Manny Ruiz, 53, owns a one-man custom woodworking shop outside Asheville, North Carolina, and has spent the better part of a decade going out of his way to avoid situations that might force him to explain why he still sleeps on the left side of his king-sized bed, even though his wife Elena has been gone eight years. His worst flaw is that he’d rather lie about having a migraine than turn down a neighbor’s request to build a custom bookshelf for half his usual rate, and he still hasn’t lived down bailing on his own 50th birthday party because he panicked at the thought of 30 people staring at him while he blew out candles. He’d only agreed to man a booth at the small town summer street fair because his 28-year-old daughter begged him, said the extra cash for his hand-carved cutting boards would help him pay for the new table saw he’d been eyeing for six months.
The July air hangs thick and humid, sweet with the smell of fried Oreos from the food truck two booths down and cut grass from the park across the street. Manny wipes sweat off his brow with the back of his calloused hand, cedar shavings sticking to the damp denim of his work jeans, when he spots the woman manning the jam booth next to his. He freezes. It’s Lila Marlow, 48, his daughter’s old high school soccer coach. Back when his daughter was 16, he’d sat through every home game on the bleachers, thermos of black coffee in hand, and nursed a stupid, unspoken crush he’d never breathed a word of to anyone, not even Elena. It had felt wrong then, dirty almost, to notice how the sun caught the gold streaks in her brown hair, how she bit her bottom lip when the team was down a goal, how her laugh carried across the field even when the stands were roaring. He’d avoided talking to her back then, even when she’d walked over to thank him for bringing Gatorade to the away games, too scared he’d say something stupid and give himself away.
She looks up then, catches him staring, and grins. She’s still got that same gap between her two front teeth, a smudge of strawberry jam on the side of her left wrist, a tiny sunflower tattoo peeking out from the ankle of her white sneakers. She wipes her hands on her floral sundress and walks over, the hem brushing the top of her calves, and stops so close he can smell her coconut sunscreen and the sharp, sweet scent of peach jam on her clothes. “Manny Ruiz, right? I’d recognize those calloused woodworking hands anywhere. You used to bring homemade granola bars to the team snack rotations, remember? The kids used to fight over the chocolate chip ones.”
His throat goes dry. He nods, leans back against the wooden post of his booth, the rough oak digging into his shoulder. He expects to feel that old twist of guilt, the voice in his head telling him he’s a bad husband for even looking at her, but it doesn’t come. “You still make them?” she asks, nodding at the stack of cutting boards in front of him, reaching out to run a finger along the edge of a walnut one with a carved oak leaf handle. Their hands brush when he reaches for the same board to lift it for her, his rough calluses catching on her soft knuckles, and neither of them pulls away for three full beats, the sound of an old Alan Jackson song playing over the fair speakers wrapping around them. She holds his eye contact, the corner of her mouth tugging up in a smirk, and he feels his ears go pink, the way he did when he was 16 and asking Elena out for the first time.
They talk through the rest of the afternoon, passing customers back and forth when someone asks for a jam recommendation to go with a cutting board, teasing each other about the time his daughter tripped over her own feet during the championship game and took Lila out with her, about the time he accidentally brought a batch of granola bars laced with cayenne pepper because he’d mixed up his spice jars. He learns she quit coaching three years ago, now runs a small orchard out in the mountains, lives alone with two rescue dogs, has never been married. He tells her about Elena, about the new table saw, about how he still sings off key in the shower even though no one is there to make fun of him for it.
By the time the sun dips below the tree line, the fair is wrapping up, vendors packing up their booths, kids dragging stuffed animals behind them while their parents yell for them to slow down. He offers to carry her heavy crates of jam to her pickup truck, the old black Ford with a soccer sticker still on the back window, and when they’re done loading, she pulls a cooler out of the cab, grabs two lime hard seltzers, and pats the tailgate next to her. He sits, their shoulders pressed tight together, as the first firework goes off overhead, blue sparks lighting up the sky, the boom vibrating through the metal of the truck under them.
“I had a crush on you back then, you know,” she says, turning to face him, the pink light from the next firework painting her cheeks. “All the other dads would hit on me so bad I started wearing a ring pop on my left hand to get them to leave me alone. But you? You never even looked at me longer than two seconds. I used to wonder if I was doing something wrong.”
He laughs, quiet, the knot in his chest he’s carried for 12 years finally loosening. “I was too scared to look. Thought I was being a creep, for noticing you when you were my kid’s coach. Never told anyone. Not even Elena.”
She leans in then, kisses him, tastes like peach jam and lime and the coconut sunscreen she’s been wearing all day. He doesn’t pull away, doesn’t let the old guilt creep in, doesn’t overthink what this means for tomorrow or the next day. The last firework goes off, gold sparks raining down over the empty fairground, the distant cheer of the last remaining crowd drifting over to them. He curls his calloused hand around her waist, pulls her closer, and lets the distant hum of the fair generators fade to background noise.
