Ronny Voss, 62, retired TVA lineman, leans against a splintered cedar post at the county fall festival beer tent, calloused fingers wrapped around a frosty IPA. His work boots are caked in red clay from patching a neighbor’s split fence that morning, his well-worn flannel unbuttoned over a faded 1998 UT Vols national championship tee. He bailed on his sister’s mandatory pie contest appearance twenty minutes prior, sick of her half-joking prods to “finally talk to that nice widowed librarian she goes to yoga with.” He’d rather listen to the bluegrass band pick through a rough rendition of Rocky Top, watch teens chase each other through the hay bale maze, and avoid any interaction that requires more than a grunted hello.
The band hits a loud, off-key fiddle solo, and he flinches a little, tipping his beer back for a long sip. That’s when he spots her. Clara Mendez, 47, the new county extension agent who’s been leaving neon pink violation notices taped to his mailbox for three months straight, warning him his overgrown blackberry bushes are creeping into the county easement. He’s avoided every one of her attempted visits, figuring she’s just another stuck up bureaucrat who’d never understand he lets the bushes run wild to make jam for the local food bank, not out of laziness.
She’s not wearing the crisp navy blazer he’s seen her in during official visits, though. She’s in a soft green flannel rolled to the elbows, high-waisted jeans, scuffed white sneakers, holding a paper plate with a powdered sugar-dusted fried Oreo. She spots him before he can duck behind the beer cooler, and she grins, weaving through the crowd of festival goers toward him. He tenses, ready to argue about the bushes, to tell her he’s off the clock and not talking county business tonight.
She stops less than a foot away, close enough he can smell vanilla lotion and fried dough and a faint whiff of the peppermint lip balm she’s wearing. The fairy lights strung above the tent catch the gold streaks in her dark wavy hair, and when she leans in to talk over the band, her shoulder brushes his bare bicep, sending a jolt up his spine he hasn’t felt since his wife died eight years prior. “Relax,” she says, holding up her free hand in surrender, fried Oreo crumbs dusting her fingertips. “I’m not here to serve you papers. I’m here to avoid my mother-in-law, who’s still mad I divorced her son two months ago.”
He blinks, taken off guard. He’d heard the gossip around the diner that she left the high school principal after catching him cheating with a math teacher, but he’d never paid much attention. “Fair,” he says, nodding, shifting his weight a little so he’s not leaning away from her anymore. She laughs, and it’s warmer than he expected, nothing like the stiff, formal tone she used in the voice mails she left him about the bushes.
She nods at his beer. “That the hazy IPA the local brewery brought? I’ve been trying to get one all night, the line was 20 people deep.” He holds it out to her without thinking, and when she reaches for it, her fingers brush his, soft skin grazing the scar he got climbing a power line during a 2012 ice storm. She takes a long sip, wipes foam from her upper lip with the back of her hand, and hands it back, holding eye contact the whole time, no awkward looking away. “Told you I wasn’t here for work,” she teases. “I know you make jam with those blackberries, by the way. I saw you drop off 12 cases at the food bank last month. I’ve been leaving the notices mostly because my boss makes me, not because I care if your bushes cross the easement by two feet.”
The blood rushes to his face, and he’s grateful for the dim tent lights hiding it. He’s spent eight years deliberately flying under the radar, not letting anyone see the small, soft things he does to fill his empty house’s quiet, and the fact she’s paid that much attention makes his chest tight, half panic, half something he can’t name. He’s torn: this is the woman he’s been avoiding for months, the one everyone in town gossips about, and if anyone sees them standing this close, laughing, sharing a beer, the small town rumor mill will spin out of control. He shouldn’t be enjoying this, shouldn’t lean in a little closer to catch that vanilla lotion again, shouldn’t wonder what her lips taste like with peppermint balm and fried Oreo sugar.
“Wanna get out of here?” he says, before he can talk himself out of it. “I can show you the blackberry bushes. Got a whole shelf of jam in my pantry you can taste test, if you want.”
She bites her lower lip, nods, and tucks her loose hair behind her ear. They walk out of the festival together, his hand brushing the small of her back once when a group of kids run past them, and she doesn’t pull away. His old F150 is parked at the edge of the field, and he opens the passenger door for her, her hand resting lightly on his forearm for a beat while she climbs up. The drive up to his property is quiet, windows rolled down, pine and distant wood smoke drifting in, old country playing low on the radio.
When they pull up to his porch, he grabs a jar of blackberry jam from the pantry, brings it out with two spoons, and hands her one. She dips it in, takes a bite, and lets out a soft, low moan, closing her eyes for a second. “That’s the best thing I’ve tasted all year,” she says, stepping closer, the jar cold against his side when she leans in. “I’ve been wanting to come up here for months, not to talk about bushes. I saw you carrying cat food to the feral colony behind the community center back in June. I’ve been curious about you ever since.”
He wraps one calloused hand around her waist, pulls her in slow, no rush, the spoon still in her other hand clinking against the glass jar when she rests her free hand on his chest. They kiss slow, crickets chirping loud in the bushes around the porch, distant festival fireworks faint against the dark sky. He doesn’t care what his sister says, doesn’t care if the diner gossips see her truck parked in his driveway come morning. He pulls back just enough to lace their fingers together, leading her inside, the half-eaten jar of jam still sitting on the porch rail behind them.
