Arlo Mendez, 62, retired air traffic controller, stood by the beer cooler at the county summer fish fry and regretted saying yes to his neighbor’s invite. He’d spent four years holed up in his cedar cabin 10 miles outside town, only leaving for grocery runs and annual physicals, convinced any casual joy that didn’t involve his late wife Linda’s memory was a betrayal. His work boots were caked in pine sap, his flannel shirt still smelled like the chainsaw he’d used that morning, and he’d already mapped his escape route back to his truck, hidden at the far edge of the park lot.
The cooler clinked when he fished out a pale ale, popped the top, and the fizz stung his knuckles. A second later, something warm and solid bumped his shoulder, and a streak of creamy coleslaw dribbled down the side of his left boot. He looked up, ready to mutter a quick it’s fine and bolt, and froze. The woman holding the crumpled paper plate of grilled salmon was the new county librarian, the one he’d avoided eye contact with at the grocery store three times in the last month, hazel eyes flecked with gold, gray streaks threading through her chestnut hair pulled back in a loose braid. She was leaning in close, dabbing at the coleslaw with a crumpled napkin, and he smelled lavender hand lotion and grilled cedar smoke on her cotton cardigan. Her knuckle brushed his ankle through the thin fabric of his work sock for half a second, and he jolted like he’d touched a live wire.
She grinned, not pulling back, and held up a half-burnt fry from her plate in offering. “Sorry about that. My cousin’s kid ran straight into my back ten seconds ago. You’re Arlo, right? I found that manuscript you donated to the library last month, the one about your time working the Portland air traffic control tower in the 90s. I stayed up till 2 a.m. reading half of it. That part where you guided that single-engine Cessna through the thunderstorm with a dead radio? Gave me chills.”
His throat went tight. He’d thrown that manuscript in the donation bin two weeks after Linda died, half-drunk on cheap whiskey, convinced no one would ever care about the stupid stories he’d scribbled down on night shifts. He’d never told anyone he’d written it, not even Linda. A flicker of hot shame curled in his gut – he shouldn’t be enjoying this, shouldn’t be leaning in a little closer to hear her over the roar of the cornhole games and kids screaming on the playground, shouldn’t be noticing the way her smile crinkles the corners of her eyes the same way Linda’s used to. He almost told her he had to leave, that he wasn’t interested in talking, but she passed him the fry, and their fingers brushed when he took it, and the salt stung a tiny cut on his thumb, sharp and real.
They wandered over to a splintered wooden bench at the edge of the park, out of the crowd, and sat six inches apart at first, then four, then their shoulders were brushing when she told him she’d moved to town three months ago after her husband passed, that she’d taken the librarian job because she hated living in the city where every corner reminded her of him. He told her about the cabin, about the four acres of pine trees he’d been clearing, about how he still set two mugs of coffee on the kitchen table every morning out of habit. The shame didn’t go away, not entirely, but it softened, mixed with something warm and giddy he hadn’t felt since he was 20 years old, sneaking Linda into the tower break room after his shift.
A gust of wind blew a strand of her hair across her face, and he reached out before he could think better of it, tucking it behind her ear. His thumb brushed her cheek, soft and warm, and she didn’t flinch, just leaned into the touch for half a second, her eyes never leaving his. He realized, right then, that Linda wouldn’t have wanted him to spend the rest of his life eating frozen dinners alone, talking to a ghost. It wasn’t betrayal to want to stop being lonely.
They agreed to meet for coffee at the Main Street diner Wednesday morning, 8 a.m., when the pancakes are still fluffy and the place isn’t crowded with construction workers. She scribbled her number on the back of a library checkout slip for a western novel he’d read twice as a kid, and he tucked it into the inside pocket of his flannel, right next to the photo of Linda he kept there. He walked her to her beat-up blue Subaru, and she squeezed his forearm for two slow beats before she climbed in, waving as she pulled out of the lot.
He stood there for another ten minutes, sipping his warm beer, watching the sunset paint the sky the same soft, tangerine-pink he’d written about in the opening page of that manuscript.
