Ron Jablonski, 62, retired state highway maintenance foreman from Washington County, Pennsylvania, had avoided the annual Buffalo Township fireman’s carnival for three years straight. His wife, Linda, had loved the thing, spent every August baking peach pies for the dessert auction, laughing so hard at the dunk tank she’d snort loud enough to turn heads half a field away. She’d passed from lung cancer four years prior, and Ron’s worst flaw was his stubborn refusal to let anyone pull him out of the quiet, predictable routine he’d built after she was gone: coffee at the diner at 6am, mow the lawn on Wednesdays, watch Pirates games on the couch with a bag of Cheetos and zero small talk. The only reason he showed up this year was his 12-year-old granddaughter had begged him for three weeks straight, promising if he took her she’d stop asking him to get TikTok.
He’d just dropped her off at the cotton candy stand with her friends, was leaning against a splintered split-rail fence by the beer tent, sweating through the collar of his faded Steelers t-shirt, holding an ice cold IC Light, when he spotted her. Clara Mendez, 58, owner of the only vegan bakery within 20 miles, the same woman he’d roasted nonstop to his buddies at the diner for “selling tree bark disguised as bread to yuppies who don’t know what a real hoagie tastes like.” She was perched on the dunk tank seat, cutoff jean shorts riding up her tanned calves, a white tank top plastered to her shoulders with sweat, her auburn curly hair streaked with gray pulled back in a messy ponytail. He recognized the thin, silvery scar wrapping around her left calf from the 2019 motorcycle crash he’d stopped to help with, when she’d yelled at him for touching her custom Harley before she’d thanked him for patching up her leg with his work first aid kit.
She spotted him before he could duck away, leaning forward to yell over the noise of the Ferris wheel and screaming kids, grinning so wide the dimples in her cheeks showed. “Jablonski! You gonna stand there scowling all night or you gonna pay five bucks to try and dunk me? Fire department’s raising money for new hoses, you cheap bastard.” He snorted, shaking his head, but he pushed off the fence anyway, walking over to drop a ten dollar bill in the bucket by the ball stand, grabbing three foam balls. The first two bounced off the metal frame of the target, and she cackled, yelling that he threw like a guy who spent 40 years holding a stop sign for road crews. The third hit dead center, and the seat dropped out from under her, sending her flailing into the water with a loud squawk.
When she climbed out ten minutes later for her break, she was dripping wet, her hair stuck to her face, goosebumps popping up on her arms. She walked straight over to him, water dripping off the hem of her shorts onto his scuffed work boots, and he reached into his pocket for the extra cotton bandana he always carried, holding it out. Their fingers brushed when she took it, calloused from kneading bread and working on her bike, and he felt a jolt run up his arm that had nothing to do with the 90 degree heat. She stood close enough that he could smell coconut shampoo mixed with the fried oreos from the stand next to them and the faint, sweet scent of the lavender she grew in her bakery’s front garden, her shoulder brushing his every time someone walked past. He teased her that the chocolate chip cookies she’d left at the diner a month prior were “not half bad, for something that doesn’t have any real butter in it,” and she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, just like Linda used to, shoving his shoulder lightly with her palm.
He froze for half a second, the guilt hitting him square in the chest like he’d been caught doing something wrong, like he was betraying Linda by even enjoying talking to another woman. Clara must have seen the shift on his face, because she leaned in a little, her voice softer, no teasing left in it. “She would’ve wanted you to stop moping around, you know. Linda came into my bakery once, six months before she passed, bought a dozen vegan blueberry muffins for you, said you had high cholesterol and you were too stubborn to change your diet on your own.” He blinked, he’d never known that, had thought those muffins she’d brought home that week were from the grocery store.
She didn’t push him, just leaned back against the fence next to him, taking a sip of his beer when he held it out to her, no question. When the carnival lights started to flicker off around 9, she told him she was closing the bakery early the next day, was going to ride her bike up to the overlook on Route 28 to watch the sunset, asked if he wanted to come. He hesitated for all of three seconds, then nodded.
He showed up at the meeting spot the next evening wearing the leather jacket he’d stored in the back of his closet since Linda died, holding the extra helmet he’d kept in the garage for just as long. She pulled up on her Harley, grinning, tossing him a cloth bag with a chocolate chip cookie inside. He climbed on the back of the bike, wrapping his arms around her waist, and when she pulled out onto the highway, the wind whipping through his hair, the warm summer air hitting his face, he didn’t fight the smile that pulled at the corners of his mouth.
