Manny Cruz, 62, retired lineman for the Bluebonnet Electric Co-op, stands slouched against the side of the street taco truck at the Westwood neighborhood pool cookout, one boot propped on a cinder block, a half-empty can of Shiner Bock sweating in his palm. His grandson Javi dragged him here an hour prior, batting big brown eyes and promising free lawn mowing all summer if Manny showed up to buy raffle tickets for the Smithville High football gear drive. Manny’s avoided every neighborhood event for three years running, ever since his sister tried to set him up with her porcelain-thimble-collecting church friend, and he’d far rather be in his garage tinkering with the 1952 John Deere tractor he picked up at a farm auction last month. He’s got his faded Aggies cap pulled low enough to avoid eye contact with any of the chatty neighbors lingering by the grill, and he’s halfway through a carnitas taco when he spots her.
Clara Bennett, 48, the new HOA president who sent him three certified letters in two months about his overgrown front yard live oak scraping the tops of delivery vans, cuts through the crowd of splashing kids and barking dogs heading straight for him. She’s not in the crisp blazer and slacks she wore when she banged on his door last month, though. She’s in a flowy turquoise sundress that hits mid-calf, barefoot, blades of St. Augustine grass stuck to her sun-tanned ankles, a paper plate of elote in one hand and a can of sparkling lime water in the other. Manny tenses, already gearing up to argue that if delivery drivers can’t navigate a tree they shouldn’t be behind the wheel, but she stops a foot away and grins, nodding at his cap. “Aggies fan? My dad played offensive line there in ‘92. I still have his old ring on my nightstand.”
Her voice is lower and rougher than he remembers, like she spends half her time yelling over loud noise, and she holds out her elote plate before he can get a word in edgewise. “You want a bite? The guy running the truck put extra cotija on, I can’t finish it all.” He blinks, confused, and when he leans forward to take the bite she holds out for him, their hands bump. His palm catches the rough, raised calluses on her knuckles, the exact same kind he has from 38 years climbing power poles, twisting copper wire, hauling 50 pound equipment bags up 40 foot ladders. He raises an eyebrow. “You work with your hands?” She laughs, wiping a crumb of cheese off her chin with the back of her hand. “Restore vintage Hondas in my garage when I’m not nagging people about their trees. Broke my knuckle last month tightening a seized spark plug.”
The tight tension in Manny’s shoulders loosens a little, and they stand there talking for 20 minutes, the noise of teens doing cannonballs off the high dive and a portable speaker playing old George Strait fading into background hum. She leans in once to yell over a group of kids screaming about a lost goggle, her sun-warmed hair brushing his jaw, and he catches the faint scent of coconut sunscreen and lime from her drink. He finds himself telling her about the John Deere he’s fixing, about the 20 years he spent driving out to rural farms in the middle of thunderstorms to fix downed lines for elderly residents who needed power for oxygen machines, about how his wife Lucia used to leave hot tamales on the counter for him when he got home at 2 a.m. He almost never talks about Lucia to anyone these days, but it feels easy here, standing in the warm grass, sun seeping through the thin fabric of his t-shirt.
He’s halfway through describing the time he climbed a pole in a hailstorm to restore power to a family with a newborn when she cuts him off, grinning. “I’m picking up a 1978 Ford F-150 from a farm outside La Grange next Saturday. The guy says the transmission is acting up, I don’t know enough about manual trannies to tell if he’s scamming me. You wanna come? I’ll buy you chicken fried steak at that diner off I-35 with the white gravy so thick you can stand a spoon in it.” Manny freezes. For eight years, every time anyone has suggested he do something that doesn’t feel like he’s actively honoring Lucia’s memory, he’s said no. He’s told himself he’s fine alone, that dating at his age is embarrassing, that the HOA president is the last person he should be spending time with—half the neighborhood complains about her over backyard fences, for Christ’s sake. He looks at the fleck of gold in her left eye, the grass stuck to her ankles, the scuffed work boots she’d left by the pool gate, and the heavy guilt he’s carried around since Lucia died feels a little lighter.
He nods before he can talk himself out of it. “Yeah. That sounds good. Pick me up at 7, I’m not waiting around if you’re late.” She laughs, punching his arm lightly, the contact warm through his t-shirt, scribbles her number on a napkin and shoves it in his jeans pocket before a group of moms flag her down to complain about a clogged pool drain. Javi runs over a minute later, holding a stack of unsold raffle tickets, eyes wide. “Grandpa, were you just talking to the HOA lady? Everyone says she’s a total nightmare.” Manny pulls a fresh beer out of his cooler, cracks the tab and takes a long, cold sip, tucking the crumpled napkin with her number deeper into his pocket as he mentally runs through the list of transmission diagnostic tools he’ll toss in the back of his own truck Friday night.
