Manny Ruiz, 52, runs a vintage camper restoration shop out of a weathered red barn 12 miles outside Asheville, North Carolina. He’s spent the three years since his wife passed buried in aluminum sanding, brake line flushes, and 1970s Airstream floor panel replacements, avoiding every small town community event he can get out of. His biggest flaw, if you ask his only regular friend who runs the downtown meat market, is that he’d rather sleep on a lumpy cot in his shop than make small talk with people who still look at him like he’s one missed meal away from shattering. He only showed up to the annual rib cookoff because his friend strongarmed him, claiming the free brisket he’d dropped off at the shop back in January was payment enough for two hours of mandatory socializing.
He’s leaning against the beer tent pole, half-empty IPA in one hand, faded Airstream club cap pulled low over his eyes, when her elbow brushes his bicep. He tenses first, ready for the usual pat on the arm and “how you holding up, Manny?” but when he glances over, all he gets is a lopsided grin and the sharp, sweet smell of jasmine lotion cut through the cloud of smoked pork and hickory hanging over the field.
“Sorry, every picnic table’s taken and I didn’t feel like standing in the sun roasting through my dress,” she says, nodding at the flowy cream linen hitched up a little at the hem to keep it off the dewy grass, a tiny smudge of barbecue sauce blotted near the stitching. She’s holding a peach hard seltzer, cowboy boots with silver toe caps peeking out under the dress, silver hoops glinting when she tilts her head to look at his cap. “Nice logo. You own a camper, or you just like old aluminum boxes?”
Manny blinks. No one’s asked him a question that didn’t tie back to his wife or his grief in six months, easy. He tells her he restores them for a living, has since he quit his construction job 10 years prior. She says she’s Clara, the new county librarian who moved to town six months ago, and she’s been hunting for a beat-up 1960s Scotty Sportsman to fix up for solo weekend trips up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. They talk for 20 minutes straight, no awkward pauses, no pitying glances, just her making fun of the mayor’s over-sauced, borderline inedible ribs and him admitting he blasts Merle Haggard on his shop radio so loud he can’t hear the phone ring most days. She laughs so hard at that she snorts, and when she gestures at a guy in a rubber chicken costume wandering through the crowd passing out flyers for the town fair, her fingers brush his where he’s holding his beer. It feels like static electricity, sharp and warm, and Manny yanks his hand back like he touched a hot exhaust pipe before he can stop himself.
“Wanna dance? I haven’t danced since my ex left me for a Pilates instructor two years ago, so we’ll both be terrible. No pressure.”
Manny stares at her hand for three full seconds, palm up, a little sticky from seltzer condensation, a tiny ink stain on her index finger from stamping library books, he assumes. The voice in his head that’s been telling him to hide out in his barn forever is screaming that this is a bad idea, that he’s not ready, that he’ll just mess it up. The other voice, the one he hasn’t heard in years, says why the hell not.
He takes her hand. She pulls him out onto the patchy grass in front of the stage, and he rests one hand light on her waist, the other laced loosely with hers, and they sway off-beat, no one paying them any mind, everyone too busy shoveling ribs into their mouths or yelling song requests at the band. Her hair brushes his cheek when she leans in to say she can’t believe the lead singer is the town’s dentist, and he can smell peaches on her breath, feel the warmth of her side pressed against his through his grease-stained Carhartt shirt. The guilt doesn’t go away entirely, but it softens, fades to a quiet hum at the back of his head instead of a scream.
The song ends a minute later, and they pull back, both grinning. There’s a streak of charcoal from his work shirt smudged on the side of her dress, and she doesn’t even notice when she brushes a strand of hair off her face.
“You’re not as terrible a dancer as you pretended to be,” she says, wiping a drop of sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand.
Manny laughs, a real one, the kind that makes his sides hurt a little. “Same to you. I thought you were gonna step on my boots twice there.” He pulls a crumpled business card out of his jeans pocket, scribbles his cell number on the back with the pen he keeps tucked behind his ear for writing up repair estimates. “I got a lead on a Scotty in perfect shape, 20 minutes west of town, owner wants next to nothing for it. We could go look at it tomorrow, if you want. I’ll even drive.”
She takes the card, tucks it into the strap of her dress so it sits right above her collarbone, then pulls a library card out of her purse, writes her number on the back in bright purple ink, and hands it to him. “I’ll bring coffee. The good oat milk latte stuff from the cafe downtown, not the burnt black swill I know you drink in your shop so you can stay up sanding until 10 PM.”
Manny tucks the card into the pocket of his flannel shirt, pats it once to make sure it’s secure, and looks over at the stage where the band is launching into a fast, rowdy Hank Williams Jr. track, people whooping and spinning each other around in the grass. He doesn’t feel the familiar urge to slip out early, to drive back to his quiet barn and sit alone with his records and his half-finished camper projects. He looks back at Clara, who’s already waving at a group of library volunteers waving her over to their table, and she winks at him before she turns to walk away.
