Elias Voss is 53, runs a 12-hive organic apiary outside Asheville, and hasn’t set foot at the Buncombe County Fair in 11 years, not since his ex-wife moved out and told every mutual acquaintance he cared more about his queen bees than he ever cared about her. He only caved this time because 10-year-old Lila, the kid next door who’d spent every Saturday that summer helping him harvest honey, had won a blue ribbon for her entry in the junior homemade goods category, and she’d begged him to come watch her accept it. The air reeks of fried dough, diesel fumes from the Tilt-A-Whirl, and overripe peaches, and he’s already counting the minutes until he can get back to his quiet property, no chatter, no crowds, just the low thrum of hives he knows by name.
He’s lingering by the pie contest booth after Lila runs off to ride the bumper cars with her friends, ribbon tied tight around her pigtail, when he spots it: a glass jar of his own wildflower honey sitting on the counter next to a stack of peach pie slices, the handwritten label he’d scribbled on in blue Sharpie still stuck to the side. He leans in to get a better look, and that’s when her hand brushes his, both of them reaching for the same paper plate at the same time. She’s wearing thin canvas work gloves with the fingertips cut off, and he can feel the rough callus on her index knuckle, the kind you get from kneading dough three times a day, before he yanks his hand back like he’s been burned.
It’s Clara Hale, his ex-wife’s younger cousin. He’d only met her a handful of times back when he was married, most memorably at his wedding, when she was 22 and wore a frilly yellow sundress and sneaked him a shot of tequila before the ceremony because he looked like he was going to pass out. He’d thought she was the prettiest woman in the room that day, but he’d never said a word, had written the thought off as stupid pre-wedding jitters, and then after the split, his ex had made it clear every single member of her family wanted nothing to do with him. He tenses up, ready to mumble an apology and walk away, before she laughs, a low, warm rasp that sounds like she smokes a menthol every now and then after a long day.
“Figured you’d show up eventually,” she says, wiping a smudge of flour off her gingham apron with the back of her hand. She’s got the same hazel eyes as his ex, but they crinkle at the corners when she smiles, no sharp edge, no quiet judgment he’s grown used to from people who only know his ex’s side of the story. “I’ve been buying your honey from the River Arts District farmers market for three years now. Makes the peach pie filling taste like summer, no extra sugar needed.” He blinks, confused, because his ex had told him years ago she’d convinced her whole family to boycott his apiary, to spread lies that he sold contaminated honey, to run him out of business if they could. He must make the confusion obvious, because she snorts, leaning her hip against the counter, the toe of her scuffed work boot brushing his calf accidentally. “She lied about a lot of things, Elias. Most things, honestly. I saw you out at the apiary last spring, carrying that sick hive back to your truck in the middle of a torrential rainstorm, no coat on, just holding it against your chest like it was a sick baby. Selfish men don’t do that.”
He’s got no response for that. For 11 years he’s carried that label, selfish, cold, distant, had even started to believe it himself, had retreated further into his hives, had turned down every date his friends tried to set him up on, had told himself he was better off alone than risking being torn apart again. He can feel his face heating up, and he stares at the scuffed linoleum of the booth floor, at the crumbs of pie crust scattered near his work boots, because he can’t look her in the eye. The hum of the fair fades out for a second, and all he can hear is the sound of her steady breathing, the faint clink of paper plates stacking behind her. He wants to leave, wants to run back to his beat-up Ford F-150 and drive home and lock the door and pretend this never happened, because this is wrong, this is his ex’s cousin, this is the kind of thing people in this small mountain town gossip about for years, but he can’t make his feet move.
She leans in a little closer, and he can smell her perfume, jasmine mixed with cinnamon and the faint sweetness of peach filling clinging to her shirt, and her shoulder brushes his, warm through his thin worn flannel. “My shift ends in 10 minutes,” she says, so quiet only he can hear it over the roar of a group of teenagers screaming on the wooden roller coaster at the far end of the fairgrounds. “There’s an old dock down at the lake on the edge of the property. I got a six pack of cold IPA stashed in my cooler. You wanna come?” He hesitates, every alarm bell in his head going off, every self-protective instinct screaming that this is a bad idea, that he’s going to get hurt again, that people will talk, that he’s betraying some unspoken rule he didn’t even know he agreed to. But then he looks up at her, at the faint flour smudge on her left cheekbone, at the way she’s holding her breath like she’s scared he’ll say no, and he nods, before he can talk himself out of it.
The walk to the lake takes five minutes, the crowds thinning out the further they get from the fair, the noise of the rides fading into the background, replaced by the sound of crickets chirping and frogs croaking in the cattail reeds. The sun is setting low over the water, painting the sky streaks of pink and tangerine, and the dock is weathered, splintered in spots, no one else around for miles. She kicks off her work boots, sits down on the edge, dips her bare feet in the cool, murky water, and pulls two frosty beers out of the canvas cooler slung over her shoulder, passes one to him. He sits down next to her, their knees knocking together when she shifts to get comfortable, and he doesn’t move away. When she tilts her face up to him, he reaches out and brushes the flour smudge off her cheek, his thumb lingering on her warm skin for three beats longer than necessary.
