Rafe Mendoza, 53, has spent the last 19 years as a minor league scout for the Atlanta Braves farm system, logging 40,000 miles a year in his dented 2018 F150, surviving on gas station coffee and frozen burritos, and avoiding any personal commitment that can’t be packed into a duffel bag and left behind at a moment’s notice. His ex-wife left him for a financial advisor 8 years back, said he was married to the job more than he ever was to her, and he’s spent the years since proving her right, turning down every date offer from waitresses and parent volunteers at the fields he frequents, convinced any detour from his routine will mess up the focus he needs to spot the next diamond in the rough.
He’s parked at a dive bar off I-65 outside Montgomery on a rainy March Tuesday, nursing a double bourbon on the rocks, going over his notes from that afternoon’s high school playoff game, when she slides onto the stool two spots down. He doesn’t look up at first, focused on scribbling a note about the left-handed pitcher’s 94 mph fastball, until he smells lavender mixed with the tang of the fried pickles the bar serves as a happy hour special, drifting over the sticky, beer-stained wood of the bar top.
She orders a tequila soda with extra lime, and when she reaches across the bar for the napkin dispenser, her elbow knocks his, hard enough to make his pen skid across the page. He looks up, and he recognizes her immediately—she was the woman in the faded Alabama softball hoodie in the front row of the bleachers that afternoon, yelling so loud her voice went hoarse when her son struck out the side in the seventh inning. Her auburn hair has streaks of gray at the temples, pulled back in a loose braid, and she’s got a smudge of red dirt on her left cheek from kneeling in the grass to take photos before the game.
Rafe tenses. Fraternizing with a player’s parent is unofficially against league rules, enough to get a scout flagged for recruiting bias if word gets back to the front office, even if there’s nothing untoward going on. He’s got a strict policy of not talking to parents at all during scouting trips, for exactly that reason. But she’s not leaning in to beg for a spot for her son, like most parents do. She’s sipping her drink, smirking like she knows exactly how uncomfortable he is, and the rain is tapping so loud on the bar’s tin roof he can barely hear the Johnny Cash track playing on the crackling jukebox in the corner.
“Guilty,” he says, closing the notebook halfway, like that will hide what it is. “He’s got a hell of a curveball. Even when he walked those two guys in the fifth, he didn’t lose his cool. Rare for a 17 year old.”
She laughs, a low, rough sound that makes the back of his neck tingle. She shifts one stool closer, so their knees are almost touching under the bar, and pulls out her phone, scrolling through photos until she finds one of Jax at seven years old, wearing a too-big Braves jersey, holding a T-ball bat that’s almost taller than he is. She tilts the phone toward him, and their shoulders press together, the soft, worn fabric of her hoodie rubbing against the canvas of his scout jacket, for 10 seconds that feel far longer than they have any right to.
“Been dragging him to games since he could walk,” she says, putting her phone away. “I’m Lila, by the way. Divorced, two kids, Jax is the youngest, my daughter’s in nursing school at UAB. I work at a low-cost vet clinic 20 minutes from here, spend all my free time sitting on bleachers covered in bug spray and sunblock.” She pauses, swirling the ice in her drink, and her knee brushes his, deliberate this time. “I know you guys don’t usually talk to parents. I’m not here to lobby for him, if that’s what you’re worried about. He’s good enough to get a spot on his own. I just saw you sitting here alone, looking like you hadn’t smiled all day, and figured I’d say hi.”
Rafe’s chest feels tight. He hasn’t had anyone pay that much attention to him, not beyond asking for a scouting report or a ride to the next field, in longer than he can remember. The logical part of his brain is screaming that this is a bad idea, that he could lose his job over something as stupid as a drink with a player’s mom, that he’s going to mess up Jax’s shot if anyone finds out they talked. But the other part of him, the part that’s been eating fast food alone in his truck for 8 years, the part that’s tired of sleeping in empty motel rooms with only the hum of the AC for company, is leaning in before he can stop himself.
“I haven’t smiled all day,” he admits, and he feels his mouth tug up at the corner, like his face is out of practice. “Spent three hours driving in the rain this morning, watched three bad games before this one, had a gas station burrito that almost gave me food poisoning. This is the best thing that’s happened all week.”
Lila grins, and she reaches over, runs her thumb over the thin scar across his right knuckle, the one he got when he broke his hand sliding into second base during his own senior year of high school, back when he thought he’d be the one playing pro ball. “You play?” she asks, and her thumb lingers on his skin for a beat before she pulls her hand back.
“Used to,” he says. “Blown out my shoulder senior year of college. Ended up on the scouting side instead. Worked out okay, I guess.” He pauses, looks down at his bourbon, then back up at her, the warm gold of the bar’s neon beer signs catching the flecks of green in her eyes. “There’s a barbecue place down the road, open till 2 a.m. Best pulled pork in the state. You mentioned it earlier, when you were yelling about post-game treats for Jax from the bleachers. You wanna go?”
He closes the scout notebook all the way, shoves it into his duffel bag under the bar, before he can second guess himself. Lila slides off her stool, grabs her waterproof jacket off the back of the seat, and when they walk toward the door, her hand brushes the small of his back, light as a feather, warm even through the thick fabric of his jacket. The rain is coming down harder now, puddles pooling across the potholed parking lot, and Rafe grabs his worn Braves cap off the hook by the door, holds it over her head as they run toward his truck, both of them laughing when their boots splash through a deep puddle and soak the cuffs of their jeans. The sound of Johnny Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues fades behind them as he pulls the truck door open for her, the smell of rain and lavender wrapping around him for a second before he climbs in after her.
