Manny Ruiz, 57, retired air show stunt pilot turned small prop plane repair shop owner, had avoided the annual Oracle, Arizona, 4th of July block party for eight straight years. Ever since his wife passed in a car crash outside Phoenix, he’d stuck to his hangar on the edge of the neighborhood, worked on 1960s Cessnas till his fingers were crusted with hydraulic fluid, listened to old Merle Haggard records loud enough to drown out the sound of neighbors laughing through his fence. He only showed up this year because his 16-year-old intern, Javi, had threatened to leave all his wrench sets unorganized for a month if he kept acting like the street’s resident recluse.
He stood by the dented aluminum beer cooler, sipping a cheap lager that tasted like canned corn, grease still crusted under his fingernails that he hadn’t bothered scrubbing off before he walked over. His faded A-2 jacket, the same one he’d worn for 22 years of stunt runs, was too hot for the 92-degree evening, but he didn’t want to take it off and show the faded scar that snaked across his left bicep from a 2004 crash. He checked his watch for the third time in five minutes, planning to sneak out as soon as Javi was distracted by the group of teens by the cornhole boards.
That’s when she walked over. Clara, his new next door neighbor, the one he’d only waved at from across the fence for the three weeks she’d lived there, the one married to the Pinal County sheriff who’d been on the local news twice last month for busting a drug ring outside Casa Grande. She was wearing a sunflower print linen dress that hit just above her knees, flip flops with a broken strap she’d taped back together, her hair pulled back in a messy braid that had strands sticking to her sweat-glistened neck. She smelled like coconut sunscreen and lime seltzer when she stopped two feet in front of him, close enough that he could see the smudge of charcoal on her left cheek from helping the sheriff flip burgers earlier.
“Manny, right?” She held out a plastic plate stacked with potato salad and a pickled okra, her arm brushing the cuff of his jacket when a kid ran past behind her, yelling about sparklers. “Javi said you’d never eat anything if someone didn’t bring it to you. Said you live on gas station burritos and black coffee.”
He huffed a laugh, took the plate, his calloused fingers brushing hers when he grabbed it. He felt the chipped pale blue nail polish on her thumb, her skin cold from holding a can of seltzer in her other hand. He’d spent the last three weeks telling himself he was an idiot for glancing over at her house every morning when he pulled into his hangar, for noticing she sat on her porch at 7 a.m. every day to drink iced coffee, for feeling a twist of guilt every time he saw the sheriff’s truck parked in her driveway. He’d even lectured himself in the shower last week for letting his mind wander to what her laugh sounded like, called himself a sad old perv for even noticing a woman 12 years younger than him who was clearly off limits.
They talked for 20 minutes, standing right by the cooler, the noise of the party fading into background static. She leaned in when he told her about the 1998 stunt run where he’d pulled 7.2 Gs over the Mojave Desert, her shoulder pressing against his for three full seconds when a group of people walked past to get to the snack table. She held eye contact two beats longer than polite when he said he hadn’t flown for fun since his wife died, her dark eyes soft, no pity in them, just curiosity. He forgot to check his watch, forgot the sheriff was standing 15 feet away flipping burgers, forgot he’d planned to leave 40 minutes prior.
When the first firework went off, painting the sky bright red, everyone cheered and started walking toward the empty field at the end of the block to get a better view. Clara hung back, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, wincing when the next boom rattled the windows on the house behind them. “Loud noises give me migraines,” she said, nodding toward the dirt road that led to his hangar. “Wanna go get away from all this for a minute? I’ve been dying to see the old Cessna you’re restoring.”
He hesitated for half a second, the old guilt flaring up again, the voice in his head screaming that everyone would see them leave together, that the sheriff would notice, that he was making a mistake. But she was looking at him like she already knew he’d say yes, so he nodded, grabbed his half-empty beer from the cooler top, and walked next to her down the road. The distant booms of the fireworks thudded soft in the background, the dry desert air carrying the smell of sage and burnt hot dogs, the crunch of gravel under their flip flops the only sound besides their breathing.
She stopped at the hangar door, turning to face him before he could unlock it, reaching up to brush a smudge of grease off the lapel of his jacket. “I’m leaving him next month,” she said, quiet enough that he almost didn’t hear it over the next firework boom. “He’s been cheating on me for a year. I moved out here to get space, only brought him to the party so the neighbors wouldn’t gossip right away.”
The weight he’d been carrying in his chest for the last three weeks lifted so fast he almost laughed. He reached up, tucking a strand of hair that had fallen loose from her braid behind her ear, his calloused thumb brushing the soft skin of her cheek. She didn’t flinch, didn’t pull away, just leaned into his touch a little.
He unlocked the hangar door, flipping on the string of fairy lights he’d strung up above the old leather couch he kept in the back for late nights working on planes. She sat down next to him, kicking her flip flops off, tucking her feet under her thighs, and asked him to tell her more about the stunt runs. He pulled out the tattered photo album he kept on the shelf above the couch, flipping through pages of him mid-loop over desert runways, photos of his wife at air shows, old press clippings from his championship runs.
The distant fireworks faded after 20 minutes, the cheers from the block party dying down as people started heading home. She didn’t make any move to leave, didn’t mention going back to her house, didn’t mention the sheriff. When he finished telling her about the 2001 run where he’d won the national stunt title, she laced her fingers through his, the grease on his knuckles smudging against her soft palm, and didn’t let go.
