Manny Ruiz, 52, has scouted minor league baseball talent for the Astros single A affiliate for 14 years, and he hasn’t taken a single personal day longer than four hours since his wife Elena died of breast cancer six years prior. His flaw is that he’s convinced any flicker of interest in another woman is a betrayal, so he sticks to scouting reports, sunflower seeds, and cheap draft beer at small-town beer gardens after games, never lingering longer than he has to.
He’s parked at a splintered picnic table outside Corpus Christi on a humid late August evening, sweat beading at the back of his neck under his faded team cap, when he smells the brisket first. It’s hickory-smoked, rich, heavy with black pepper, drifting from the food truck parked 20 feet away at the edge of the lot. He knows who runs it. He saw the photo of Lena Hale on Jake’s desk last spring, tucked next to the divorce papers the GM had slammed down with a growl, warning every staff member not to so much as buy a taco from her, calling her a liability.
He stares at the truck for 22 minutes, counting off the minutes on his scouting stopwatch, before his stomach growls loud enough to make the teen sitting at the next table glance over. He stands, brushes sunflower seed shells off his khakis, and walks over, boots crunching on loose gravel.
Lena’s leaning against the counter, wiping down the metal surface with a rag, an Astros cap perched backward on her dark hair, a faint smudge of grease on her left forearm. She looks up, grins, and he’s caught off guard by the crinkles at the corners of her brown eyes, the silver hoop earring glinting in the low sun. “I was wondering when you’d work up the nerve,” she says, her voice rough from years of smoking, warm as the summer air. She doesn’t mention Jake, doesn’t mention the order to avoid her.
He orders two brisket tacos, pays with a crumpled 10 dollar bill, waves off her attempt to give him change. When she hands him the paper plate, their fingers brush. Her index finger has a thick callus from lifting cast iron skillets, her skin is warm, and the contact sends a jolt up his arm he hasn’t felt since Elena was alive. He can smell vanilla lip balm on her, mixed with the smoky scent of the grill, the faint tang of lime from the salsa she’s stirring on the counter next to her.
He sits back at his table, eats the tacos, and they’re the best thing he’s tasted in months. He keeps glancing over at her, catches her looking back twice, both times she smirks and nods at his empty plate, like she knows he’s going to come back for more.
By 9pm, most of the crowd has cleared out. The jukebox has switched from George Strait to old Stevie Ray Vaughan, the sky has turned deep indigo, fireflies flicker near the oak trees at the edge of the lot. He’s on his third beer, pretending to scribble notes in his scouting notebook, when she locks up the truck, slings a canvas bag over her shoulder, and walks over to his table.
“I know Jake told everyone to stay away from me,” she says, leaning against the edge of the table, her hip a few inches from his elbow. “I don’t blame you if you want to head out. But I’ve got a cold six pack of Modelo in my truck, and I haven’t talked to someone who doesn’t want to complain about my ex or ask for free tacos in three weeks. You want to join me?”
He hesitates. Jake gave him this job when Elena was sick, covered 12 thousand dollars of her medical bills he couldn’t afford, even let him take two months off to be with her at the end. He owes the man everything. But he looks at Lena, at the faint scar on her jaw from a car accident she must have had years ago, at the way she’s twisting the hem of her denim shirt like she’s nervous he’ll say no, and he realizes he’s tired of being the loyal widower, the reliable scout, the guy who never does anything that isn’t expected of him. He hasn’t felt this light, this curious, in years.
He nods, tucks his notebook into his duffel bag, stands. Her truck is a beat-up 2008 Ford F150, dented along the passenger side, a sticker of a cow wearing a baseball cap on the back window. She hops up on the tailgate, pats the spot next to her, and he sits, their shoulders pressing together when she hands him a cold can of Modelo.
They talk for an hour, first about baseball, she tells him she grew up going to Astros games with her dad, then about food, she tells him her abuela taught her to smoke brisket when she was 12, then about Elena. He doesn’t talk about her to anyone, not even his sister, but it comes easy with Lena, how Elena used to bring him peanut butter cookies to every home game, how she’d yell so loud at the umpires she’d lose her voice for three days after. Lena doesn’t pity him, just nods, says she lost her older brother to a motorcycle crash when she was 22, knows what it feels like to carry around grief like a stone in your pocket, like you’re not allowed to be happy ever again.
The crickets are loud around them, the air is cool enough that he can feel the warmth of her arm through his thin hoodie, he hasn’t checked his work phone once since he sat down. She tilts her face up to look at him, the light from the streetlamp gilding the edges of her hair, and he doesn’t look away.
