Manny Ruiz, 52, runs a vintage travel trailer restoration shop out of a converted barn 20 minutes outside Boise, Idaho. He’s spent the last eight years structuring every day around sanding aluminum hulls, rewiring finicky 1950s electrical systems, and drinking cheap hazy IPA on his porch alone after work, ever since his wife packed her bags and moved to Portland with a real estate agent she’d met at an open house. His biggest flaw? He tells anyone who asks that he loves his solo routine, even when he’s lying through his teeth, too stubborn to admit the quiet of the barn gets so loud some nights he turns the classic rock radio up to full blast just to hear another human voice. He only agreed to set up a booth at the small town summer beer and food festival because his best friend owed him a favor and begged, saying the exposure would land him more local clients. He’d planned to spend the whole afternoon leaning against the polished aluminum side of his restored 1957 Airstream Bambi, sipping beer, avoiding small talk, and ignoring the sticky, beer-soaked asphalt seeping through the holes in the soles of his work boots.
He tries to fall back into his usual closed-off routine after that, muttering a quick “no problem” and retreating to his side of the booth, but she keeps leaning over to ask him questions about the Airstream, and he finds himself answering before he can stop himself. The band gets louder as the afternoon goes on, so she has to step in close, her shoulder pressing against his bicep, to hear what he’s saying when he talks about the six months he spent stripping rust off the Bambi’s hull. He can smell vanilla lip balm and warm peach and the faint, clean scent of lavender laundry detergent on her shirt, and he fights the urge to lean in closer, telling himself he doesn’t need the hassle of getting to know someone new, especially someone who might just be passing through town. The internal tug of war is sharp enough he almost finishes his second beer in three gulps, half tempted to pack up early and bolt for the barn.
The turning point hits when she shoves a free hand pie into his palm an hour later, still warm from the portable oven under her table. He takes a bite, and sweet peach juice dribbles down his chin, past the edge of his graying goatee. Before he can reach for a napkin, she lifts her hand, brushes the juice off with her thumb, her calloused skin (she tells him later it’s from kneading pie dough every morning) warm against his jaw. He doesn’t pull away. They hold eye contact for three full seconds, the noise of the crowd fading to a low hum, and for the first time in eight years, he doesn’t feel the urge to run. He admits he’s been avoiding talking to anyone new for years, scared of getting left again, and she nods, says she noticed he was hovering by his booth alone all afternoon, figured he just needed an excuse to stop pretending he liked being by himself.
By the time the festival wraps up as the sun dips below the pine trees lining the park, the rest of her pies are sold out, and he’s spent so long talking to her he only talked to three potential clients all afternoon. He helps her load her empty coolers and folding table into her beat-up blue Subaru Outback, and she scribbles her phone number on the back of a leftover pie box in blue ballpoint, shoves it into the pocket of his work flannel. She tells him to bring her by the barn sometime, she wants to see the half-restored 1962 Airstream Overlander he’d rambled about earlier, and she’ll bring him a blueberry pie if he does. He nods, too flustered to say anything clever, and watches her pull out of the parking lot, waving out the window. He pulls the crumpled pie box out of his pocket a minute later, runs his thumb over the smudged ink of her number, already mentally clearing the next afternoon’s schedule so he can clean up the barn before he calls her.
