Manny Ruiz, 61, has built custom fly rods out of his converted Boise garage for 22 years. His hands are crisscrossed with tiny scars from slipping razor blades when wrapping guide wraps, calloused at the pads from sanding bamboo blanks, and he still wears his late wife’s silver wedding band on a chain around his neck, tucked under his faded trout fishing tee. He’s at the Ada County Fair on a sticky late August evening, fresh off winning first place in the professional fly tying contest, sipping a hazy pale ale at a splintered picnic table in the newly reopened beer garden—county commissioners just lifted a 12-year ban on outdoor alcohol sales at the fair earlier that month, a small victory that’s had the crowd rowdier, warmer, louder than he’s seen it in years. The Ferris wheel whines in the background, kids shriek as the Tilt-A-Whirl spins them sideways, and the air smells like fried oreos, cow manure, and cut grass.
He’s wiping fly tying resin off his thumb when she slides onto the bench across from him, her knee brushing his under the table hard enough he jolts. He recognizes her immediately: Elara Voss, Lila’s best friend senior year, the woman he’s blamed for 38 years for ruining his first real relationship. Her chestnut hair has thick silver streaks braided down one side, the same gap between her front teeth he remembers from study hall, and she’s clutching a glass jar of pickled okra, first place sticker plastered on the side, that she won in the home preserving contest. She grins, and for a second he’s 17 again, slouched in the back of biology class, pretending not to notice her staring at him when Lila was taking notes.
He tenses, jaw setting, ready to tell her to get lost, but she leans forward, elbows on the table, close enough he can smell lavender hand lotion and the faint briny tang of the okra through the glass. “Saw your name on the contest board,” she says, nodding at the tiny iridescent salmon fly trophy next to his beer. “Follow your rod builds on Instagram. You’re even better than you were when you were tying flies for the high school fishing team.”
Manny blinks. He’d spent decades avoiding any mention of her, skipping reunions, blocking her on Facebook when a mutual friend tried to add them to a group chat, convinced she’d ratted out his and Lila’s secret Sawtooth camping trip to Lila’s mom, the thing that got Lila sent to boarding school in Oregon before graduation, the thing that ended their relationship. “Thought I told everyone I didn’t want to talk to you,” he says, sharp, but there’s no heat behind it, not really, not when she’s smiling like that, like she knows something he doesn’t.
She snorts, twists the lid off the okra jar, holds it out to him. Her fingers brush his when he grabs a spear, the skin of her hand soft but with a faint callus at the tip of her index finger, like she draws or paints a lot. “I didn’t tell Lila’s mom about the trip,” she says, low, like she’s been waiting 38 years to say it. “Her little sister found the polaroids in her backpack when she was stealing her lip gloss. I took the fall because Lila begged me to, said if her mom knew her little sister was going through her stuff, she’d take her door off the hinges. I figured you’d hate me less than her sister would, I guess.”
Manny freezes, the okra halfway to his mouth. The brine drips onto his wrist, and he doesn’t even notice. All those years, he’d carried that anger, let it fester, turned down invitations to group fishing trips, cut off mutual friends who even mentioned her name, over a lie. He wants to be angry, wants to call her a liar, wants to storm off, but then she points over his shoulder at a little kid chasing a cotton candy cone, tripping over a hay bale, and laughs, her hand brushing his forearm to get his attention, and the anger melts fast, faster than he thought possible.
They talk for an hour, watch the pig races from the table, trade stories: she’s a botanical illustrator, spent 20 years traveling the west drawing native wildflowers, just moved back to Boise three months ago, bought a little cottage with a big wildflower garden out by the river. He tells her about his wife, Maria, who died of ovarian cancer 7 years ago, about his rod building business, about the three week fishing trip he took to Alaska last summer. She leans closer as the sun sets, their knees pressed together under the table the whole time, and every time her hand brushes his when she passes him another okra spear, his skin buzzes, like he’s 17 again, nervous and giddy and alive in a way he hasn’t felt since Maria got sick.
The first firework booms overhead right as he’s telling her about the 28 inch rainbow he caught on the Kenai, painting the sky bright pink, and the whole crowd around them stands up to watch. They stand too, and a group of drunk teens pushes through the crowd, shoving Elara hard against his side. She grabs his bicep to steady herself, her hand warm through his thin tee, and he wraps an arm around her waist to hold her up, his calloused hand resting on the soft fabric of her linen dress. He looks down at her, and she’s already looking up, her face lit up blue and gold from the fireworks, her eyes bright, and he doesn’t even think about it, leans down and kisses her, soft at first, then a little firmer when she kisses him back, her hand tangling in the short gray hair at the nape of his neck. The fireworks boom overhead, the crowd cheers, and for a second, he forgets about the 38 years of anger, forgets about the grief he’s carried for 7 years, forgets about everything but the way her lips taste like pickled okra and cherry seltzer, the way her hand feels in his hair, the warm glow of the fireworks on her face.
When the last firework fades, the crowd starts to disperse, the fair workers calling last call for the rides. They pull back, both a little breathless, grinning like idiots. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, and admits she’d had a crush on him back in high school, never said anything because he was dating Lila, that she’d followed his work for years before moving back, that the first thing she did when she got to town was check the fair contest schedule to see if he’d be there. He laughs, shakes his head, picks up his fly tying trophy and her jar of okra, and offers to walk her to her truck. Their hands brush the whole walk across the fairgrounds, the cool night air carrying the faint scent of burnt sugar from the funnel cake stand, and when they get to her beat up old Ford pickup, she leans against the door, and asks if he wants to come back to her cottage to see the wildflower sketches she’s been working on of the Boise River riparian zone. He says yes, no hesitation, no overthinking, no holding onto old grudges. He opens her truck door for her, the faint sound of the fair’s closing announcement drifting over the parking lot, and he doesn’t even spare a second of thought for the 38 years he wasted being angry.
