Roy Pacheco, 52, has made a living restoring vintage camping gear for 14 years, ever since he quit his job as a high school shop teacher after his divorce. His biggest flaw, the one he’d never admit out loud, is that he’s hidden away from any kind of romantic connection for 8 full years, convinced small town romance only ends in messy gossip and hurt feelings after his ex-wife left him for a recreational kayak instructor who quoted Thoreau unironically at every backyard barbecue.
His boots sunk an inch into mud caked with pine needles and spilled craft beer when he hauled the last crate of restored cast iron camp stoves to his booth at the Linn County annual gear swap. The May sun hung low enough to gild the tops of the Douglas firs lining the fairgrounds, and the air hummed with the chatter of guys arguing over sleeping bag temperature ratings and kids chasing each other with foam hiking poles. He’d been doing this swap for 12 years, knew most of the regulars by name, knew to keep a cooler of cold IPA under the table for guys who haggled long enough.
Clara Hale leaned into his booth 20 minutes after he set up, one elbow propped on the folding table, the other holding a cherry seltzer that sweated condensation down her wrist. She was Marty Hale’s wife, as far as everyone in town knew, Marty who’d been bringing him broken lanterns and dented cookware for a decade, Marty who he’d gone steelhead fishing with the previous spring. Roy’s throat went tight. He’d avoided talking to her at every community event for two years, ever since he’d caught himself staring at the freckles across her nose at the county fair pie auction.
“You fix that 1962 Coleman stove I asked about?” Her voice was low, roughened from years of yelling at escaped goats on her small farm and smoking the occasional menthol. Roy nodded, pulled the polished stove out from under the table and set it down. She leaned in to run a finger over the cast iron, her shoulder brushing his bicep, and he caught the scent of pine soap, cherry seltzer, and the faint sharp tang of clover from the fields behind the fairgrounds. She held eye contact for three beats too long, the corner of her mouth ticking up when he fumbled a price tag and dropped it in the mud.
“Marty moved to Boise in November,” she said, quiet enough that the guy haggling over a three-season tent next to them couldn’t hear. “We’re separated. Haven’t told anyone yet, his mom’s in hospice, don’t want to rock the boat.” Roy’s chest felt light for half a second, like someone had cut a weight loose he didn’t know he was carrying, then guilt crashed down hard. He’d drunk beer on Marty’s porch, had listened to him complain about his secretary for three hours the previous fall. It felt wrong, even with the separation, even when he’d spent two years thinking about what it would be like to make her laugh. He took a step back, scratched the back of his neck, muttered that the stove was $120.
She paid him, stuck around the booth for an hour, chatting about the baby goats she’d had born the week before, about the time Marty tried to use a vintage camp stove to fry turkey on Thanksgiving and almost burned the porch down. Every time she laughed, she leaned into his space a little more, her knee brushing his when they both sat on the folding chairs behind the table. He found himself telling her about the divorce, about how he’d spent three years after sleeping on a couch in his workshop because the bedroom felt too empty. She listened, nodded, didn’t push him to say more than he wanted. He couldn’t remember the last time someone didn’t look at him like he was broken for being alone so long.
The sky opened up without warning, rain pouring down hard enough that the dust turned to mud in 10 seconds, people grabbing their gear and running for the parking lot. Roy started shoving stoves back into crates, his hands slipping on the wet metal. Clara grabbed the other end of a heavy crate without asking, their hands brushing when they lifted it at the same time. The scar on his left knuckle, from a stove explosion three years prior, caught on her work glove, and she paused for half a second, her thumb brushing the raised pale skin through the thin fabric. He didn’t pull away.
They got the last crate loaded into the back of his pickup, and the rain was coming down so hard they couldn’t see more than 10 feet in front of them, so they ducked under the awning of the closed beer garden, pressed shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip, to wait it out. The rain was so loud it drowned out every other sound, just the steady thud of it hitting the metal awning and the distant rumble of thunder. “I’ve had a crush on you since you fixed Marty’s dad’s lantern for free two years ago,” she said, turning to look at him, their faces so close he could feel her breath on his cheek. “You didn’t even hesitate, when you found out he was out of work that winter. I knew then Marty would never be half that kind.”
Roy stared at her, at the gray streaks in her auburn hair, at the smudge of mud on her left cheek, and he stopped fighting the pull he’d felt for two years. He didn’t kiss her, not yet, not when a stray car could drive by and spark gossip that would make its way to Marty’s mom before the end of the day, but he laced his fingers through hers, his calloused hand fitting against hers like it was made to.
The rain slowed to a drizzle 15 minutes later, the sun peeking out through the clouds to paint a faint rainbow over the fir tree line. He offered to walk her to her truck, parked on the far side of the fairgrounds, and she linked her arm through his, her head resting on his shoulder for half a step before she pulled back, like she wasn’t sure if it was allowed. The fairgrounds were empty, everyone bailed as soon as the rain hit, nothing left but half-collapsed tents and discarded paper plates. When they got to her beat up Ford F150, she pulled a crumpled ticket for the local bluegrass festival the following month out of her flannel pocket and tucked it into the front of his work shirt, her fingers brushing the hair on his chest through the thin cotton.
