Rafe Mendez, 53, has made a living keeping bees for 22 years, and he’s got the scar across his left forearm to prove it, from a time he’d swatted at a yellow jacket near a hive box and accidentally smashed through a sheet of corrugated tin. He’s avoided the annual Yamhill Valley Harvest Fair for three straight years, ever since his wife left him for a part-time wine tour guide with a ponytail and a vintage Volkswagen bus, but the fair board begged him to come this year, said his wildflower honey was the only reason half the old timers showed up. He’d caved, mostly because he’d had a surplus of jars stacked to the ceiling of his apiary shed, and he figured two days of forced small talk was better than tossing 400 pounds of perfectly good honey come winter.
The first sign things would go off script was when the fair coordinator showed up 20 minutes before opening, red faced and flustered, saying they’d double booked his booth spot. Next thing he knew, Lila Carter was hauling crates of peach jam and pickled okra into the 10×10 space beside his table, her auburn hair pulled back in a messy braid, a smudge of strawberry syrup on her left cheek. She was Mike Carter’s stepdaughter, for Christ’s sake, Mike had been his best fishing buddy for 30 years before he dropped dead of a heart attack on the river last spring. Rafe had carried her stepdad’s casket, had held her hand for 10 minutes after the service when she couldn’t stop crying, had always thought of her as a kid, the 16 year old who’d snuck sips of his beer at Mike’s 50th birthday party, the college kid he’d helped move into a dorm in Corvallis 26 years prior. He’d avoided her since the funeral, mostly because he’d caught himself staring at her at the repast, noticing the way her jeans fit, the crinkle by her eye when she smiled, and he’d felt sick with guilt over it, like he was betraying Mike somehow.
They’d spent the first three hours dancing around each other, passing between the table and the crowd of customers, their hips brushing every time they swapped places to hand someone a jar of honey or a jar of jam. The sun was high, hot enough to make sweat bead down the back of his flannel shirt, and he’d rolled the sleeves up to his elbows, exposing the scar on his forearm, the silver of his old watch. She’d pointed at the scar mid transaction, when a little kid was begging his mom for a honey stick, and laughed, said she remembered him getting that, she’d been there, had helped him clean the cut out in Mike’s garage with hydrogen peroxide that stung so bad he’d cursed so loud the neighbors called the cops. He’d laughed too, unexpected, and when he handed her the honey stick the kid had dropped, their fingers brushed, and he felt a jolt go up his arm, like static from a wool blanket. She smelled like jasmine lotion and ripe peaches, and he had to look away, focus on stacking jars, so he wouldn’t do something stupid like lean in closer.
By late afternoon, the crowd had thinned out, the sky had gone dark and heavy with rain clouds. She was telling him she’d moved back to town six months prior, bought that little cottage on the edge of the oak grove, had set up two small bee hives in her backyard, had been meaning to call him for tips but had been too nervous. He was about to tell her he’d have come out to help her any time, that he’d been meaning to call her too, to check in, when the first fat raindrop hit his neck, hard enough to make him flinch. They both lunged for the canvas awning at the same time, fumbling with the metal poles to yank it down before their stock got soaked, and his hand landed right over hers on the cold, wet metal. They froze, neither of them moving, and he could feel the calluses on her palm from digging in her garden, from stirring vats of jam for hours, the warm press of her skin against his. She was looking up at him, rain drops running down her neck, under the collar of her flannel shirt, and she said she’d been thinking about him since the funeral, too, that when he’d held her hand she’d felt safer than she had in years, that she’d been scared to say anything because she thought he still saw her as Mike’s stupid kid.
He didn’t say anything for a minute, just stood there, holding her hand under the awning, the rain drumming loud enough to drown out the rest of the fair noise. He told her he’d felt guilty for months for noticing her, for thinking about her when he was alone at the apiary, that he’d thought he was being a terrible friend to Mike, that he’d convinced himself he was too old, too set in his grumpy ways, to be worth anyone’s time. She laughed, soft, and leaned in a little closer, their shoulders pressed together now, no space between them. She said Mike had always told her Rafe was the best man he knew, that if she ever found someone half as solid as him, she’d be lucky.
The rain let up 10 minutes later, leaving the air smelling like wet grass and pine, the sun peeking out through the clouds to paint the sky pink and orange. They packed up their booths slow, no rush, stealing glances at each other when they thought the other wasn’t looking, their hands brushing every time they passed a crate to each other. When they were done, he leaned against the bed of his beat up pickup, and asked her if she wanted to get carnitas tacos from that old food truck down by the river, the one they’d both gone to with Mike a hundred times. She said yes, grabbed the jar of wild blackberry honey he’d set aside earlier, the one he’d saved for Mike, said they could drizzle it on the tacos, Mike always did. He holds the truck door open for her, and when she slides into the passenger seat, her knee brushes his, and he doesn’t look away when she grins up at him, the last of the rain glistening on her cheekbone.
