Manny Rocha, 58, retired commercial salmon captain out of Astoria, had only shown up to the fire department’s annual beer garden fundraiser because his 16-year-old niece had threatened to mow over his heirloom rose bushes with her ATV if he spent another Saturday holed up in his house watching old fishing tournament tapes. He’d parked his beat-up F150 at the edge of the dirt lot, grabbed a cheap lager from the keg stand, and planted himself against a splintered split-rail fence far from the crowd, planning to slip out after 45 minutes like he did every other mandatory social event. His boots were caked with coastal mud, his flannel unbuttoned over a faded Grateful Dead tee, the scar slicing through his left cheek pulling a little when he scowled at a guy who waved at him from the picnic tables. He’d spent three years deliberately avoiding small talk, deliberately avoiding anyone who might ask how he was holding up, deliberately locking down any part of himself that didn’t involve fixing up his property or taking his lab mix for walks along the shore. He considered that a flaw, sometimes, but mostly he considered it self-preservation, a way to not dishonor the 27 years he’d had with Linda, who’d died of ovarian cancer three days after they’d come back from their final fishing trip up the coast.
He was mid-sip, mentally calculating how much longer he had to stay before he could leave without his niece throwing a fit, when he smelled pine sol and coconut shampoo and salt, all wrapped up together, and a voice he recognized cut through the Johnny Cash cover playing from the stage. “Thought that was you. I was wondering when you’d stop hiding up on your bluff.” He turned, and there she was—Elara Voss, the 54-year-old meteorological tech who’d been coming out to his house every other week for the past two months to fix the weather station he kept mounted on a 30-foot pole behind his garage. He’d avoided her every time she’d showed up, hovering by the back door instead of offering her a glass of water, staring at her through the kitchen window while she climbed the pole to adjust the anemometer, feeling a hot, stupid twist of guilt in his gut every time he noticed how her work jeans fit across her hips. He’d told himself he was too old for that kind of nonsense, that feeling anything even close to attraction was a slap in Linda’s face, that he was better off alone.
She leaned against the fence next to him, close enough that her shoulder brushed his bicep when she shifted to grab a beer from the volunteer walking by with a tray. Her dark hair was streaked with gray, pulled back in a messy braid, a fleck of blue paint on her jaw from touching up her work van that morning. When she reached past him to grab a napkin off the fence rail behind his back, her hip pressed firm against his, the denim of her jeans still slightly damp from the ocean breeze that rolled in off the bay. He froze for half a second, his beer can sweating so much it slipped a little in his grip, and she laughed, low and warm, when he fumbled to catch it. Their knuckles brushed when she reached out to steady the can, and he felt the rough callus on her index finger, the one she’d gotten from tightening sensor bolts every day for 20 years. He’d noticed that callus three weeks prior, when she’d handed him the invoice for the weather station repairs, and he’d replayed the split second of contact in his head every night since, hating himself for it.
They talked over the noise of the crowd, the kids screaming on the bounce house, the band switching to a slower Patsy Cline track. She told him her ex-husband had left her seven years prior for a realtor in Portland half her age, that she’d moved to the coast to get away from the noise of the city, that she surfed every morning before work if the waves were good. He told her about the time a winch snapped on his boat 12 years prior, giving him the scar on his cheek, that he’d cried more over the broken winch than the cut, that he’d sold his boat six months after Linda died because he couldn’t stand being out on the water without her. She didn’t give him that sad, pitying look everyone else gave him when he mentioned Linda. She just nodded, took a sip of her beer, said she knew what it felt like to lose something you thought would be yours forever.
When the fire chief got up on stage to announce the 50/50 raffle winner, Elara pulled her crumpled ticket out of her jacket pocket and held it up next to his, her fingers brushing his as she aligned the numbers. Her number was one digit off his, and they both laughed at the close call, her shoulder pressing harder against his this time, no apology, no pulling away. He was fighting the urge to wrap his arm around her waist, the guilt twisting so tight in his chest he thought he might be sick, when she turned to him, her hazel eyes flecked with green, holding his gaze steady like she knew exactly what he was thinking. “I was gonna ask if you wanted to get fish and chips after this,” she said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear, her hand brushing his wrist on the way down, this time on purpose. “I’ve been bugging you for weeks to tell me about that time you got stuck in a storm off the Bering Sea. Figured this was as good a time as any to ask.”
He hesitated for half a second, every part of him screaming that he was doing something wrong, that he was betraying Linda, that he was too old and too broken to be taking a woman out for fish and chips. Then he thought of Linda, the way she’d always teased him for being too stubborn for his own good, the way she’d told him a week before she died that he better not spend the rest of his life moping once she was gone. He nodded, a small, tight smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah,” he said. “Sounds good.”
They finished their beers, tossed the empty cans in the recycling bin by the fence, and Elara linked her arm through his, not tight, just enough that he could feel the heat of her forearm through his flannel. He didn’t pull away. A kid ran past them, chasing a balloon, and almost slammed into Manny’s legs, so he steadied the kid with his free hand, laughing when the kid yelled a quick apology and kept running. Elara squeezed his arm a little, and he smiled down at her, the tight, heavy weight in his chest loosening for the first time in three years. When the food truck cashier called their order number, he stepped forward to grab the greasy paper bag of cod and hushpuppies, his elbow brushing Elara’s as she pulled her wallet out to pay for the root beers, and for the first time since Linda died, he didn’t feel guilty for looking forward to what came next.
