Elias Voss, 59, has restored vintage outboard motors out of a weathered boathouse on Lake Huron’s western shore for 22 years. His biggest flaw is that he’s clung to self-imposed isolation like a barnacle to a hull since his wife died of ovarian cancer 8 years prior, turning down every dinner invite, every community event, every half-hearted set-up from neighbors who keep saying he “deserves to be happy again.” He only showed up to the township’s annual August fish fry because his 16-year-old grandson begged him to man his lemonade stand for 20 minutes while he ran to the porta-potty, and Elias can never say no to that kid.
The air smells like fried perch, charcoal smoke, and the sharp, green tang of pine blown off the nearby state forest. He’s leaning against the splintered plywood stand, sipping a cup of pink lemonade that’s sweeter than he likes, when she steps up. He’s seen her around town once or twice—Mara, the new township supervisor’s wife, moved up from Chicago three months prior, wears linen shirts and beat-up white sneakers instead of the frumpy house dresses most of the local women his age favor. She reaches for a cup on the counter at the same time he does, their knuckles brushing, and he yanks his hand back like he touched a hot spark plug. She laughs, low and warm, not mocking. “Sorry,” she says, and holds his gaze for two full beats longer than polite, her hazel eyes crinkling at the corners. “Didn’t see you there.”
He mumbles an apology, wipes his hand on the leg of his grease-stained work jeans, and tries to look anywhere but at the freckles scattered across her nose, the way the humid air has stuck the front of her pale blue shirt to the curve of her collarbone. She orders a cup of lemonade, pays the kid who’s back manning the stand now, and leans against the post next to him instead of walking back to the crowded pavilion. She mentions she walked the lake trail last week, saw the 1957 Evinrude he had propped up on a sawhorse outside his shop, and his ears perk up—most people around here don’t know a Johnson from a Mercury, let alone a 66-year-old outboard that’s considered a holy grail for collectors. She says her dad restored the exact same model when she was a kid, they’d take it out on a 14-foot aluminum fishing boat on Lake Superior every summer, and he finds himself talking before he can stop himself, telling her about the little crack in the lower unit he’s been trying to weld shut for three weeks, about the guy from Detroit who offered him $1200 for it sight unseen.
Half an hour slips by without him noticing. The sun dips lower, painting the sky pink and tangerine over the lake, and they’ve wandered 50 yards down the shore away from the crowd, stepping over smooth, water-worn rocks, the distant sound of kids screaming on the public beach mixing with the low rumble of the fryers at the pavilion. He knows this is wrong. He knows she’s married, knows the whole town is watching, knows he’s spent 8 years building walls between himself and anyone who might make him feel something other than the quiet, familiar grief he’s grown comfortable with. Part of him wants to turn on his heel and walk back to his truck, drive to his boathouse, lock the door and forget he ever talked to her. The other part of him can’t stop staring at the way the sunset gilds the edges of her hair, can’t stop smelling the coconut sunscreen and faint vanilla perfume she’s wearing, can’t stop replaying the feeling of her knuckles brushing his.
She stops next to a gnarled birch tree, leans her shoulder against the bark, and tells him her husband works 12 hour days every day, spends most of his nights hunched over his laptop answering work emails, that she moved up here thinking small town life would be slower, that she’d have someone to go fishing with, to walk the trails with, but she’s lonelier here than she was in her 12th floor condo in Chicago. She reaches out, brushes a fleck of fried catfish crumb off the chest of his faded gray flannel shirt, and her hand lingers on his sternum for a full three seconds, her palm warm through the thin fabric. He doesn’t pull away. He admits he hasn’t had a conversation with someone who isn’t his grandson or a customer haggling over repair prices in almost four months.
She asks if she can stop by his shop next Saturday, says her husband is at a regional township conference up north all day, she wants to see the Evinrude up close, maybe help him sand the rust off the casing if he’ll let her. He nods before he can overthink it. She tucks a scrap of receipt paper with her cell number scrawled on it in blue ballpoint into the front pocket of his jeans, her fingers brushing the denim for half a second, and gives him a small, secret smile that makes his chest feel tight.
His grandson yells his name from the pavilion, waving to get his attention, and he turns his head for half a second. When he looks back, she’s already walking toward the parking lot, lifting a hand in a small wave over her shoulder. He shoves his hand into his pocket, his fingers curling around the crumpled scrap of paper, and takes a sip of the half-melted lemonade in his other hand. It tastes sweeter than anything he’s had in 8 years.
