Moe Jorgensen, 62, spent the last three years tending 42 hives outside of Ashland, Oregon, and talking to more bees than people since his wife Linda died of pancreatic cancer. His biggest flaw? He’d turned down every invite to cookouts, trivia nights, and fix-it clinics the neighborhood threw his way, convinced everyone only wanted to “fix” his loneliness by setting him up with their widowed aunts or divorced bowling league friends. He’d rather get stung three times in one afternoon than make forced small talk over potato salad, so he only left his property to sell honey at the weekly Saturday farmers market, and even then he kept interactions to pointing out price tags and handing over sample sticks.
The temperature hit 84 by 10 a.m. that July, the air thick with the smell of roasted sweet corn from the stand next to his and the cloying sweetness of his own wild blackberry honey, which had leaked a half cup into the bottom of his cooler overnight. He was wiping sticky amber residue off his calloused fingers with a crumpled paper towel when she stepped up to his table, and he froze immediately. He recognized her from the front page of the Ashland Tribune two weeks prior, mid-eye roll at a county board meeting where three male supervisors had yelled at her for displaying queer coming-of-age novels on the library’s summer reading table. Elara Voss, 58, the new county librarian, her gray hair pulled back in a messy braid streaked with electric pink, wearing a cutoff flannel and a faded Patti Smith t-shirt that fit tight across her shoulders.
She leaned in close, her bicep brushing his through the thin cotton of his Carhartt work shirt, and squinted at the jar of meadow honey he’d set out as a display. He could smell lavender hand lotion and the sharp mint of the gum she was chewing, and his throat went dry so fast he had to cough into his fist to cover how flustered he was. He’d rewatched that board meeting clip three times after it circulated on local Facebook, half impressed by how she’d torn the supervisors a new one without raising her voice, half embarrassed he’d stared at the crinkle around her eyes when she smiled for so long he’d forgotten to feed the hives that night.
“Got anything that’s not too sweet?” she asked, lifting a sample stick and twirling it between her fingers. Her nail polish was chipped pale blue, the exact shade Linda used to wear every summer, and for half a second Moe’s gut twisted with that sharp, familiar guilt—like even thinking another woman was attractive was a betrayal. He almost backed away, made up an excuse about being sold out, but then she glanced up at him, her hazel eyes crinkling at the corners like she knew exactly what he was thinking, and the guilt melted into something warmer, sharper, a thrill he hadn’t felt since he was 17 and sneaking into drive-ins with Linda.
“Wild sage honey,” he said, reaching for the jar on the top shelf. His hand brushed hers when he passed it over, and the jolt went all the way up his arm to the base of his skull. He half expected her to pull away, laugh it off, but she didn’t, her fingers lingering against his for a beat longer than necessary before she took the jar. She twisted the lid off, dipped a sample stick in, and hummed when she tasted it, the sound low and rough, and Moe’s ears went pink.
They talked for 20 minutes while the market buzzed around them, customers stepping around their legs to grab jars from the lower shelves. She told him the county had threatened to cut her budget if she didn’t take the “controversial” books down, so she’d started hiding them in the cookbook section, labeling them as “urban foraging guides” to fly under the supervisors’ radar. He told her he’d donated $200 to the library’s legal fund the week prior, under a fake name because he didn’t want anyone in town gossiping about him taking a side. She laughed so hard she snort-laughed, clapping a hand over her mouth, and Moe found himself grinning back, no awkwardness, no weight of being the sad widower, just a guy talking to a woman who thought the same petty rule-breaking he did was funny.
When the market started winding down at 2 p.m., she wiped a smudge of honey off her chin with the back of her hand and leaned in again, so close he could count the silver freckles across her nose. “I’m heading to the dive bar down the street to celebrate not getting fired this week,” she said, tilting her head. “You wanna come? I’ll buy you a beer, you can tell me more about how you taught your bees to avoid the lavender plants next to your property.”
Moe’s first instinct was to say no, to make up an excuse about needing to check the hives, to go home to the quiet empty house and the photo of Linda on the mantel and pretend he hadn’t felt more alive in the last 20 minutes than he had in three years. Then he remembered the last thing Linda had said to him, two days before she died, holding his hand tight enough to bruise: Don’t you dare mope around those hives for the rest of your life, Moe Jorgensen. You go have fun. You go be stupid.
“Yeah,” he said, and he was smiling so wide his cheeks hurt. He wiped the last of the honey off his hands on his overalls and grabbed his keys from the table, his knuckles brushing hers again when he reached for the case of honey he’d promised to donate to her summer reading program. She didn’t pull away, just laced her fingers through his for half a second, warm and calloused from turning book pages, and nodded toward the street.
The sun hung low enough to paint the sidewalk pale gold, and the twang of a bluegrass band playing at the end of the market drifted over them as they walked side by side.
