to drop the chair, sign the donation sheet, and go home, heat up a frozen meatloaf, watch a John Wayne marathon he’s seen 12 times already. Instead he leans against the dolly, talking about how he learned to carve those leaves from his dad, who was a logger in the Adirondacks his whole life. She grabs two paper cups of spiked cider from the folding table under the tent, the last two left, and hands him one. The wind picks up, blowing rain under the tent edge, so they step closer together, shoulders pressed tight, and he can feel the warmth of her arm through his flannel, hear the faint jingle of her dog’s tag from her pocket, the distant clatter of the last food truck packing up its fryer.
He’s fighting with himself the whole time, a sharp, familiar twist of guilt in his gut. This is wrong, he tells himself. He made a rule. He’s not supposed to be here, flirting with a principal, letting himself notice the way her hair falls in silver streaks over her forehead, the way she keeps glancing at the scar on his left knuckle, the one he got from a table saw accident 22 years ago when a student bumped into him mid-cut. When he mentions he used to teach woodshop, her face lights up, she says she’s been trying to get a small after-school woodworking program for fourth graders off the ground, bugging the PTA for months for funding for basic tools. He says no before she even asks, the automatic response he’s practiced for anyone who mentions school district work, says he’s retired, doesn’t step foot in any school building for any reason.
Her smile doesn’t fade, just softens. “I get it,” she says, sipping her cider. “Most retired teachers I know would rather mow a lawn with a pair of scissors than go back to a staff meeting. No pressure. I just figured I’d ask.” She shifts her weight, and her knee brushes his, the contact light enough that he could pretend it was an accident, but he sees the way her ears pink a little, knows it wasn’t. He notices the smudge of cider on her lower lip, and before he can think better of it, he lifts his hand, brushes it away with the pad of his thumb. Her skin is warm, softer than he expected, and she doesn’t pull away, just holds his gaze for a beat, her hand coming to rest on his forearm, her fingers light against the worn fabric of his shirt.
The guilt doesn’t go away, not entirely, but it fades, just a little, when he realizes Linda would have teased him for being so stubborn, for holding onto rules that only made him lonely. He tells her he’ll come in next Wednesday, after school, to look at the space she’s got picked out for the program, to give her a list of tools she can ask for in the next PTA budget. She grins so wide her dimples show, says she’ll leave the back door to the school unlocked, will have a bag of the cinnamon sugar apple cider donuts he buys every Saturday from the market’s bakery stand waiting for him. She noticed that, he realizes, the same way he noticed she always walks her golden retriever past his cottage at 7 AM every weekday, always stops to pet the stray cat that hangs out on his porch rail.
He signs the donation sheet, grabs the paper bag she shoves at him, two warm donuts inside still crinkling the paper, and walks back to his beat-up 2004 Ford F150. He turns the key, the radio clicking on to the old country station he listens to while he works, and looks in the rearview mirror, sees her leaning against the tent pole, waving, as he pulls out of the parking lot. He doesn’t turn toward his cottage like he usually does, turns left instead, takes the long way around the lake, rolling his window down to let the cold fall air hit his face, the smell of pine and wood smoke drifting through the cab. He takes a bite of the donut, the sugar crunching between his teeth, and grins so wide his cheeks ache before he even hits the lake road.
