Javier Mendez is 61, a beekeeper with 47 hives scattered across his 14-acre plot outside Asheville, and his worst flaw is that he’s spent 11 years perfecting the art of bailing on any social obligation that lasts longer than 10 minutes. His wife left him for a craft brewery rep who passed through town selling seasonal IPAs back in 2012, and he’s treated small-town gatherings like a contagious disease ever since, only leaving his property once a week to drop off honey at the downtown general store and pick up coffee and propane. The only reason he’s at the county fire department’s annual summer cookout is that his next-door neighbor fixed his broken hive lift for free three weeks prior, and the favor came with a non-negotiable attendance requirement.
He’s leaned up against the dented metal beer cooler, half-hidden behind a stack of paper plates, when her hand brushes his reaching for the last cold IPA. He flinches like he’s been stung, pulls his hand back fast, and she laughs, low and warm, no edge of mockery to it. She’s wearing a linen sunflower-print dress that hits mid-calf, bare legs dusted with a little grass stain at the knee, a smudge of indigo ink on the inside of her left wrist, gray streaks threading through the loose brown braid slung over her shoulder. “Sorry,” she says, nodding at the can, “you go for it. I’ve been stalking the cooler for 10 minutes waiting for someone to restock the good stuff.”