Rafe Ortiz is 57, a minor league baseball scout who’s spent the last 19 years logging 30,000 miles a year across the Midwest, crisscrossing high school bleachers and small town diamond dugouts with a radar gun in one hand and a beat-up leather notebook in the other. His biggest flaw is he’s avoided every local community event in his tiny Ohio hometown for 12 straight years, ever since his ex-wife left him for the high school football coach and the whole town gossiped about it for six months straight. His buddy Jim dragged him to the annual fire department rib cookoff tonight, though, and he’s too polite to dip before they’ve at least split a full rack of the honey habanero ribs Jim swears are the best in the tri-county area.
He’s leaning against the bed of his beat-up 2018 Ford F-150, beer sweating through the paper koozie in his hand, when she bumps into him. She’s got a glass of peach seltzer in one hand, a paper plate half-full of coleslaw in the other, and a splash of the fizzed-up drink lands on the sleeve of his gray plaid flannel. “Shit, I’m so sorry,” she says, leaning in close enough he can smell coconut sunscreen and the hickory smoke clinging to her hair, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners like she’s not actually that sorry. He recognizes her immediately: Clara Voss, wife of the new county commissioner, the guy who won the election three months prior by 127 votes and is already getting dragged in the local paper for cutting a backroom deal with a corporate farm to buy up 200 acres of county park land.
He brushes the wet spot off his sleeve with his free hand, smirks. “You running from someone, or do you just make a habit of soaking strangers at cookoffs?” She laughs, a low, warm sound that cuts through the noise of the classic rock cover band playing by the beer tent. “Both, actually. My husband’s been schmoozing a group of real estate developers for the last 20 minutes, and I was this close to faking a migraine to get out of it.” She leans against the truck bed next to him, their elbows brushing when she shifts to set her plate on the rusted metal edge. He should step away. Everyone in this town knows who she is, and if anyone spots them chatting for more than 30 seconds, the gossip mill will crank back up like it did when his marriage fell apart. He hates that he even cares, hates the sharp, stupid pull of desire in his chest when she glances at the notebook sticking out of his back pocket and asks what it’s for.
He tells her about the 19-year-old left-handed pitcher he scouted last week at the local high school, the kid who throws 94 miles an hour and has a curveball that drops so fast it makes batters trip over their own feet. She doesn’t glaze over like most people do when he talks about work. She asks questions, leans in when he describes the way the kid’s wrist snaps when he releases the ball, her knee brushing his when a group of kids runs past yelling, chasing a stray dog through the crowd. The sky darkens to deep indigo, and the first firework goes off with a deafening boom, painting the sky neon pink. The crowd cheers, surging forward a little to get a better view, and she steps closer to him, her shoulder pressing fully against his, her hand brushing his when she reaches up to tuck a strand of wind-tousled hair behind her ear.
She doesn’t look up at the fireworks. She looks at him, her voice low enough only he can hear it over the noise. “I’m filing for divorce next month. Haven’t told anyone yet. I’m sick of standing around smiling while he sells off parts of this town I grew up in.” The tight, guilty knot in his chest loosens all at once, the fight between the urge to walk away and the urge to stay fading fast. He’s not chasing a married woman. He’s talking to someone who’s as tired of the small town bullshit as he is.
She nods toward the edge of the field, where the gravel road leads out to the highway. “There’s a diner off exit 12 that opens at 6am. No one from town eats there that early. Wanna get coffee tomorrow? I wanna hear more about that lefty kid.” He pulls a crumpled scrap of notebook paper out of his pocket, scribbles his cell number on it, and hands it to her. She tucks it into the thin strap of her yellow sundress, winks, and picks up her empty plate, turning to walk back toward the cluster of people surrounding her husband before anyone notices she was gone. He takes a slow sip of his now-warm beer, watches a burst of red firework bleed over the distant cornfield, and tucks her half-empty seltzer can into his cooler to return to her tomorrow.
