Manny Ruiz, 53, minor league baseball scout for the Cincinnati Reds High-A affiliate, swiped sweat off his sunburnt neck with the edge of his faded Reds polo as he wound through the crowd at the Warrick County Fair. He’d driven three hours from Dayton that morning to watch a 19-year-old lefty pitcher throw six shutout innings in a local rec league exhibition, and the kid had delivered: 94 mph fastball, a slider that dropped off a table, zero walks. The only thing left on his to-do list for the day was find something sweet enough to cut the taste of lukewarm gas station coffee he’d been sipping since 5 a.m.
The fried peach stand smelled like cinnamon and hot grease from 50 yards away. He was already reaching for his wallet when the woman behind the counter looked up and grinned, and Manny froze. It was Lila Carter, his ex-wife’s younger sister. He hadn’t seen her since he’d loaded the last of his boxes out of the marital home 12 years prior, when she’d slipped him a pack of his favorite spearmint gum and mumbled that her sister was making a mistake. She was 48 now, streaks of silver in her dark wavy hair, a smudge of fried dough flour on her left forearm, a cinnamon stain on the front of her navy flannel shirt. She leaned over the counter, and he caught a whiff of coconut shampoo mixed with the sweet steam from the fryer, so close the edge of her hair brushed his forehead.
“Manny Ruiz. I’d know that stupid Reds hat anywhere,” she said, and her voice was still the same low, rough drawl he remembered from when he’d drive her to high school soccer practice after he got off work. She held out a sample of fried peach dusted with powdered sugar, and when he took it, their fingers brushed for half a second. The peach was warm, juice running down his wrist, sweet enough to make his teeth ache. He fumbled for something to say, his usual sharp scouting banter gone, because he was suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that his ex-wife would lose her entire mind if she knew he was standing 12 inches from her baby sister, his skin still tingling where their hands had touched.
He leaned against the splintered wooden counter while the line of fairgoers died down, answering her questions about his scouting trips, the players he’d watched make the big leagues, the beat-up F-150 he’d put 120,000 miles on in three years. She told him she’d left her alcoholic construction worker husband three years prior, moved back to southern Indiana after her mom died to take over the family peach stand, spent her weekends at the fair and weekdays selling preserves out of a stand by the highway. When he got a smudge of powdered sugar on his jaw, she reached across the counter and wiped it off with her thumb, her skin soft against the stubble on his face, and held eye contact for three full seconds too long for someone who was just his ex’s sister.
Part of him screamed that this was wrong, that messing with his ex-wife’s family was a line he shouldn’t cross, that everyone in this tiny town knew who they were, that word would get back to his ex faster than that lefty’s fastball. But a bigger part of him, the part that hadn’t had a real, non-baseball related conversation with someone who actually cared what he had to say in 12 years, didn’t want to leave. He hadn’t felt this light since before he tore his rotator cuff, before the divorce, before he’d decided all personal connections were just setups for disappointment.
When the last customer left, she wiped her hands on her jeans and flipped the “closed” sign on the stand. “You remember that old apple orchard off Route 66? The one we used to go pick apples at for Thanksgiving when you were with my sister?” she asked, kicking a loose splinter of wood off the edge of the porch. “I got a cooler of peach cider in my car. Wanna drive out there? The fireflies are out this time of night, and you can see the fair fireworks from the hill.”
He hesitated for half a second, thinking of the scouting report he was supposed to write that night, the stack of game film on the passenger seat of his truck, the voicemail his ex had left him six months prior yelling at him for forgetting her sister’s birthday. Then he nodded.
They drove out in his truck, the windows rolled down, the smell of cut grass and cow pasture drifting in, old Johnny Cash playing low on the radio. They sat on the tailgate, passing a jar of cold peach cider back and forth, eating the last two fried peaches she’d stuffed in a paper bag before she closed up. She told him she’d had a crush on him since she was 16, when he’d showed up to all her soccer games when her mom was working, when he’d helped her fix her first car, when he’d listened to her rant about how her sister always treated her like a kid. He told her he’d always thought she was the only one in her family who didn’t think his scouting job was a waste of time, the only one who asked him about the players, the only one who didn’t roll her eyes when he talked about the game.
Their knees were pressed together, the rough fabric of his work jeans rubbing against her soft leggings, and when he reached up to brush a streak of cinnamon off her cheek, she leaned into his hand. The first firework went off in the distance, pink and gold, painting the sky over the fairgrounds, and she rested her head on his shoulder, her hair soft against his neck. He’d spent 12 years holding onto anger, holding onto grudges, holding himself back from anything that felt like it could hurt him, and for the first time in as long as he could remember, he didn’t feel the urge to run.
When she laced her fingers through his, calloused from kneading dough and matching the cracks in his own from decades of gripping baseball bats and steering wheels, he didn’t pull away.
