Manny Ruiz, 62, retired O’Hare air traffic controller, now restores 1960s Camaros and Chevelles out of a cinder block garage in south Tucson, hasn’t been on a date since his wife packed up and moved to Portland in 2012. He’s long insisted dating is for people with time to waste on bad coffee and worse small talk, and he only showed up to the St. Jude’s chili cookoff because his 72-year-old retired teacher neighbor badgered him for three straight weeks to enter his green chile pork batch, the stuff he makes once a month with chiles he forages himself near Saguaro National Park. He’s got his crockpot set up on the third folding table from the beer stand, sipping a cold Coors Banquet, hat pulled low over his graying buzzcut, already planning to duck out as soon as judging wraps.
He’s halfway through his second beer when she walks up. Lila Marquez, 58, just finalized her divorce from Earl Hastings, the former Pima County sheriff, three months prior. Everyone in town knows Earl still drives past her house twice a night, still glares at any guy who so much as nods at her in the grocery store produce aisle. Manny has spoken to her exactly twice before, once when she brought her 1967 Mustang to his shop to get the carburetor fixed last year, Earl hovering over her the whole time, barking about how she shouldn’t waste money on “old junk.” She’s wearing a faded Johnny Cash t-shirt under a frayed denim jacket, jeans with a hole in the left knee, scuffed work boots, silver streaks in her dark hair catching the string lights strung between the oak trees. She leans in to smell the chili, her shoulder brushing his bicep, and he tenses so hard he almost spills his beer.
She grins, like she noticed the jolt. “I’ve been begging Rita to slip me a jar of this for two years,” she says, nodding at the crockpot, her voice low and a little rough from years of smoking, smelling like sandalwood and roasted chiles and a faint hint of bourbon. “Earl always said your chili was ‘too spicy for decent people.’ Asshole thought ketchup counts as a seasoning.” Manny snorts before he can stop himself, a real laugh, not the polite half-chuckle he reserves for small talk with auto parts clerks. He grabs a plastic spoon, scoops up a bite, holds it out to her. She leans in, her lips wrapping around the spoon, eyes closing for half a second when she tastes it, and he feels heat crawl up the back of his neck, something he hasn’t felt since he was 17 sneaking into drive-in movies with his high school girlfriend.
He knows people are staring. He can see Earl over by the beer stand, red face puffed up like an angry bull, holding a plastic cup of cheap lager, glowering right at them. Part of Manny wants to step back, mumble an excuse, go back to his silent life where no one bothers him and he doesn’t have to deal with anyone else’s drama. That part of him has been in charge for 11 years, has him sleeping in a cold bed alone every night, eating frozen dinners on his couch while he watches old war movies, telling himself he likes the quiet. But then she laughs at his joke about Earl’s cookoff entry tasting like canned beans and boot polish, and her hand brushes his when she reaches for a napkin, her skin warm and calloused from working on her own cars, and that quiet, sensible part of him shrinks away.
They talk for 40 minutes. She tells him she quit her job as a paralegal at the county courthouse last month, is opening her own small engine repair shop out by the fairgrounds. He tells her about the 1969 Camaro he’s restoring for a kid who bags parts at the local NAPA, saving up money to take his little sister to Disney World. She leans in when he talks, no crossed arms, no polite nods just to be nice, actually listens, asks follow up questions, her hazel eyes flecked with gold never leaving his face. He’s so wrapped up in the story he’s telling about rerouting a 747 during a 2009 Chicago blizzard that he doesn’t notice Earl walking over until he’s three feet away, reeking of whiskey and cheap cigar smoke.
“What do you think you’re doing, Lila?” Earl says, voice loud enough that the people at the next table go quiet. Manny doesn’t hesitate. He shifts his weight so he’s standing half in front of her, wraps one arm loosely around her waist, his palm resting light on the rough denim of her jacket, and looks Earl dead in the eye, the same steady, no-room-for-argument tone he used to use when panicking pilots radioed in during turbulence. “She’s with me tonight, Earl. You got a problem with that?” Earl stares at him for three long seconds, jaw clenched, then huffs, turns around, and stomps off, because everyone in town knows Manny Ruiz doesn’t bluff, used to handling life-or-death decisions before his morning coffee, doesn’t scare easy.
Lila lets out a sharp, surprised laugh, leaning into his side for half a second before she pulls back, her hand brushing his where it’s still resting on her waist. “I didn’t think you had that in you,” she says, grinning, and Manny shrugs, like it’s no big deal, even though his heart is hammering so hard he can feel it in his ears. The announcement comes over the loudspeaker a few minutes later that his chili won first place, and he doesn’t even care enough to go pick up the $50 NAPA gift card they’re giving as a prize. He’s too busy watching her bite her lip, looking up at him through her lashes, asking if he wants to come back to her place, she has leftover pork tamales in the fridge and a DVD of *The Good, the Bad and the Ugly* she’s been meaning to watch.
He says yes before he can overthink it. They walk through the parking lot together, the desert air cool enough that he can see his breath, the distant sound of a mariachi band playing at a wedding down the street drifting over the chain link fence. She stops at her beat up silver Ford F-150, leans against the door, and kisses him quick, soft, her lips chapped a little from the wind, before she pulls back to unlock the truck. He grabs the half-empty jar of his homemade habanero hot sauce from the passenger seat of his own truck before climbing into her cab, already looking forward to drizzling it over the leftover tamales she said were waiting in her fridge.
