Ray Voss is 62, retired air traffic controller out of Minneapolis, relocated to northern Wisconsin three years after his wife died of ovarian cancer. His biggest flaw is he’s clung to rigid routine like a pre-flight checklist for 12 years straight: same wheat toast for breakfast, same 3pm walk around the lake, same light lager every time he drinks, no detours, no surprises, no unnecessary risk. He’s only at the county fair because his 11-year-old granddaughter begged him to watch her show her prize boer goat, and he can’t say no to that kid.
The beer tent reeks of fried cheese curds, stale pilsner, and the coconut sunscreen the teen workers slather on every hour. The Ferris wheel’s hydraulic motor hums low and constant under the din of yelling kids and country covers blaring from the stage at the tent’s edge. Ray’s leaning against a splintered wooden post halfway through his first (and originally planned only) beer when a woman bumps hard into his left side, spilling a full cup of cherry seltzer down the sleeve of his gray plaid flannel.
He blinks, looks down at the dark wet spot spreading across the fabric, then up. It’s Mara Hale, 56, runs the 4H rabbit show every year, married to Jim Hale, the county sheriff who once tased a guy twice his size for cutting the corn dog line two fairs back. She’s got hay stuck to the knee of her jeans, chipped pale pink nail polish, and a smudge of rabbit fur on her left cheek. “Shit, I am so sorry,” she says, leaning in so he can hear her over the band, her shoulder pressing firm against his bicep as she dabs at his sleeve with a crumpled napkin from her pocket. Her hand brushes his wrist once, twice, her skin warm even through the wet fabric. She smells like lavender hand soap and alfalfa.
Ray’s first instinct is to say it’s fine, go back to his beer, leave the tent before anyone sees them talking. He knows the gossip in this town moves faster than the tornado siren test on the first of the month. But she’s already flagging down the bartender, ordering him another lager and herself a new seltzer, and when she turns back she’s grinning, the corner of her mouth tugged up higher on one side. “I was running from a group of 8-year-olds who want me to judge their impromptu bunny costume contest,” she says by way of explanation, and Ray laughs before he can stop himself. He hasn’t laughed at something that wasn’t his granddaughter’s bad joke in months.
They talk for 45 minutes, leaned up against that same post, her shoulder staying pressed to his the whole time. She tells him Jim works 16 hour days most weeks, sleeps on the couch half the time because he’s too wired from calls to come to bed, they haven’t had a conversation that didn’t revolve around sheriff’s department drama or their kid’s college tuition in three years. He tells her about the job, about the time he talked a rookie pilot through an emergency landing in a cornfield outside Rochester, about how he stopped flying after his wife died because it felt like a waste to go up without her. She holds eye contact the whole time, doesn’t look away when his thumb brushes the back of her hand when he reaches for his beer, doesn’t flinch when a group of her 4H parents walk past and she just gives them a small wave, no hurry to move away from him.
When the band starts playing a terrible cover of a 90s country song he hates, she nods her head toward the far end of the fairgrounds, where the old grandstand sits empty now that the demolition derby wrapped up yesterday. “Wanna get away from the noise?” she asks, and Ray hesitates for half a second, his internal checklist screaming that this is a bad idea, that Jim will find out, that he’s breaking every rule he’s set for himself in the last decade. Then she tucks a strand of gray hair behind her ear, and he nods.
The grandstand seats are covered in dust and beer cans left from the derby, the air here smells like burnt rubber and clover from the field behind the track. She sits down on the least splintered bench she can find, and he sits next to her, their thighs pressing together from hip to knee even though there’s three feet of empty space on either side of them. The fair noise fades to a low hum back here, crickets chirping in the grass at the base of the stands. She turns to face him, her knee bumping his, and lifts her hand to brush a piece of grass that stuck to his hair off his forehead, her palm lingering on his cheek for three full seconds before she pulls back.
He kisses her first, slow, no rush, no fumbling, like they’ve got all the time in the world. She tastes like cherry seltzer and mint gum, her hand coming up to rest on the back of his neck, her fingers tangling in the short gray hair at his nape. He doesn’t think about Jim, doesn’t think about his routine, doesn’t think about the guilt he’s been carrying around for years for even thinking about being with another woman. All he can feel is her hand on his neck, the warmth of her thigh pressed to his, the distant sound of the Ferris wheel bell ringing.
A sheriff’s patrol siren blares from the parking lot 100 yards away, and they pull apart at the same time, both huffing quiet laughter like teenagers sneaking out past curfew. She digs a crumpled feed store receipt out of her jeans pocket, scribbles her cell number on the back in blue ballpoint, shoves it into the breast pocket of his flannel. “I’m working the rabbit show until 2 tomorrow,” she says, standing up and brushing dust off her jeans. “Text me if you wanna skip the goat awards and get coffee.”
She walks off toward the 4H barns, and Ray sits there for another five minutes, his hand pressed to the pocket where the receipt is crumpled, his cheek still warm where her palm touched it. He stands up, walks back toward the goat barn, and stops at the corn dog stand on the way, even though he hasn’t eaten fried food after 6pm in 12 years. The worker hands him the corn dog, still sizzling, dusted with the spicy seasoning he always told his wife was too hot for him, and he takes a bite, the grease running down his wrist.
