Manny Ruiz is 57, makes custom saltwater fishing rods for a living out of a cinder block workshop tucked between slash pines on the Florida panhandle, and he hates community events with every fiber of his sun-cracked being. His late wife Lena used to drag him to every oyster roast, parade, and bake sale within 30 miles, but in the 8 years since she passed from ovarian cancer, he’s only left his property for hardware runs, beer pickups, and the occasional solo dawn fishing trip off his dock. He only showed up to this county fire department fundraiser because his old high school buddy, now the fire chief, begged him to donate a rod for the silent auction, said they were short on big-ticket items after a string of summer wildfires ate through half the state forest.
He’s leaning against a scuffed pine at the edge of the field, half-empty Yuengling in one hand, ignoring the holler of drunk tourists and the off-key bluegrass band wailing on the makeshift stage, when a shoulder brushes his bicep hard enough to slosh beer over the edge of the can. He’s ready to snap until he looks down, and recognizes her: the woman who moved into the old white cottage three properties down from his three months prior. He’d avoided her like the plague up until now, written her off as another out-of-state flipper here to jack up property taxes, but she’s not in the Lululemon he’s seen other rich transplants wear. She’s got on faded high-waisted jeans, a stained white tank top, work boots caked in mud, and a scar slicing through her left eyebrow. She smells like coconut sunscreen and brine, like she spent the afternoon out on the water before driving over.
“Sorry about that,” she says, holding his eye contact steady, no awkward looking away, a half-smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. He realizes he’s staring, and clears his throat, nods, wipes the spilled beer off his flannel sleeve with the back of his hand. She holds out an oyster shucking knife, handle first, and when he takes it, her calloused fingers brush his. Her hands are rough, not soft like he expected, crisscrossed with tiny scrapes he figures are from the vegetable garden he’s seen her tending through the tree line when he drives past. “Name’s Jules. I’ve seen you out on your dock at 5 a.m. half the week. You catch anything worth bragging about lately?”
He’s frozen for a second, guilty like he’s been caught doing something wrong. For 8 years, he’s shut everyone out, told himself even talking to another woman is a betrayal of Lena, that he’s too old, too set in his ways, too broken to bother with anything new. He shifts his weight, his knee almost brushing hers where they’re both pressed up against the oyster table stacked high with burlap sacks of steamed shellfish. “Few redfish,” he says, gruffer than he means to. “Nothing to write home about.”
She laughs, loud and unapologetic, over the band’s cover of a Johnny Cash song, and leans in a little closer so he can hear her, her warm breath fanning against the side of his neck. “Bullshit. I saw you haul in a 30-pounder last Tuesday. I was out weeding my tomato plants, nearly fell over when I saw you hoist it over your head.” She passes him a shucked oyster on a saltine, and he takes it, his fingers brushing hers again, this time on purpose, just a little. The brine bursts on his tongue, and he can’t remember the last time he didn’t feel lonely enough to eat his dinner alone on his porch without the TV on for noise.
They end up sitting on a splintered picnic bench off to the side, knees almost touching, as the sun dips pink and orange over the Gulf. She tells him she’s a traveling ER nurse, moved down here to take care of her mom who has early onset dementia, lives 20 minutes west in Apalachicola. She teases him about the hand-painted “NO SOLICITORS, NO TOURISTS, NO EXCEPTIONS” sign nailed to his workshop door, says she stood outside it for 10 minutes last week trying to work up the nerve to ask him to teach her to fish, before she chickened out. He tells her about Lena, about how she loved oyster roasts, about how he’s been making rods for 25 years, hasn’t built one for a beginner since he taught his niece to fish when she was 10.
The guilt nags at him the whole time, a quiet voice in the back of his head saying he doesn’t deserve this, that he’s being unfaithful, that he’s too old for whatever this is, but Jules doesn’t push. She doesn’t mention dating, doesn’t ask personal questions, just sits there sipping a lime seltzer, pointing out the herons flying overhead, complaining about how the local grocery store never has good avocados. When the band wraps up and the crowd starts to clear out, he stands up to leave, says he’s got a rod he needs to finish for a client before the end of the week, and she stops him, holding out her phone, screen open to a new contact page.
“Before you go,” she says, that same half-smile on her face, no pressure, just steady eye contact. “If you’re ever up for a beer and a lesson, I make really good pecan pie. Lena’s recipe, actually. My grandma and her were best friends back in the 70s. I didn’t realize that until I found an old photo of them at a roast just like this one last week.”
He stares at the phone for 10 full seconds, then takes it, his hands a little shaky, and types his number in. He doesn’t overthink it, doesn’t talk himself out of it, just hands it back, and nods. “Bring the pie Saturday. 7 a.m. We’ll go out on the boat.”
He drives home with his windows down, the warm salt air blowing through his graying hair, and when he pulls into his driveway, he pauses on his porch, looks down the road at Jules’ cottage, sees her kitchen light on. He walks into his workshop, flicks on the overhead light, pulls out the unvarnished beginner rod blank he’s had stashed on a high shelf for 10 years, and sets it on his workbench.
