Earl Voss, 62, retired state apiary inspector, was hiding by the deviled egg tray when they pulled the names. He’d spent 32 years crawling through Georgia pine thickets and clover fields checking hives for mites, issuing citations for unregistered bee yards, talking down panicked homeowners who found a swarm on their porch rail. His only real flaw was a stubborn streak wide enough to park his beat-up 2008 F150 in; he’d held a grudge against Marnie Cole for 18 straight years over a stupid fight about a missing Italian queen bee, and he’d rather chew rusty nails than admit he’d found her unreasonably attractive the entire time. Marnie was his late wife’s cousin, ran a tiny herbal apothecary on the edge of town, wore linen dresses the color of wild honey and had silver streaks slicing through her dark hair that she pulled back with a frayed leather thong. The 2005 fight had ended with her calling him a careless, arrogant bureaucrat and him calling her a hack who didn’t know the first thing about bee behavior; they hadn’t exchanged two words since, even when they showed up to the same monthly county extension potluck.
The humidity that late August evening hung so thick he could taste clover and fried green tomatoes on it when the extension agent announced the random volunteer pairings for the upcoming regional honey festival setup. Earl was mid-bite of a deviled egg dusted with paprika when his name and Marnie’s were called back to back. He froze, eyes darting across the room to where she was standing by the sweet tea dispenser, holding a chipped mason jar, and she froze too. Half the room turned to look at them, everyone in the local beekeeper circle knew about their feud, and Earl didn’t want to look like a petty child in front of the new 19-year-old beekeeper who’d driven two hours from Macon for the potluck, so he just nodded once, wiped his hand on his worn denim work shirt, and stared at the floor until the next names were called. He left the potluck ten minutes later, didn’t make eye contact with her on the way out, half-convinced he could fake a sudden sinus infection to get out of the 7 AM shift the next Saturday.
He showed up anyway, boots still caked with pollen from stopping by a new beekeeper’s hives on the drive over, the sky still pale gray, dew glistening on the fairground grass, crickets still chirping faint enough to be drowned out by the hum of his truck’s engine. Marnie was already there, leaning against the side of her Subaru Outback, hauling a stack of rough-hewn wooden display shelves slung over one shoulder, wearing high-top canvas sneakers caked with dirt and that same honey-colored linen dress, sleeves rolled up to her elbows to show freckled forearms crisscrossed with thin scratches from rose bushes. He grabbed the top end of the stack before he thought about it, their hands brushing when they set the shelves down next to the festival tent, her palm calloused from digging in herb beds, smelling like lavender and beeswax salve. They worked in silence for 20 minutes, hammering tent stakes, stacking boxes of honey jars, until Marnie tripped over a loose cinder block and dropped a box of custom printed labels, fluttering across the damp grass like pale yellow butterflies.
They both bent to pick them up at the same time, their foreheads knocking soft, just hard enough to make them both snort-laugh before they remembered they were supposed to be mad at each other. She rubbed the spot on her forehead with the back of her hand, shook her head, and said she found that missing queen bee a week after their fight, she’d swarmed into a live oak at the edge of her property, she’d been meaning to apologize for 18 years but was too stubborn to make the first move. Earl stared at her, the first pink light of sunrise bleeding over the pine trees behind her, and admitted he’d held onto the grudge so long because it was easier than admitting he’d thought she was pretty even back when his wife was alive, that he’d felt guilty for noticing her, that he’d projected that guilt into anger. The confession hung in the air between them for a beat, thick with the smell of cut grass and the faint sweet tang of clover drifting from the fields across the road.
They leaned against the bed of his truck after they finished setting up, passing a thermos of black coffee she’d brought, their shoulders pressing together when a cool breeze blew through the tent poles. She tilted her head back to laugh at a story he told about a guy who tried to hide 40 unregistered hives in his backyard by covering them with old Christmas tree stands, and he got a good look at the fine lines fanning out from the corners of her eyes, the tiny scar above her left eyebrow from a bike crash when they were both in their 20s, that he’d forgotten he’d seen happen at a family cookout. She leaned in a little closer, and he could taste honey on her breath when she spoke, she’d snuck a taste of a jar of tupelo honey they’d set out for the display. He brushed a stray pine needle off her shoulder, his fingers lingering on the soft fabric of her dress for half a second longer than necessary, and she didn’t pull away.
The sound of a car pulling into the fairground parking lot made them step apart quickly, the first of the other volunteers showing up for the festival opening. She reached into the pocket of her dress, pulled out a crumpled paper napkin, scribbled her phone number on it with a stubby pencil she kept behind her ear, and tucked it into the front pocket of his denim shirt, pressing her hand flat against his chest for a beat before she turned to walk toward the shed to unlock it for the other volunteers. He pulled the napkin out of his pocket, ran his thumb over the smudged blue ink where her handwriting had bleeded through the damp napkin, and leaned back against the truck bed, grinning so wide his cheeks ached.
