The mid-August sun beat down so hard on the Silverton street fair that Roy Pritchard could see heat waves rippling off the asphalt two booths over. At 62, a retired high school woodshop teacher with a scar snaking up his left forearm from a 2018 table saw accident, he’d argued for three weeks with his neighbor that selling handcarved cutting boards at the fair was more trouble than it was worth. He’d spent 14 years deliberately laying low after his ex-wife left him for the school’s athletic director, avoiding any situation that might land him in the small town’s gossip mill. But the neighbor had shown up at his workshop with a six pack of craft IPA and a pre-paid booth slot, so here he was, sweat sticking his faded Carhartt shirt to his back, the sharp sweet smell of kettle corn from the next booth clinging to every exposed inch of skin.
He was wiping sweat off his brow with the back of his hand when he spotted her. She was leaning against the split-rail fence across the way, dark hair pulled back in a messy braid, a thick silver streak running from her temple to the nape of her neck, sipping lemonade from a dented mason jar. Ice dripped down her wrist, over the silver tattoo of an open book on her forearm, and she laughed so hard at a toddler chasing a golden retriever through the crowd that a little lemonade sloshed over the edge of the jar. He recognized her before she looked his way: Lila Marlow, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, 15 years his junior, who’d moved back to town six months prior to open the independent bookstore on Main Street. He hadn’t seen her since the week his ex moved out, when Lila had showed up at his door with a tupperware of chocolate chip cookies and mumbled that her cousin was making a huge mistake.
He tensed immediately. If anyone saw them talking, it would get back to his ex before the sun set, and she’d fill the local Facebook group with half-truths and cheap shots like she always did when his name came up. But Lila was already walking toward his booth, boots kicking up little clouds of dust, and he couldn’t look away. She leaned against the edge of the folding table he’d set his boards out on, the edge of her tank top brushing the corner of a walnut slab he’d spent three weeks sanding smooth, and ran one finger along the carved bee motif on its edge. “I remember you making me a birdhouse with that exact same bee on it when I was 19,” she said, her voice low and warm, like she was sharing a secret. “I still have it hanging on my porch.”
Her shoulder brushed his when she leaned in to get a better look at an oak board with a live edge, and he felt a jolt run up his spine, the kind he hadn’t felt since he was 20 and fumbling through his first date with his ex. He told himself to step back, to tell her he was busy, to avoid the mess that would come with even being friendly with her. But she smelled like lavender and old paper and lemon, and when she picked up one of the smaller maple boards their hands brushed, her fingers warm and calloused against his, and he forgot what he was going to say. She teased him for an hour, ribbing him about the old flannel shirts he used to wear to family dinners, asking him about the small apiary he kept behind his house, admitting she’d stopped by his workshop three times in the last month but had been too nervous to knock. He kept waiting for the awkwardness to hit, for the guilt of talking to his ex’s cousin to settle in, but it never came. He hadn’t laughed that easy in years.
A sudden clap of thunder cut off the band playing at the far end of the street, and fat, cold raindrops started pouring down out of nowhere, the crowd scattering like cockroaches when the lights turn on. Roy scrambled to pull the tarp over his stack of finished boards, his hands slipping on the wet canvas, and Lila ran over to help, holding the edge of the tarp down while he tied it to the booth poles. The wind picked up, flapping the awning above them, and she stumbled backward, pressing up against his chest to stay out of the rain that was now coming down so hard he could barely see three feet in front of him. He wrapped one arm around her waist to steady her, his palm pressing against the soft fabric of her tank top, and he felt her breath hitch when she turned her head to look up at him, their faces inches apart. The rain hammered so loud on the canvas that they couldn’t hear anything else, and he could taste the lemonade on her breath when she mumbled that she’d liked him since she was a kid, that she’d never thought he’d even look twice at her. He didn’t say anything, just leaned down and kissed her, slow, her hand coming up to rest on the side of his neck, the cold metal of her ring pressing against his skin.
The rain let up 20 minutes later, the sun breaking through the clouds again, leaving the street smelling like wet asphalt and pine. They loaded his boards into the bed of his beat-up Ford F-150, their arms brushing every time they passed a slab back and forth, and when they were done she pulled a bookmark from her jeans pocket, the logo of her bookstore printed on the front, and scribbled her number on the back in bright blue ink. She tucked it into the breast pocket of his work shirt, her fingers lingering against the fabric, and said she had a jar of wild blackberry jam she’d canned the week before at her place, that it would taste perfect with the peach pie she’d heard he still made every Sunday. He nodded, his throat too tight to speak, and watched her walk back to her car, waving over her shoulder when she turned the corner.
He got in the truck, turned the key in the ignition, and pulled the bookmark out of his pocket, running his thumb over the smudged blue numbers. He thought about his ex, about the gossip, about the mess he might be walking into, and he smiled, turning the radio up so loud the speakers crackled. He pulled into his driveway 10 minutes later, already reaching for the bag of ripe peaches he’d picked that morning sitting on the passenger seat.
