Ray Voss, 53, makes his living patching rust out of 1970s travel trailers and reupholstering their faded dinette cushions out of a cinder block shop half a mile from Florida’s Forgotten Coast. He’s spent the eight years since his wife left for a Tampa realtor avoiding any situation that could turn into local gossip, turning down blind dates from well-meaning friends, ducking out of the weekly Salty Rim oyster roast early if a single woman so much as smiled in his direction. He’d rather sand fiberglass for 12 hours straight than be the subject of half-drunk chatter at the bait shop.
He’d been dodging Clara for three weeks straight, ever since she’d rolled into his shop driving a dented 1998 F-150 with a Michigan park ranger license plate, asking for parts for the beat-up 1972 Scotty she’d bought to live in while she worked the new county park post. She was sharp, quick to laugh, smelled like cedar and citrus every time she leaned over his workbench to look at a parts catalog, and Ray had frozen up every single time they spoke, convinced every guy in the shop next door was watching through the screen door, taking bets on if he’d finally stop moping.
He was halfway through a dozen oysters by the Salty Rim’s fire pit on a crisp October Thursday, tourist season finally dead, only a handful of locals scattered across the picnic tables, when she walked up. She was still in her ranger uniform, boots caked with marsh mud, holding a crumpled paper bag that smelled like fried cornmeal and honey. “Brought hushpuppies,” she said, holding the bag out. “Figured I owed you for patching my trailer tire last week when I blew it outside your shop. I tried to pay you, you vanished before I could hand you cash.”
She stood close enough that the heat from her shoulder brushed his through his flannel shirt. When he reached for the bag, their knuckles grazed, and he fumbled his oyster knife so it clattered into the metal bucket of shells at his feet. She laughed, a low, warm sound, no edge of mockery to it, and bent to grab the knife for him. Her hair fell forward over her shoulder when she stood back up, and he caught the faint scent of coconut shampoo under the cedar of her uniform. “I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to ask you to teach me how to shuck these things,” she said, nodding at the pile of unopened oysters next to him. “Every other guy around here acts like I’m an idiot tourist for not knowing how already.”
Ray’s first instinct was to make an excuse, say he had to get back to the shop to finish an Airstream restoration due at the end of the week, leave before anyone noticed they were talking. He glanced over at the group of commercial fishermen huddled at the next picnic table, the same guys who’d teased him for six months straight after his ex left, and for the first time in years, he didn’t care. He patted the empty spot on the split log next to him, grabbed a spare oyster knife off the pile by his beer.
He leaned in to show her how to angle the blade into the oyster’s hinge, his shoulder pressed firm to hers, his hand covering hers for half a second to adjust her grip so she didn’t slice her palm open. He could feel the warmth of her skin through the thin work glove she wore, hear her breath catch a little when he mumbled a quiet tip about not prying too hard, too fast. She got the first oyster open on her third try, whooped quiet enough that no one but him heard, and held it out to him, the brine sloshing a little over the edge of the shell. He ate it in one bite, the briny, briny taste mixing with the faint sweet tingle of peppermint lip balm that had rubbed off on the shell’s edge when she’d leaned in to check if she’d done it right.
“I know you’ve been avoiding me,” she said, wiping her hand on her uniform pants, not looking away from his face. “Heard the gossip about your ex. For what it’s worth, I think this town’s obsession with everyone else’s business is the only truly weird thing about Florida so far.”
Ray didn’t say anything for a second, just nodded, passing her another oyster. They stayed by the fire until the embers burned down to soft gray ash, the other locals drifting off one by one, until it was just the two of them and the bartender locking up for the night. He walked her to her truck, his boots crunching on the crushed oyster shell parking lot, and when she leaned in to kiss him, first on the cheek, then slow on the mouth, he could taste honey butter and the dark beer she’d been drinking on her tongue.
He stopped by the county campground on his way to the shop the next morning, before the sun was fully up, and taped a brown paper bag to the door of her Scotty. Inside was a set of custom-sharpened oyster knives, a jar of the hot sauce he kept at the shop, and two crumpled tickets for the coastal bluegrass festival the following weekend. The last thing he saw before he pulled out of the campground was her pulling the bag through the trailer door, grinning so wide her dimples showed.
