Elroy Voss, 62, retired forensic accountant, has spent the last eight years structuring every hour of his day down to 15-minute increments. It’s the flaw that got him promoted three times in his career, the same flaw that had him auditing his own grocery receipts every Sunday for two years after his wife, Lynn, passed from pancreatic cancer. He’s at the town’s annual summer street dance only because his next door neighbor, a retired high school football coach, threatened to drag him out of his recliner if he spent another Saturday night cross-referencing his bird watching logs with the local DNR migration reports.
He’s pressed against the chipped brick exterior of the hardware store, lukewarm Pabst in one hand, the other stuffed in the pocket of his faded work pants, when he spots her. Marnie Rainer, 58, Lynn’s first cousin, owner of the taco stand that’s been set up on the corner of Main Street for 12 years, is wiping sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand, denim work shirt rolled up to her elbows, sunflower tattoo peeking out from her forearm that he swears he’s never seen before. He’s avoided her for two years, ever since he’d driven past her stand at 8 a.m. last spring and seen her laughing as she tossed a tortilla to a stray dog, and he’d felt a twist low in his gut he’d thought he’d buried with Lynn. It felt wrong, like stealing, like violating some unspoken rule he’d written into his own personal code of conduct the day Lynn drew her last breath.
She spots him before he can duck behind the group of teen boys carrying heaping baskets of deep fried cheese curds, and she grins, weaving through the crowd toward him. She stops so close when she reaches him that her hip brushes his, the rough denim of her cutoffs catching on the fabric of his pants, and he freezes. “Thought that was you,” she says, and her voice is rough, like she’s spent the day yelling over the fryer, and it smells like lime and the cinnamon gum she always chews. She holds out a paper wrapped al pastor taco, still steaming, and when he reaches for it their fingers brush. He can feel the thick callus on her thumb from pressing hundreds of tortillas a day, and he fumbles the wrapper a little, grease spotting the front of his worn gray flannel shirt.
She snorts, nodding at the stain. “Still wearing that same flannel, huh? You had that on at Lynn’s funeral.” He blushes, scrubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Wears in good,” he says, and it’s the stupidest thing he’s ever said, but she laughs, loud and unapologetic, and the sound cuts through the twang of the Merle Haggard cover the band is playing on the stage at the end of the block. She leans against the brick next to him, their shoulders pressed together, and he can smell the cumin and grilled pineapple on her clothes, mixed with the coconut perfume she wears. He’s running a thousand calculations in his head, the social cost of being seen this close to her, the way the church ladies will whisper at the grocery store next week, the guilt that’s coiled tight in his chest fighting with the warm buzz he gets from having her this near.
The band switches to a slow, waltzing two step, the kind of song Lynn used to drag him to dance to at weddings, and Marnie tilts her head at the dance floor, dark eyes glinting under the string lights strung between the storefronts. “You dance, Elroy?” she asks, and before he can say he hasn’t danced since his wedding 37 years ago, she’s wrapping her hand around his wrist, her palm warm and rough, and pulling him into the crowd. He’s stiff as a board at first, his hands hovering an inch above her waist, like he’s scared touching her will burn him, and she rolls her eyes, yanking his hands down until his palms are flat against the curve of her hips. “Relax,” she says, quiet enough only he can hear, her breath fanning over the stubble on his jaw. “No one’s gonna bite you. Unless you ask nicely.”
He laughs, shocked, and for the first time in eight years, his brain goes quiet. No spreadsheets, no checklists, no internal audits of his own morality. It’s just the feel of her hips swaying under his hands, the smell of cedar shampoo in her hair, the way she presses her cheek to his chest like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He doesn’t care if the neighbors are staring, doesn’t care if he’s breaking every stupid rule he wrote for himself after Lynn died, doesn’t care that this is the kind of unplanned, messy thing he’s spent years avoiding. It feels good.
The song ends a minute later, and she leans up, kissing him soft on the corner of his mouth, her lip gloss tasting like cherry. “I’m closing the stand early tomorrow,” she says, pulling back, her fingers brushing the back of his hand where it’s still resting on her hip. “Got fresh corn from the farm up the road, and a bottle of tequila I’ve been saving for someone who doesn’t think a good time is a spreadsheet. You wanna come over?”
He nods, his throat too tight to talk, and she grins, squeezing his wrist before she turns to walk back to her taco stand. He stands there in the middle of the dance floor for another minute, holding the half-eaten taco in one hand, the grease still warm on his flannel, the ghost of her kiss lingering on his jaw. He doesn’t make a mental note to add the visit to his calendar, doesn’t run a cost benefit analysis of the decision, doesn’t even check his watch to see what time it is. He just takes a bite of the taco, the spiced pork burning his tongue, and watches her yell at a kid who tried to steal a bag of chips from her stand, laughing so hard his sides hurt.
