Earl Hagstrom, 62, retired apiary owner, had not set foot at the Eau Claire summer street fair in seven years. His wife, Linda, had loved the chaos of it, the fried dough that left sugar dust on her shirt, the ramshackle bluegrass sets, the way local kids would beg for free tastes of their wildflower honey when they manned the 4H booth. After she died of ovarian cancer in 2016, he’d sold half the hives, cut his hours at the local farmers’ market, and told every family member who asked that he’d rather sort queen bee hives in 90 degree heat than deal with the fair’s noise. His niece had begged for three weeks straight this year, though, said the 4H honey booth was short staffed, that he was the only person in the county who could explain why basswood honey tasted like mint if you let it melt on your tongue slow enough. He caved 48 hours before the fair opened, and spent the entire drive into town kicking himself for it.
He was wiping down the booth’s splintered wooden counter when she showed up. Marnie Torres, 58, recently divorced high school art teacher, Linda’s former book club partner, the woman he’d spent 20 years deliberately not looking at for too long, even when Linda would invite her over for dinner and she’d laugh so hard at his bad beekeeper jokes she’d snort. She was wearing a pale yellow linen sundress, a pair of scuffed white sneakers, and a thick silver streak ran through the front of her dark wavy hair, right at her temple. She carried a paper cup of spiked lemonade in one hand, and when she leaned over the booth to set her canvas bag on the shelf under the counter, her forearm brushed his, warm and soft, and he caught a whiff of jasmine lotion and citrus rind. He stepped back so fast he knocked over a stack of clover honey jars, and she laughed, low and warm, as she reached out to steady them.
The first two hours passed slow. Earl answered customer questions, counted cash, did everything he could to avoid making eye contact. He kept replaying the feel of her arm against his, telling himself he was being an idiot, that he was betraying Linda just for noticing how the dress fit her shoulders, how the sun caught the silver in her hair when she turned to wave at a former student walking by. He’d spent so long defining himself as the loyal, grieving widower that the mere idea of feeling anything that wasn’t quiet, neutral grief felt like a sin. He’d turned down three setups from family friends in the last five years, told all of them he wasn’t interested, that he had his hives and his old truck and that was enough. But every time their hands brushed when they passed jars to each other, every time she looked at him and grinned like she knew exactly what he was thinking, that resolve frayed a little more.
He spent the next hour pretending to sort jars in the back of the booth, trying to talk himself out of the tight, giddy feeling in his chest. This was wrong, he told himself. Everyone in town knew him as Linda’s husband. People would talk if they saw him so much as getting coffee with Marnie. But every time he peeked out at her, watching her kneel down to let a toddler dip a finger into a sample cup of honey, he couldn’t bring himself to care as much as he thought he should.
The sky turned dark at 7, right as the fair was closing, and rain started pouring down before they could get the last of the jars packed into plastic bins. They grabbed as many as they could and ran for Earl’s beat up Ford F150, their shoes squelching in the wet grass, rain soaking through their shirts in seconds. When they got the last bin loaded into the truck bed, they both leaned against the cab, breathless, and Marnie laughed so hard she snort-laughed, the same way she used to at dinner all those years ago, and Earl found himself laughing right along with her, his sides hurting, the rain dripping off the brim of his baseball cap onto his face. She reached up and wiped a raindrop off his cheek with her thumb, her calloused painter’s hand warm against his skin, and didn’t pull away.
He told her he’d avoided the fair for seven years because every corner of it reminded him of Linda. She told him she’d avoided it too, because she didn’t want to run into him and feel like she was intruding on his grief, that she’d missed talking to him, that Linda had always told her he was the only person in town who got her terrible 90s rom-com references. The rain slowed to a drizzle, and the streetlights flickered on, painting the wet asphalt gold.
He asked her if she wanted to get a burger and a draft beer at the dive bar three blocks over, the one with the jukebox that only played 70s country. She said yes, grinning, and when he held the passenger door open for her, her hand brushed his as she climbed in, the smell of rain and jasmine wrapping around him for half a second before he closed the door. He walked around to the driver’s side, pulled his wet cap off his head, tossed it on the dash, and turned the key in the ignition.
