Moe Hafeez, 62, retired beekeeper, sits on his usual third stool from the end of the VFW bar, picking breading off a piece of fried catfish. He’s come to the Friday fish fry every week for three years, ever since his wife Linda died, never stays longer than an hour, never talks to anyone beyond a gruff hello to the bartender. It’s his routine, safe, no surprises, the kind of small, predictable structure he’s clung to to avoid thinking about the empty bungalow he goes home to every night. His worst flaw, one he’d never admit out loud, is that he’s actively chosen to be lonely, convinced any attempt to move on with his life is a betrayal of the 38 years he and Linda spent together.
The air smells like hot grease, Old Spice, and cheap lager, the jukebox spitting out 1980s Merle Haggard cuts loud enough to drown out the group of veterans arguing about golf scores in the corner. He’s halfway through his second Budweiser when someone sits two stools down, and he catches a whiff of lavender and tomato leaf, a scent he hasn’t smelled in 28 years. He glances up, and it’s Clara Marlow, 58, Linda’s younger brother’s ex-wife, the one who moved back to the county last month to take a job as the county extension agent. He’d only seen her in passing at family functions back when she was married to Jake, but he’d always thought she was too sharp, too quick to laugh at his dumb bee jokes, for a guy who cared more about hunting than anything else.
The bartender slides a stack of paper plates between them, and Clara reaches for her glass of pinot grigio at the same time, her elbow bumping his, warm through the thin flannel of his shirt. He flinches like he’s been stung, and she smiles, that half-smirk he remembers from the week he stayed at her and Jake’s first house to help them remodel the kitchen, when they’d stay up till 2 a.m. talking about pollinator plants while Jake passed out on the couch watching football. She holds his eye contact for three full beats, longer than polite, before shifting one stool closer, then another, when a group of guys in camo jackets push past to get to the pool table.
She gestures at the tiny brass bee lapel pin he wears on his shirt, the one Linda gave him for their 25th anniversary, and reaches across to tap it, her fingers brushing his chest. The heat of her touch lingers through the fabric for a full minute after she pulls away. He’s immediately furious at himself for noticing, for the stupid flutter in his chest, tells himself this is wrong, family doesn’t cross that line, that Linda would roll in her grave if she saw him flirting with her brother’s ex-wife. But then she starts asking about his old apiary, remembers he used to name his queen bees after old blues singers, that he once drove three hours to pick up a rare strain of Italian bees because they were gentler with the neighborhood kids who’d come to visit the hives. No one but Linda ever remembered that stuff.
He finds himself talking for an hour, telling her about the three hives he still keeps in his backyard, the swarm he rescued from a neighbor’s gutter last spring, the way honey tastes different depending on what the bees are feeding on that season. She mentions the county is building a community garden on the empty lot down the street from his house, they need someone to consult on the pollinator section, plant native wildflowers, teach local kids how to handle bees without getting stung. He almost says no, almost tells her he’s retired, he doesn’t do that kind of work anymore. Then she says she already asked the VFW guys, they all said he was the only person in the county who could do it right, and she’d really appreciate the help. He says yes before he can think better of it.
The bartender starts stacking chairs at 9 p.m., wrapping up the fish fry for the night. Clara asks if he wants to walk to the taco truck two blocks over, says they make the best carnitas in western North Carolina, crispy on the edges, drizzled with lime. He hesitates for half a second, then nods. They sit on a splintered wooden picnic bench outside, the air cool enough that he can see their breath fog when they laugh, fireflies blinking in the bushes next to the sidewalk. She leans in suddenly, swiping a stray piece of cilantro off his chin with her thumb, her skin brushing his lip, soft, a little chapped from the cold.
He freezes, doesn’t pull away. He admits he’s been scared to even talk to another woman for three years, feels like he’s stabbing Linda in the back even thinking about spending time with anyone else. Clara nods, says she gets it, she didn’t date for three years after her divorce from Jake, and Linda actually pulled her aside once, when she was first diagnosed, and told her if anything ever happened, she wanted Moe to stop moping and find someone who gets his obsession with bees and his terrible dad jokes, even if that someone was her.
They finish their tacos, and he drives her back to her small rental house a few miles away. He walks her to the front porch, the golden porch light gilding the edges of her gray hair, crickets chirping loud in the overgrown grass next to the steps. She turns to him, hands stuffed in the pockets of her denim jacket, and asks if he wants to come in for a cup of decaf, she has those honey oat cookies he used to bring to every family cookout. He pauses for half a second, then steps across the threshold behind her.
