Moe Sorrentino, 51, spent 28 years as a minor league baseball equipment manager before retiring three years prior, when his wife’s stage four breast cancer diagnosis made cross-country bus rides and 12-hour game days impossible. His biggest flaw, one his older sister nagged him about weekly, was his stubborn refusal to engage with any part of the world that didn’t involve fixing old leather gloves in his garage or watching reruns of 90s Reds games. He’d told her a hundred times he didn’t need friends, didn’t need hobbies, definitely didn’t need to go to the annual neighborhood block party she’d been hyping for two months. She’d showed up at his front door at 4 PM that Saturday, grabbed his car keys off the hook, and told him he could either walk or ride with her, no third option.
He looked over, and recognized Lila Marlow immediately. She was his late wife’s second cousin, 48, who’d moved to Florida 12 years prior to open a hair salon, and he’d only seen her a handful of times at family weddings and funerals. She was wearing cutoff denim shorts and a faded Tom Petty t-shirt, silver hoops glinting in the sun, a smudge of lavender hair dye on the side of her wrist. “Moe, right?” she said, grinning, holding eye contact for a beat longer than casual courtesy required. “Thought that was your ratty old Reds work shirt. I heard you retired.”
He nodded, suddenly flustered, wiping his sweaty palm on the thigh of his khakis. He’d always thought Lila was pretty, back when they were younger, but had written it off as a stupid, harmless thought, off limits for a married man, even more off limits now that his wife was gone. The guilt hit him sharp in the chest before he could shake it off. “Yeah, been a few years. When’d you move back?”
“Last month,” she said, leaning against the wooden support of the lemonade stand so her shoulder was inches from his, close enough he could smell coconut shampoo and the faint vanilla of her lip gloss under the charcoal smoke drifting from the grill. “Mom’s got early dementia, so I’m taking over her salon over on Maple. Your sister told me you’d probably be hiding over here avoiding people.” She laughed, a low, warm sound, and when he huffed a laugh in return, her elbow nudged his playfully.
They talked for 40 minutes, the crowd around them fading into background noise. She told him horror stories about entitled Florida clients who’d demanded she make their neon pink hair extensions last three years, he told her about the time a double A outfielder accidentally hit him in the side of the head with a batting practice ball, giving him a concussion that made him forget how to tie a cleat for three days. When he spilled a drop of lemonade on his jeans, she passed him a paper napkin, the callus on her wrist from 20 years of holding scissors grazing his knuckle, and he didn’t flinch away like he normally did when someone touched him.
The guilt crept back every few minutes, quiet and sharp. He kept telling himself he shouldn’t be enjoying this, shouldn’t be noticing how the sun hit the gold streaks in her brown hair, shouldn’t be wondering what her hand would feel like in his. It felt like cheating, like he was betraying the woman he’d loved for 27 years, the woman he’d sat next to in a hospital bed for six months while she wasted away. But Lila didn’t push, didn’t mention his wife until he brought her up, voice tight, saying he felt stupid for even being out here talking to her, like he was doing something wrong.
She softened, leaning in a little closer, so their knees almost touched where they were sitting on the curb. “She was my cousin, Moe. I knew her better than almost anyone. She used to tell me if you ever moped around the house alone after she was gone, she’d come back and hide all your favorite baseball gloves. She never wanted you to be lonely.” She paused, picking at a loose thread on her shorts, and for the first time all night, she looked nervous. “I’ve been asking your sister how you were for months. I didn’t want to push if you weren’t ready.”
He looked over at Lila, the corner of her mouth tilted up like she knew what he was going to say before he said it. “There’s a soft serve place three blocks over that has those vanilla dipped cones with sprinkles, the kind my wife used to beg me to get her after games,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck, suddenly shy. “You wanna go get one? We can ditch this party before my sister comes over and tries to set me up with the third grade teacher down the street.”
She laughed, standing up, and held out her hand to pull him to his feet. His calloused, glove-worn hand wrapped around hers, and she didn’t let go for a full three seconds after he was standing. “I’d like that a lot,” she said.
They walked down the sidewalk together, the sun dipping low below the rooflines, painting the sky pink and orange, her shoulder brushing his every few steps, no awkward distance, no heavy guilt hanging over them. A kid ran past holding a fully inflated water balloon, and she tugged him closer to the edge of the sidewalk to keep him from getting soaked, her hand resting warm on his forearm for a beat before she pulled it away.
He ordered her a vanilla dipped cone with rainbow sprinkles when they got to the shop, and when she took a bite, a dot of vanilla ice cream stuck to the corner of her mouth, and he didn’t hesitate to reach out and wipe it off with his thumb.
