Eli Hornbeck is 62, retired wildland fire crew foreman, 18 months out from his last shift on the Ochoco National Forest, eight years out from burying his wife, Linda. His biggest flaw is that he’s turned stubbornness into a personality trait—he turns down every dinner invitation from his neighbors, avoids the local diner on weekends, and has not so much as looked at a woman like anything more than a stranger since Linda’s funeral. The only thing he cares about these days is sanding rust spots on his 1978 Ford F-150, and he only left his shop that Saturday because his next-door neighbor all but shoved him out the door, saying if he spent one more day breathing paint fumes alone he was going to turn into a rust spot himself.
The summer street fair was louder than he remembered, country music blaring from the beer garden stage, the sharp smell of fried Oreos and charcoal grills hanging thick in the 83-degree heat. He’d been standing in the pulled pork line for three minutes, staring at the scuffed toes of his work boots, when someone slammed into his back hard enough to jostle the sunglasses perched on his head. Iced lavender lemonade sloshed over the cup’s rim, soaking a two-inch splotch into the faded navy fire crew shirt he still wore most days.
He turned around ready to snap, then froze. Clara Mercer, 56, ex-wife of his former crew boss, the man he’d cut off all contact with 10 years prior after the guy lied about a bad call that almost got a 19-year-old rookie killed in the Three Rivers fire. She had freckles spread across her nose he didn’t remember, silver streaks weaving through auburn waves pulled back in a red bandana, a cutoff plaid shirt tied around her waist over a plain white tank top, sawdust dusting the knees of her jeans. She’d been setting up booths for the local animal shelter all morning, she said, wiping a smudge of dirt off her cheek with the back of her hand, laughing so hard she snort-laughed when she realized who she’d spilled on.
She grabbed a crumpled napkin from her pocket before he could protest, leaning in close enough that he could smell coconut sunscreen and pine from the cedar chips she’d been spreading for the dog playpen, dabbing at the lemonade splotch on his chest. Her hand brushed the scar just above his collarbone, the one he got from a falling branch on that same Three Rivers fire, and she paused for half a second, her thumb brushing the raised skin before she pulled back, holding eye contact like she wasn’t scared of the scowl he’d perfected over the last decade.
He tensed up immediately, stepping back six inches, crossing his arms over his chest. He’d spent 10 years avoiding anyone tied to that crew, that mess, and even longer avoiding any woman who didn’t work at the hardware store. Part of him felt sick, guilty even, for noticing how her eyes crinkled when she smiled, for liking the sound of her laugh more than he’d liked any sound in years. He’d spent so long telling himself he was done with anything that felt like connection, that talking to a woman would be a betrayal of Linda, that the pull in his chest felt like a defect, something he should stamp out immediately.
She didn’t push, just asked if he was planning on eating his sandwich alone, and he surprised himself by saying he didn’t have plans. They sat at a splintered picnic table off to the side of the animal shelter booth, half a dozen golden retriever puppies tumbling around in the pen behind them, and she told him she’d left her ex two weeks after that fire, that she’d known he’d lied, that she’d been wanting to apologize to Eli for years but he always looked like he was ready to run if anyone got too close. The weight he’d been carrying for 10 years loosened a little, like someone had cut a strap on a backpack he’d forgotten he was wearing.
The fireworks started right as he finished his sandwich, pink and gold bursts lighting up the darkening sky, the crowd around them cheering. A group of kids darted past the table, one slamming into the edge hard enough that the stack of adoption flyers teetered, and she leaned into him to keep her new lemonade from spilling, her shoulder pressing firm against his, their hands brushing when they both reached to steady the paper. He didn’t pull away. She looked up at him, fireworks reflecting in her green eyes, and said she wasn’t looking for anything fast, that she knew what it was like to be so closed off you forget how to talk to people.
He walked her to her beat-up Subaru an hour later, the fair winding down, couples carrying cotton candy and stuffed prizes walking past them. She handed him a crumpled flyer for the shelter’s volunteer day the next Saturday, said they needed someone who knew how to drive a post hole digger and fix broken fence posts for the new dog run. He tucked it into his jeans pocket, his fingers brushing hers when he took it, his chest tight in a way that wasn’t unpleasant. She leaned up and kissed his cheek, soft, her lipstick leaving a faint pink mark he didn’t wipe off, before she climbed into her car and pulled out of the parking lot.
He stood there for a minute, watching her taillights fade down the main street, then pulled his phone out, typing a text to his neighbor saying he wouldn’t be around to fix his gutter next Saturday, he had other plans. He slipped the flyer out of his pocket, rereading the date scrawled at the top, and smiled, a small, rusty thing he hadn’t felt in years.
