Manny Ruiz, 53, makes his living restoring vintage pinball machines out of a cinder-block garage behind his Austin bungalow, his hands permanently stained with solder and machine oil, his work boots caked with sawdust from the custom cabinet builds he does for high-end collectors. He’s avoided every neighborhood block party for the seven years he’s lived on the street, writes them off as cheesy excuses for bored suburbanites to drink too much seltzer and complain about HOA fees, hasn’t put himself in a situation where he’s expected to make small talk with strangers since his wife died eight years prior. He only agreed to show up to this one because the HOA board offered to waive his quarterly dues if he brought his fully restored 1978 Space Invaders pinball machine for the kids’ game area.
He’s leaning against the side of the folding table holding extra quarters when she walks over, wearing cutoff denim and a faded Willie Nelson tee, her dark hair pulled back in a messy braid, freckles splashed across her nose from three months of mowing her lawn in the midday sun. He recognizes her as Lena, the new neighbor who moved into the house three doors down in April, the one he’s only ever waved at from across the fence when he’s taking his old hound dog out for morning walks. She’s the other volunteer assigned to man the game station, she says, holding a sweating plastic cup of sweet tea, the ice clinking loud enough to cut through the hum of the nearby grill and the yells of kids chasing each other with water guns.
They stand shoulder to shoulder for the first hour, passing out quarters to kids who crowd around the pinball machine, the Texas heat thick enough to make his shirt stick to his back, the scent of her coconut sunscreen curling into his nose every time she leans forward to help a small kid reach the flipper buttons. He’s halfway through making an excuse to leave early when an overexcited 7-year-old runs past, slamming into her arm hard enough to send her sweet tea flying across the concrete. They both reach for the stack of paper napkins on the table at the same time, their knuckles brushing, and he feels the rough callus on her index finger, the same kind he has on his thumb from years of turning screwdrivers. She laughs and says she’s always been a magnet for random chaos at community events.
He fights the urge to pull his hand away, his brain screaming that he’s too old for this, that getting involved with someone will only end in more grief, that his routine of restoring machines and eating frozen burritos for dinner alone is safe, predictable, no surprises. But then she leans in, pointing at the custom neon LED strips he installed inside the pinball machine’s backglass, says her dad had the exact same model when she was a kid, she spent every Saturday of her 12th year parked in front of it, trying to beat his high score before he died of a heart attack when she was 13. He finds himself talking before he can stop himself, tells her he started restoring pinball machines after his wife died, that it was the only thing that didn’t feel like a reminder that she was gone, that she’d loved playing competitive pinball at dive bars back when they were dating.
The sun dips below the rooflines as they talk, the kids drift off to the face painting booth and the fire pit at the end of the street, leaving the two of them alone by the pinball machine, the neon pink and blue lights casting soft shadows across her face. She challenges him to a game, says she still remembers all the tricks her dad taught her, wagers that the loser buys tacos from the food truck parked at the entrance to the neighborhood. He agrees, fumbling a little when he drops a quarter into the slot, the flippers whirring to life as the silver ball launches onto the playfield.
They lean in close, their arms brushing every time one of them slaps at the flipper buttons, the score counter ticking up faster than he can keep track of. He’s winning by three thousand points when he tilts the machine a little too hard to nudge the ball away from the drain, his hip bumping hers, his arm brushing the soft skin of her waist just above the waistband of her jeans. She doesn’t step back, just looks up at him, her eyes glinting in the neon light, and says she’s been wanting to knock on his door and ask him over for dinner for weeks, but thought he hated all the neighbors because he never stopped to talk. He admits he’s just been scared to let anyone new in, that he thought he’d be fine alone forever until he saw her carrying a vintage microscope into her house on moving day, and couldn’t stop thinking about her.
