Mace Beaumont, 59, retired cattle auctioneer from eastern Oregon, pushed open the VFW hall’s dented metal door at 7:13 p.m. sharp, same as every Friday. Rain dripped off the brim of his weathered Stetson onto the scuffed linoleum, and the familiar smell hit him first: fried cod, apple cider vinegar, hushpuppies still sizzling in their cast iron batch, and the faint, sweet tang of cheap bourbon lingering in the air from the afternoon poker games. He’d spent the morning clearing dead fir off the 5-acre plot he’d bought two years prior, when he sold his family’s ranch and moved west to outrun the ghost of his ex-wife, the 18 years of quiet resentment he’d carried since she’d packed her bags and left him with half a herd and a note that said she couldn’t stand the quiet of the plains anymore. His usual spot at the far end of the back table, the one with the clear view of the door and no one next to him to force small talk, was taken by a group of Vietnam vets comparing old discharge papers. The only empty seat left was pressed up against the wall, next to a woman he’d seen around town but never spoken to: Clara, the 54-year-old part-time librarian who’d moved to the coast three months prior after her own divorce, who’d been in his hardware store the week before asking for help picking out a sealant for her porch steps.
He hesitated for three full seconds, then nodded at her to signal he was taking the seat, keeping his elbows tight to his ribs so he wouldn’t brush her as he sat. He ordered two draft beers and a cod plate from the kid passing by with an order pad, didn’t look at her for the first ten minutes, focused on picking breading off his fish and listening to the old Merle Haggard track playing low on the jukebox. It was her who spoke first, commenting on the tooled leather belt he wore, the one he’d made himself when he was 28, the cowhide from the first steer he’d ever raised on his own. He found himself talking before he could stop himself, telling her about the roping accident that left the thin scar across his left knuckle, about the way he’d learned to tool leather to keep his hands busy during the long Wyoming winters when he was a teen working on his uncle’s ranch. She laughed when he mimicked the fast, low drawl he’d used as an auctioneer, the one that could make a room full of stubborn ranchers bid 20% over market value for a cow they didn’t even need, and he leaned in a little without thinking, to hear her better over the roar of conversation around them. Their knees brushed under the table, denim on denim, and he froze, fully expecting that old, familiar jolt of revulsion, the urge to yank away and shut down the conversation before it went anywhere, the same urge he’d followed every time a woman had so much as smiled at him in the last 18 years. Instead, he felt a warm tingle up his spine, like static electricity from touching a fence post after a thunderstorm.
He looked up, and she was still looking at him, not looking away, a crumb of hushpuppy stuck to the corner of her lower lip, her hazel eyes flecked with gold in the dim overhead light. She reached across the table to grab an extra pack of tartar sauce, her forearm brushing his, and he could smell her lavender hand cream, mixed with the faint smell of cedar from the log shelves she’d been building, she told him, earlier that day. He was disgusted with himself, for noticing how her faded gray sweater fit the slope of her shoulders, for wanting to reach over and brush that crumb off her lip, for forgetting for a full minute the note his ex-wife had left, all the promises he’d made to himself to never let anyone get close enough to hurt him again. The jukebox switched to Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” a second later, and she smiled, tilting her head a little, said her dad used to play that song every Saturday morning while he made pancakes, that she’d dance on his feet in the kitchen until she was 10 years old. She stood up, wiped her hands on her jeans, held out her hand to him, palm up, calloused at the edges from turning book pages and hauling boxes of novels into the library.
He stared at her hand for five long seconds, his throat tight, half angry at how badly he wanted to take it, at how easy it would be to say no, to finish his beer, go home to his empty cottage and watch old westerns like he did every other Friday night. He took her hand. The linoleum was slippery under his work boots, and they didn’t have much space, so they stood close, his hand on her waist, her hand resting light on his shoulder, their laced fingers pressed between their chests. He could feel the heat of her body through his flannel shirt, a strand of her wavy brown hair fell forward and brushed his cheek, soft, smelling like coconut shampoo. They didn’t talk, just swayed to the slow beat, and he realized the rock he’d been carrying in his chest for 18 years, the anger, the fear, the stupid pride, didn’t feel heavy anymore. It felt like something he could set down, if he wanted to.
The song ended, and they didn’t pull away right away. She smiled up at him, asked if he wanted to get coffee at the little diner on Main Street the next morning, the one that made blueberry pancakes big enough to hang over the edge of the plate. He nodded, didn’t even hesitate. They walked out to the parking lot together, the rain slowed to a fine drizzle, he held the door of her beat-up 2008 Subaru open for her, and she handed him a crumpled slip of receipt paper, her phone number scrawled across the back in blue gel pen, folded in half. He tucked it into the inside pocket of his flannel, right over his heart, and stood there watching her taillights fade down the road, the rain damp on his cheeks, his fingers pressed to the pocket where the paper sat warm against his chest.
