Manny Ruiz is 59, ran a lineman crew for Ohio Edison for 32 years before a 2021 fall off a 40-foot pole messed up his left knee bad enough he had to take early retirement. Now he runs a 200-square-foot boot repair shop out of his garage, only takes cash, doesn’t have a website, still answers the phone with his work radio call sign half the time. His biggest flaw is he’s spent the 7 years since his wife Linda passed clinging so hard to the “good widower” label the small town of Greenville stuck on him he won’t let himself so much as smile at a woman for longer than two seconds, convinced he’s betraying her memory or giving the gossips at the VFW something to tsk over.
It’s 82 degrees the third Friday in August, the VFW’s ceiling fans creak so loud they almost drown out the country jukebox in the corner, the air thick with the smell of fried cod, hush puppies, and cheap draft beer. Manny’s parked at his usual table by the door, picking at a plate of fish, rubbing the ache out of his left knee after a 10-hour day patching soles for the local farm crews. He’s halfway through his second beer when the new county librarian trips over the outstretched leg of his chair, catching herself hard on his shoulder to keep from face-planting into the next table.
Her palm is warm through the faded gray flannel he wears even in the heat, the scent of lavender shampoo off her loose brown hair hits him before he can process what’s happening. She laughs, a low, throaty sound, swiping a stray hair out of her hazel eyes, and says she’s always been clumsy, tripped over a stack of picture books at the library two days ago and gave the first grade class a free show. Manny blinks, freezes for half a second, then mumbles that the VFW’s chairs are always stuck too far out into the aisle, pushes his own chair in a little further, and offers her the empty seat across from him before he can talk himself out of it.
He knows who she is, everyone in town does. Clara Bennett, moved here 6 months ago after a messy divorce from a megachurch preacher out of Cincinnati, the gossips say she left him because she got caught cheating, that she’s “trouble” for the quiet town. Manny’s avoided her up until now, crossed the street when he saw her walking to the grocery store, turned down her invitation to speak to the senior book club about his lineman days. But right now, with her sitting across from him, sundress faded at the hem, scuffed white sneakers peeking out under the table, none of that gossip feels real.
She says she’s been meaning to drop off her dad’s old lineman boots at his shop for weeks, she found them in the back of a storage unit when she moved, can’t bear to throw them out. When she pulls them out of the tote bag slung over her arm a minute later, Manny’s chest tightens. They’re the same exact steel-toe Red Wings he wore for 20 years, scuffed right at the toe the same way his used to be, the laces frayed at the ends from being wrapped around the hooks too tight. He runs his thumb over the embossed logo on the side, says he patched 100 pairs just like these when he was running the crew.
She leans in when he talks, their knees brush under the table, neither of them pulls away. He tells her about the 2008 ice storm, when he worked 36 hours straight in negative 10 degree weather to get power back to the nursing home on the edge of town, his fingers so frozen he couldn’t tie his own boots. She listens, doesn’t interrupt, nods when he says the worst part was he missed Linda’s birthday that year, came home with frostnip on his ears and a gas station teddy bear he’d grabbed on the drive over. For the first time in years, he doesn’t feel like he’s rambling, like he’s boring someone with old work stories.
When the VFW starts emptying out at 9, she twists the edge of her sundress between her fingers, looks him right in the eye, and asks if he wants to come back to her place. She says she has a whole box of her dad’s old lineman memorabilia, patches, old radio parts, she doesn’t know what half of it is, and she’s got a pitcher of peach sweet tea in the fridge if he doesn’t feel like drinking more beer. Manny glances over at the bar, sees old Tim the retired postmaster staring right at them, knows Tim will have the whole town talking by 8 a.m. tomorrow. For half a second he wants to say no, go home, watch the Reds game rerun he recorded, go to bed alone like he always does.
But then he looks at her, the gold flecks in her hazel eyes catching the neon beer sign light, her hand resting on the table two inches from his, and he nods. He leaves his half-empty beer on the table, holds the front door open for her when they walk out, the August night air thick with the smell of cut clover and corn from the fields on the edge of town. His knee doesn’t ache half as bad as it did when he walked in the door three hours earlier. He follows her beat-up Honda Civic down the two-lane road, doesn’t even glance in the rearview mirror to see who’s driving behind him.
