Manny Ruiz, 57, makes his living rebuilding 1970s Honda CB series motorcycles out of a cinder block shop on the edge of Flagstaff, Arizona, and he’s spent the last eight years perfecting the art of not giving a single damn about anyone who doesn’t pay him in cash or bring him good bourbon. His ex-wife left him for his former business partner, Jake Hale, and the split gutted him so bad he sold half his tools, skipped the wedding invites everyone sent for two years, and only comes into town once a week to hit the Roadside Spur’s Thursday night dart tournament. He’s got a scar across his left knuckle from punching a wall the day he found the texts on his ex’s phone, and he still tenses up every time he hears someone say Jake’s name.
It’s 10:17 PM on the Thursday of the county fair, the bar smells like fried Oreos and cheap draft, the jukebox is blaring Waylon Jennings’ “Amanda” so loud the glasses rattle on the rail, and Manny’s just pocketed $132 in tournament winnings, nursing a neat Bulleit with his scuffed work boots propped on the lower rung. Then the door swings open, cold pine air blows in, and he freezes. It’s Lena Hale. Jake’s wife. He hasn’t seen her since the day he signed the divorce papers, when she slipped him a $20 for a coffee and said she was sorry, none of this was his fault.
She’s wearing a faded denim jacket and black cowboy boots, her dark hair pulled back in a loose braid, and when she spots him she does a double take, then huffs a laugh and slides onto the stool two down from his, no hesitation. She orders a dry Pinot Grigio, and when the bartender walks away she leans in a little, elbows on the bar, and says Jake served her divorce papers three days ago, got caught cheating with a 27 year old who runs the fair’s cotton candy stand. Manny’s first reaction is sharp, petty satisfaction, then it curdles when he sees the faint purple bruise under her left eye, like she’s been rubbing it raw crying. She moves one stool closer, and when she reaches for her wine glass her forearm brushes his, warm through the thin cotton of his work shirt, and she doesn’t pull away. Her knee brushes his under the bar, accidental at first, then she leaves it there, heavy and solid against his jeans.
They talk for 45 minutes. He learns she’s been running the fair’s food vendor program for the last three years, that she still keeps the hand-carved wooden spoon he made her for a housewarming gift back in 2012, that she hated how Jake cut Manny out of the motorcycle shop after the split. He finds himself leaning in when she talks, studying the crinkles at the corner of her hazel eyes, the faint scar on her left wrist from when she crashed an ATV on their group camping trip in 2011, the way she twists the silver ring on her index finger when she’s nervous. He’d forgotten how easy she is to talk to, how she laughs at his dumb jokes about difficult carburetor rebuilds, how she never once mentions his ex.
When the bartender calls last call, she sighs and says her car died in the fairgrounds parking lot that afternoon, Jake was supposed to come pick her up but he blocked her number. Manny offers her a ride, and she grins and asks if they can stop at the fair first, the ferris wheel is still running, she hasn’t ridden it since they snuck on after hours back in 2010. He hesitates for half a second, the voice in the back of his head screaming that this is a bad idea, that he’s just asking for drama, that this is just revenge, but he nods anyway.
The walk to the fairgrounds is 10 minutes, the air cool enough that he can see his breath, the pink and blue neon of the ferris wheel glowing against the dark pine trees. The operator lets them on for free when he recognizes Manny from last year’s fair motorcycle show, and when they get to the very top he stops the wheel, winks, and yells up that he’ll give them five minutes. Lena turns to him then, her face lit up by the neon, and she says she’s thought about him every month for the last eight years, always thought he got the rawest deal of all of them, always thought he was the good one.
He doesn’t say anything. He just leans in and kisses her, soft at first, then deeper when her hand curls around the back of his neck, her fingers tangling in the short gray hair at his nape. He can taste the Pinot Grigio on her lips, the faint sweetness of cotton candy she ate earlier, the lavender of her perfume wrapping around him so tight he can’t think about anything else but her, not Jake, not his ex, not the grudge he’s carried for eight years that suddenly feels lighter than a feather. The ferris wheel starts moving again, and they don’t pull apart until they hit the bottom, the operator wolf-whistling as they step off.
He drives her back to her motel on Route 66, the radio playing old Johnny Cash, her hand resting on his thigh the whole ride. She turns to him when he pulls into the parking lot, her thumb brushing the scar on his left knuckle, and asks if he wants to come in for a beer. He turns off the truck, shoves his keys in his pocket, and follows her up the concrete steps to her room.
