Manny Ruiz, 53, retired air traffic controller, sat at his usual sticky Formica table at the Newport VFW Friday fish fry, frosty mug of Pabst sweating down his wrist. He’d spent the morning rebuilding a 1972 Penn Spinfisher reel he’d picked up at a garage sale the week prior, and flecks of silver grease still dotted the knee of his worn Carhartt jeans. He’d avoided dating entirely since his wife left him seven years prior for a fellow commercial pilot, convinced any romantic entanglement after 50 was just a messy game of comparing medical bills and ex-spouse horror stories. He’d moved to the Oregon coast six months earlier to outrun the ghost of his old life in Phoenix, and had kept to a tight, predictable routine: work on reels, walk the beach at sunrise, get fish and chips every Friday, leave before the live country band started up at 8.
The line for the fry table shifted suddenly, and a body stumbled into his left bicep, soft and warm through his faded flannel. He looked up, and it was Clara Bennett, the new part-time town librarian he’d been actively avoiding for three weeks. She smelled like lavender laundry soap and salt air, her chestnut hair streaked with fine strands of silver at the temple, chipped pale blue nail polish on the fingers she used to steady herself on the edge of his table. “Sorry,” she said, laughing, the sound cutting through the low hum of Merle Haggard on the jukebox and the clatter of paper plates. “The heel on my boot caught on the welcome mat. I’m a disaster today.”
Manny mumbled a no problem, staring at the grease spot on his jeans instead of holding her eye. He’d seen her half a dozen times around town: shelving books at the library, walking her golden retriever on the beach, even arguing with the former county sheriff, her ex-husband, in the parking lot of the grocery store last month. Hitting on a buddy’s ex was a line he’d never crossed, even when the buddy had retired to Bend three months prior, even when he’d caught her staring at him over the circulation desk two weeks earlier, her gaze lingering on the tattoo of a small airplane he had on his forearm.
The fry cook called her name a minute later, and he heard her sigh. “No coleslaw left? Seriously?” she said, holding up her paper plate. Manny had ordered an extra side by mistake, had been planning to toss it in the trash when he left. He nudged the unopened container across the table before he could talk himself out of it. “Got an extra. Hate coleslaw, ordered it by accident.”
She sat down across from him without asking, her knee brushing his under the table, and she didn’t move it. He could feel the heat of her leg through the thin fabric of her jeans. She took a bite of coleslaw, nodded, and said “That’s the good stuff, not that vinegar garbage they serve at the diner. Thanks. I’m Clara, by the way. I’ve seen you at the library a couple times, you never come up to the desk.”
He told her his name, that he’d lost his old library card when he moved, hadn’t gotten around to getting a new one. They talked for an hour, his beer going warm on the table beside him, the hum of the VFW fading into background noise. He told her about the time he’d handled a near-miss between two private jets over the Grand Canyon, his voice steady even when he talked about the split second he thought he’d have to call two sets of grieving families. She leaned forward when he talked, her elbows on the table, eyes locked on his, no polite half-listening nod he’d grown used to from casual acquaintances. She told him she’d moved to Newport to get away from her ex’s constant hovering, that she was writing a mystery novel set in a lighthouse, that she’d never fished a day in her life but wanted to learn.
Manny’s chest felt tight, like he was 17 again, asking a girl to prom after three weeks of psyching himself up. He fought the urge to reach across the table, brush the strand of hair that had fallen in her face behind her ear, because half the guys in the VFW knew her ex, knew he’d drank with him a handful of times, would talk if they saw him making a move. But then she smiled, slow, and said “I’ve been trying to get you to talk to me for weeks, you know. You always walk past the library like you’re scared the books are gonna jump off the shelves and bite you.”
He laughed, loud enough that a couple guys at the next table glanced over. He admitted he’d been being an idiot, that he’d avoided her because he thought she was out of his league, that he didn’t want to step on her ex’s toes. She rolled her eyes, nudged his foot with hers under the table. “He lives three hours away. And even if he didn’t, I don’t belong to him. Or anyone, for that matter.”
They left the VFW at the same time, a light drizzle falling, the ocean roaring half a block away. He walked her to her beat up 2008 Subaru, the backseat covered in dog hair and paperback books. She paused by the driver’s side door, tilting her chin up, and he kissed her before he could overthink it, soft, tasting like the lemonade she’d been drinking and the crumb of hushpuppy she’d eaten five minutes earlier. She leaned into it for three slow seconds, then pulled back, grinning, wiping a smudge of fry grease off his cheek with her thumb.
“Come to the library tomorrow at 6,” she said, unlocking her door. “After hours, no line. I’ll help you get a new card. And bring one of those fishing reels you’re always hauling around. I’ve been dying to learn how to cast.” He nodded, watching her pull out of the parking lot, the sound of her radio playing old Fleetwood Mac fading down the street. He stood there in the drizzle for five minutes, forgetting he’d left his half-eaten plate of cod on the table inside.
