Manny Ruiz, 53, has scouted minor league baseball prospects for the Atlanta Braves organization for 18 years, and he’s spent the last six avoiding any social event in his small western North Carolina town that doesn’t involve a dugout or a scout’s notebook. His wife, Elena, died of ovarian cancer six years prior, and Manny’s biggest flaw is his stubborn refusal to let anyone see him move on—he’d rather hole up in his off-grid cabin eating frozen burritos and watching 90s baseball games than risk the town gossips whispering that he didn’t grieve long enough. He avoids the weekly downtown beer garden like it’s a left-handed pitcher with a 6.2 ERA, but his old college roommate was in town for the weekend, begged him to go, and Manny caved, only to find his roommate bailed ten minutes after he arrived to hook up with a former classmate.
He’s halfway to his truck when he hears his name called, bright and warm, and he turns to see Clara Bennett, his youngest daughter’s fourth grade teacher, waving from a plastic folding table half hidden under a string of fairy lights. He’s avoided Clara for two years, ever since she’d leaned across her classroom desk during a parent-teacher conference, her perfume smelling like jasmine, and told him she thought he was doing a good job balancing caregiving for Elena and showing up for his kid. He’d felt like a monster that day, because all he could think about was how the freckles across her nose matched the ones on Elena’s cheeks, how her smile made his chest tight in a way he hadn’t felt in years. He’d mumbled a thanks and bolted, and had ducked down every aisle at the grocery store ever since when he saw her.
He can’t bolt now, not when she’s already pulling out the chair next to her, not across the table, so close their knees brush when he sits down. The plastic table is sticky with spilled IPA, the air smells like fried onions from the food truck parked by the cornhole pits, and a group of drunk little league dads are yelling about a bad call from the championship game earlier that afternoon. Clara passes him a soft pretzel still warm from the paper bag, and their fingers brush when he takes it; her nails are chipped pale green, and she laughs when he notices, says she spent the whole weekend painting the back porch of the cottage she moved into three months prior, ten minutes down the dirt road from his cabin. He didn’t know that, didn’t know she quit teaching last year to do freelance landscape design, didn’t know her ex-husband moved to Texas two years ago and she’s been single ever since.
Manny tenses when a group of parents he recognizes from the elementary school walk by, one of them hooting and winking at him like he just hit a walk-off home run. He’s half ready to make an excuse and leave, already mentally kicking himself for sitting down, when Clara leans in, her shoulder pressing firm to his bicep, the thin cotton of her faded Appalachian State hoodie soft against his sunburnt skin. “Let ’em stare,” she murmurs, her breath warm against his ear, “half of those guys have been sneaking around on their wives with the PTA treasurer for a year. Nobody’s gonna judge you for having a beer with a friend.” He relaxes then, lets himself laugh at the eye roll she gives the group as they walk away, lets himself notice the way her eyes crinkle at the corners when she talks about the native wildflower garden she’s planting for the town library, lets himself tell her about the 19-year-old shortstop he just scouted out of a high school in eastern Tennessee who throws 92 miles an hour and can hit a curveball better than most major leaguers.
He’s surprised when he checks his phone and sees two hours have passed, the sun dipping below the tree line, the air turning cool enough that he can see his breath when he laughs. He’s spent so long avoiding any kind of connection that he forgot what it feels like to talk to someone who doesn’t ask him every five minutes if he’s “doing okay.” He hesitates for ten full seconds, his thumb rubbing the edge of his beer bottle, before he asks her if she wants to come back to his cabin to watch Bull Durham, says he’s got a DVD copy signed by Kevin Costner that he won at a charity auction a few years back, plus a jar of peach moonshine his neighbor gave him for Christmas.
Clara pauses, her gaze holding his for a beat longer than necessary, and he feels his chest go tight, half convinced she’s going to turn him down, half convinced he’s making the biggest mistake of his life. Then she grins, stands up, slings her canvas tote bag over her shoulder, and her hand brushes the back of his, intentional this time, when she passes him his baseball cap off the table. They walk to his beat up Ford F150 together, crickets chirping loud in the trees, the last of the fairy lights twinkling behind them, and when she opens the passenger door, she pauses, leaning against the frame, and smirks up at him.
“You better not have skimped on the moonshine,” she says, and Manny laughs, unlocking the truck, already reaching for the jar he stashed behind the passenger seat that morning for no reason he could name until right then.
