Ronan O’Malley, 62, retired wildland fire crew boss, shifted his weight on the gravel outside the Missoula VFW, work boots caked in pine sap from crawling around the undercarriage of his 1972 International Harvester brush truck that morning. He’d showed up 20 minutes early for the weekly fish fry specifically to skip the line, but a local JV football team was running a fundraiser on the same lot, so the queue snaked past the beer coolers and all the way to the edge of the parking lot. He grunted, tucking his hands into the pockets of his faded Nomex fire crew jacket, the fabric stiff with old smoke residue.
A gust of wind carried the scent of jasmine over the fried cod and diesel fumes, and a second later, something soft bumped the back of his bicep. He turned, half ready to snap at a kid darting through the crowd, and came face to face with a woman in her late 50s, cheeks flushed, one hand fumbling a paper plate, the other still hovering an inch from his arm. “Sorry,” she said, laughing, her hazel eyes crinkling at the corners. “My grandson just took off after his teammate like his hair was on fire, I almost tripped over a folding chair.”
Ronan stared for a beat longer than he should have, caught off guard by the joke. He’d heard that exact phrase a hundred times on fire lines, usually when a rookie bolted for the port-a-potty mid-briefing. “No harm done,” he said, the words coming out gruffer than he intended. He noticed the sunflower patches stitched to the toes of her white sneakers, the faint scar snaking up her left wrist like a thin piece of twine, the way she tucked a strand of chestnut hair streaked with silver behind her ear when she was nervous.
They stood in silence for a minute, the line creeping forward two steps, before she spoke again. “You’d think a crew used to rushing into burning forests could move a fish fry line faster,” she said, nodding at the VFW volunteers manning the fryers, most of them retired fire or law enforcement.
Ronan huffed a laugh, a sound so rare he barely recognized it himself. “These guys haven’t rushed anywhere since Reagan was in office. They’d let the whole lot burn down before they skipped a step in the batter recipe.”
He learned her name was Clara, 58, the new county library administrator, moved to Montana from Portland six months prior after a 32 year marriage ended amicably enough, she said, but she’d needed a change of scenery. Her dad had run a fire crew in the Sierras back in the 80s, which was where she’d picked up the fire references. He told her about the brush truck he was restoring, the one he’d driven on his first ever major fire assignment, the one he’d bought at a government auction three years prior for $800. She told him she’d picked up a solid oak 1950s library bookshelf at a local thrift store a week prior, water damage along the bottom edge, and she’d been trying to find someone who knew how to strip and refinish old wood without ruining the original joinery.
The familiar tightness clamped down on his chest then, the automatic resistance he’d carried for 30 years, ever since his wife left him for a park ranger mid-fire season, when he’d been gone for 12 straight weeks fighting a blaze in Idaho. He didn’t let people into his garage. He didn’t make plans with people he didn’t already know. He ate fish fry alone in his truck half the time, just to avoid small talk. But then she leaned in a little to hear him over a group of football players yelling, her shoulder brushing his, and he could smell that jasmine again, warm and soft, and the tightness loosened just a fraction.
They reached the front of the line at the same time, both grabbing plates of beer-battered cod, hushpuppies still steaming, a side of coleslaw. Clara hesitated for a second, then nodded at an empty picnic table near the treeline. “You wanna sit with me and Jax? He’s probably gonna talk your ear off about football, but I promise I’ll bring extra tartar sauce.”
He almost said no. Almost mumbled an excuse about needing to get back to the truck, about an early morning supply run the next day. But then she smiled, that crinkly-eyed smile, and he nodded.
The sun was dipping below the Bitterroot Mountains by then, painting the sky pink and tangerine, the air cooling enough that he could see his breath when he laughed at Jax’s story about tripping over his own cleats during practice earlier that week. Clara sat across from him, her knee brushing his under the table every time she shifted, and he didn’t move away. When Jax ran off to say goodbye to his coach, she handed him an extra hushpuppy, her fingers brushing his palm for half a second, and he felt a jolt go all the way up his arm, like he’d touched a live wire.
He pulled a crumpled napkin out of his jacket pocket, scribbled his cell number on it with the Sharpie he always carried, the tip smudged with pine sap. “I can come look at that bookshelf Saturday morning,” he said, pushing the napkin across the table. “No charge. Just bring a six pack of that hazy IPA the brewery downtown makes.”
Clara tucked the napkin into the pocket of her jeans, grinning. “I’ll even throw in a batch of my famous chocolate chip cookies. The ones with extra sea salt.”
Jax yelled her name from the parking lot, waving from the back of a minivan. She stood up, slinging her canvas tote over her shoulder, and waved back, then glanced over at Ronan and winked. “See you Saturday, fireman.”
He sat there for another 10 minutes after she left, picking at the last of his cod, the spot on his bicep still tingling where she’d bumped into him earlier. He pulled out his phone, pulled up his text thread with his neighbor, who’d asked him to help fix a split rail fence that same Saturday morning, and typed a quick message: Can’t make it Saturday. Got other plans.
