Moe Pritchard is 61, spent 32 years as a live sound engineer for New Orleans’ scruffiest, most beloved jazz clubs, and he’s got the scar across his left knuckle and permanent 30% hearing loss in his right ear to prove it. He retired last year, moved to a damp, quiet Oregon coastal town to outrun the smell of hurricane floodwater and the ghost of his wife, who died of lung cancer 8 years prior. His only regular gig these days is running sound for the local VFW’s weekly trivia night, a favor he owes the bar manager who fixed his leaky roof for free last winter.
He’s hunched over a wobbly mic stand by the bar, tightening a loose screw, when he drops his XLR cable. It clatters across sticky linoleum, and a woman in a navy linen dress bends to grab it at the exact same time he does. Their foreheads knock with a soft, silly thud. She laughs first, a low, warm sound that cuts through the chatter of regulars arguing over last week’s sports questions. Her hand brushes his when they both curl around the cable, and he jolts like he touched a live wire. She smells like jasmine body wash and salt carried in off the pier, her nails painted deep burgundy, chipped slightly at the edges. He recognizes her immediately: Clara Hale, 48, wife of the town’s mayor, who’s currently running for state house, the couple plastered on every lawn sign for 20 miles. Everyone in town calls her “the perfect political spouse,” always smiling, always next to him at ribbon cuttings, never a hair out of place.
He mumbles an apology, tugs the cable free, goes back to adjusting the mic. He can feel her staring at his hands, at the calluses built up from three decades of twisting gain knobs and hauling 50-pound speaker cabinets, at the faded scar across his knuckle from a 2007 show where a drunk patron knocked a monitor off the stage onto him. She doesn’t leave right away, leans against the bar next to him, close enough that his bicep brushes her shoulder when he reaches for his water bottle. “I heard you used to run sound for Trombone Shorty back in the 2000s,” she says, raising her voice just enough to be heard over the jukebox playing old Fats Domino. “My mom had every one of his early albums. Used to play them on repeat when I was a kid.”
Moe blinks. No one in this town knows that part of his past. He hasn’t talked about his New Orleans days to anyone except the odd tourist who asks about the trumpet tattoo on his forearm. He nods, tells her about the time Shorty played a 3-hour set at 2 a.m. for 12 people after Mardi Gras, the power went out halfway through, they all sang along to “When the Saints Go Marching In” by the light of phone flashlights. She laughs again, and he’s so caught up in the story he doesn’t notice her husband walking over until he claps her on the shoulder, tight, formal. She flinches almost imperceptibly. The mayor gives Moe a cursory nod, tells Clara they have a donor meet-and-greet in 20 minutes, and walks back to his table of campaign staffers. Clara gives Moe a small, tight smile, and follows him.
The rest of trivia goes by fast. Moe sits behind the sound table, half listening to the questions, half glancing over at Clara’s table. Every time the mayor is busy schmoozing the group of retired firefighters who came in for the night, she looks over at him, holds his eye contact for two or three seconds longer than polite, before looking away. When the final round wraps up, the mayor grabs his coat, says he has to take a last-minute campaign call back at the house, kisses her on the cheek so fast it barely counts, and leaves without waiting for her.
Fifteen minutes later, most of the crowd has filtered out, the only people left are the bartender wiping down glasses and Moe packing up his cables. Clara walks over to his table, holds up two cold IPAs, nods at the empty booth in the back corner. “He’s gonna be on the phone for two hours minimum,” she says, no preamble. “Wanna sit?”
He doesn’t hesitate. They slide into the booth, the vinyl cracked and sticky with old soda. The jukebox switches to Etta James’ “At Last,” low enough that they don’t have to raise their voices to talk. She tells him she hates the campaign, hates the fake smiles, hates that her husband hasn’t asked her how her day was in 11 months, only talks about polling numbers and yard sign distribution. He tells her he still has a box of his wife’s favorite records under his bed, that he hasn’t played any of them since she died, because he thought it would be betraying her to feel happy around music without her. Her foot brushes his under the table, slow, intentional, no accident. He doesn’t pull away. He reaches out, brushes a strand of silver-streaked dark hair off her forehead, his fingers grazing her skin, warm and soft. She leans into the touch, her eyes fluttering closed for half a second.
They agree to meet at the hidden cove he hikes to every Saturday morning, the one past the old logging trail, no one goes there this time of year, the water calm and the only noise seagulls and waves hitting the rocks. She leaves first, slips him a crumpled piece of paper with her cell number scrawled on it, gives him a small, secret smile before she walks out the door. He watches her taillights fade down the coastal highway, the paper crumpled in his palm, still warm from her hand. He finishes his beer, the ice clinking against the sides of the glass when he sets it down on the table. For the first time in 8 years, he doesn’t feel a twinge of guilt when he thinks about waking up early tomorrow.
