Rafe Okoro, 53, a minor league baseball scout who covers western North Carolina, has skipped every town summer cookoff for seven straight years. His ex-wife runs the parks department that puts it on, and he’s always carried a dumb, unearned guilt over their split 12 years prior, when his schedule kept him on the road 48 weeks a year, too gone to show up for the life they’d planned. He only caves this year because his old college roommate, who’s been smoking ribs competitively for a decade, drives three hours to compete and threatens to hide all Rafe’s scouting notes in the woods if he bails. The air is thick enough to sip, humidity clinging to his skin under a faded Asheville Tourists cap, hickory smoke and sweet BBQ sauce curling through the air so strong he can taste it on his tongue. He keeps his head down, sticking to the edge of the field, trying to avoid small talk with anyone who might mention his ex.
He spots the peach cobbler food truck tucked between a corn dog stand and the beer tent, line so short it’s basically nonexistent, and heads over before he can talk himself out of it. The woman running the window is Lena, who moved to town six months prior with a converted 1998 Ford F-150 outfitted with a full kitchen, serving soul food out of the truck’s side panel three days a week off Main Street. She’s got a thick streak of silver running through her dark curly hair, a cut-off denim jacket covered in vintage minor league patches, a smudge of flour dusting her left cheek. He leans in to order, the edge of his cap brushing the top of the window frame, and when she hands him the paper plate of cobbler, their knuckles brush. Her skin is cool, even in the heat, and she holds eye contact a full beat longer than necessary, a small smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth when she spots the scouting notebook sticking out of the back pocket of his work jeans.
He finds an empty picnic table at the far edge of the field, shaded by a giant oak, and sits down, picking at the cobbler. It’s the best he’s ever had, crust flaky and buttery, peaches sweet but not cloying, still warm enough that the melted butter drips down his wrist when he takes his first bite. Five minutes later, she walks over, holding a small mason jar of pickled okra, and sets it down across from him without asking. She says she’s seen him at every West Lincoln High varsity baseball game this season, that she goes to watch her nephew play shortstop, that she’s been curious about the guy who sits in the back of the stands scribbling in a notebook and leaves before the final out. He’s flustered, for a second; he’s always made a point to be invisible at those games, doesn’t like talking to parents or coaches so he can judge players without bias.
She sits down, and they talk for an hour straight, no lulls. Her dad was a minor league catcher in the 70s, so she knows more about scouting than 90% of the casual fans he talks to, can rattle off the difference between a four-seam and two-seam fastball like she’s been doing it her whole life. A group of kids chasing a runaway golden retriever barrels past the table, and their knees bump hard under the splintered wood. She doesn’t pull away, keeps her knee pressed lightly to his, her bare foot brushing his calf every time she shifts in her seat to laugh at a story about a 17-year-old lefty who threw a no-hitter last month but cried after because he forgot his mom’s birthday. He smells coconut shampoo and vanilla lip gloss, the sound of her laugh low and warm, cutting through the noise of the bluegrass band playing on the stage a hundred yards away.
He spots his ex then, walking across the field carrying a stack of first-place certificates, her husband the hardware store owner’s arm slung over her shoulder, both of them grinning. Rafe tenses so hard his shoulders go up to his ears, leaning back fast away from Lena, yanking his cap lower over his eyes, face burning. He’s spent seven years avoiding this exact scenario, terrified the town would gossip, that his ex would think he was being disrespectful, that he’d mess up the working relationship he has with the parks department for the youth clinics the minor league affiliate runs every summer.
Lena snorts, popping a piece of okra into her mouth, and nods at his ex, who just waved in their direction. “Relax. She told me last week she’s been trying to get you to come to one of these things for years, thinks you’re way too hard on yourself. Everyone in town knows you fix the old folks’ gutters for free on weekends and give free baseball lessons to the kids who can’t afford league fees. No one cares who you’re sitting with, least of all her. She’s been happily married three years, in case you didn’t notice.” Rafe blinks, dumbfounded; he’d been so wrapped up in his own guilt he’d never even paid attention.
He hesitates for half a second, then reaches across the table, brushing the strand of silver-streaked hair that fell in her face behind her ear, his thumb brushing the soft skin of her cheek. The flour smudge is gone now, replaced by a faint pink flush, and she doesn’t pull away, just holds his gaze, that small smirk still playing at her mouth. He admits he’s been so stuck on feeling guilty for leaving his ex all those years ago that he hasn’t let himself talk to a woman for more than five minutes in close to a decade.
They stay at the table until the sun dips below the Blue Ridge Mountains, the sky turning pink and orange, the crowd thinning out until only a handful of people are left packing up coolers and folding chairs. The band packs up their gear, the smell of charcoal fading to pine from the woods at the edge of the field. He helps her load the last of her heavy coolers into the back of her truck, and she hands him a Tupperware full of leftover cobbler, saying she’s saving him a seat next to her at the high school game Thursday, if he’s not too scared to be seen with her.
He stands in the gravel parking lot as she drives off, the Tupperware warm in his hand, the spot on his thumb still tingling from where it brushed her cheek, and he pulls out his phone to text his fishing buddy he won’t be available Thursday after all.
