Elias Voss is 62, spent the last 28 years running a small maple syrup operation outside Traverse City, Michigan, and has not willingly attended a community event since his wife left him for a resort timeshare salesman 12 years prior. His biggest flaw is holding grudges so long he forgets how they started; for three years, he’d avoided the downtown library entirely, convinced the head librarian, Mara Hale, had it out for him after she charged him a $2 late fee for a pollinator guide he swore he’d dropped in the return slot the day it was due. He only showed up to the farmers’ market end-of-season potluck because his 16-year-old granddaughter had begged him to enter his famous baked beans, and he’d never been able to say no to her.
The air bit at his cheeks, sharp with wood smoke and crushed red maple leaves, the faint twang of a local bluegrass trio drifting from the stage at the end of the market lot. He was leaning against a folding table, picking at a paper plate of potato salad, when he reached for the serving spoon in the baked bean crockpot at the exact same time as Mara. Their knuckles brushed. His were calloused, crisscrossed with tiny scars from tap line snips and sugar shack fire burns, a smudge of ash caked on his left wrist. Hers were soft, nails painted a deep burgundy, the sleeve of her cream cashmere sweater slipping down to show a tiny silver bee tattoo on her forearm.
He tensed up immediately, ready to make a snide comment about overdue book fees, but she laughed first, a warm, throaty sound that cut through the noise of the crowd. “Don’t start,” she said, pulling a crumpled $2 bill out of her jeans pocket and holding it out to him. “I found that pollinator book last month, tucked behind a stack of 1990s seed catalogs someone donated. I’ve been looking for you to give this back. And to apologize. I should’ve checked the donations shelf before I sent you that fine notice.”
Elias stared at the bill in her outstretched hand, then at her face. He’d only ever seen her behind the library desk, hair pulled tight in a bun, wearing a frumpy cardigan, frowning at teens who snuck energy drinks into the study rooms. Tonight her hair was loose, streaked with silver at the temples, a smattering of freckles across her nose he’d never noticed before, and she smelled like cinnamon and old paper and the pear cider they’d been serving at the drink table. He took the $2 bill, folded it into the pocket of his worn plaid flannel, and didn’t move away when she leaned in a little closer to ask how this year’s syrup run had been.
They ended up sitting on a weathered picnic table at the edge of the lot, far enough from the crowd that they didn’t have to shout over the music. Their knees almost touched under the table, and every time she laughed at one of his dry jokes about the raccoons that chewed through four of his tap lines in March, she leaned in a little more, her shoulder brushing his. She told him she bought a pint of his dark bourbon-barrel-aged syrup every single year, used it in her oatmeal, even drizzled a little over vanilla ice cream on her birthday. He had no idea. He’d spent three years thinking she hated him, and she’d been quietly buying his product for longer than that.
He fought the stupid, fluttery pull in his chest the whole time they talked, had spent 12 years convincing himself he was better off alone, that dating at their age was just a mess of unresolved baggage and awkward first dates and unnecessary heartache. But when she reached up to brush a piece of dry maple bark off his shoulder, her fingers lingering for half a second on the edge of his collarbone, he didn’t flinch. He didn’t make a joke about it. He just asked her if she wanted to come out to the sugar shack the next afternoon, to watch the final boil of the season, said he’d give her a free quart of the bourbon-aged syrup as a thank you for tracking him down to return the $2.
She said yes, no hesitation, typed his number into her phone right then, didn’t even check her calendar first. When she left to go say goodbye to a group of teachers from the local elementary school, she squeezed his wrist gently, right over the ash smudge, before she walked away.
Elias showed up to the sugar shack 45 minutes early the next day, swept the porch, stoked the fire, even put out a jar of the salted caramel cookies he’d baked the week before for his granddaughter. She showed up at 2 on the dot, wearing wool boots, holding a six pack of the same hard cider they’d had at the potluck, her cheeks pink from the cold. He kissed her an hour later, when they were standing by the boiling sap pan, the steam curling around their faces, the sweet, earthy smell of maple filling the air, and she kissed him back, her hands fisted in the front of his flannel, like she’d been waiting just as long as he had.
