53-year-old Manny Rios, a Cincinnati Reds minor league scout, tramps into The Rusty Bat just off the I-71 exit outside Ashland, Ohio, rain dripping off the brim of his faded Reds cap, his scouting notebook tucked under his arm so the inked pages don’t warp. The game ran 12 innings, the left-handed high school pitcher he’d driven three hours to see threw 97 pitches, hit 94 on the radar gun three times, and Manny’s feet ache so bad he’s half tempted to sit on the sticky linoleum floor instead of a bar stool. He orders a Pabst Blue Ribbon, the bartender slides it over without a word, and he props his notebook open on the bar to jot down a few quick notes before he forgets the kid’s odd pickoff move quirk.
The bar smells like fried pickles and decades-old spilled beer, the jukebox in the corner spits out slow Johnny Cash deep cuts, and rain taps steady against the corrugated tin roof. He’s three sips into his beer when she sits down two stools over, wearing a faded Ohio State hoodie, jeans cuffed at the ankle, rain speckled across her scuffed work boots, her dark hair pulled back in a loose braid that has a few strands sticking to the side of her neck. She orders a bourbon on the rocks, and when she reaches for the communal peanut bowl between them, her forearm brushes his. Her skin is warm, calloused along the wrist from what he later learns is tending to a half-acre of heirloom tomato plants in her backyard, and he flinches like he’s been burned, not because it hurts, but because he hasn’t felt a stranger’s touch that wasn’t a handshake in longer than he can remember.
She catches the flinch, smirks, dark eyes crinkling at the corners. “Sorry. I don’t bite. Unless you ask nicely.” Her voice is low, a little rough from cheering too loud at the game, and Manny snorts into his beer. He glances at the thin silver band on her left hand, feels a twist of misplaced guilt in his gut, and then reminds himself he’s not doing anything wrong just talking to her. For eight years, he’s held himself to an absurdly strict moral code after his ex-wife left him for a Phoenix real estate agent, refusing to so much as buy a woman a drink because he’d convinced himself any casual or romantic connection made him a failure at his 22-year marriage, even though his ex had been remarried for six years.
They talk about the game first, she admits she’s the 19-year-old pitcher’s stepmom, says the kid has been throwing balls through windows since he was 10, she’s replaced the kitchen pane three times in the last year. Manny laughs, a real loud one that makes the bartender glance over, and he has to cover his mouth to quiet down. He admits he’s the scout here to look at her stepson, and she leans in, voice dropping so low only he can hear it, her shoulder brushing his now, the scent of jasmine lotion mixing with the bourbon on her breath. “Don’t worry. My lips are sealed. I won’t tell the coach you’re here sizing him up. You gonna offer him a contract?”
Manny shrugs, taps his notebook. “Probably. Kid’s got an arm. Got a good head on his shoulders too, from what I saw. Didn’t lose his cool when the ump blew that call in the 8th.” She nods, grins, says that’s all her, she taught him to take bad calls without yelling after he got suspended for screaming at an ump when he was 16. Manny finds himself telling her about the divorce, the last eight years driving around the Midwest scouting kids, sleeping in cheap hotel rooms, eating gas station burritos, not talking to anyone longer than he has to. She doesn’t pity him, just nods, takes a sip of her bourbon. “Sounds lonely. You ever get tired of being alone?”
He freezes, because no one’s asked him that before. He’s about to lie, say he likes the quiet, when she reaches across the space between them, wipes a fleck of peanut shell off his chin, her fingers brushing the coarse silver stubble on his jaw. The touch is so soft, so unexpected, that he reaches up without thinking, wraps his fingers around her wrist for half a second, just to hold the contact a little longer. No one sees them, the bar is half empty, the bartender is scrolling on his phone, the only other patrons are a group of farmers in the corner yelling about corn futures.
She pulls her hand back slowly, doesn’t look mad, just smirks again, pulls her phone out of her hoodie pocket, types something, slides it across the bar to him. Her contact name is Lila, followed by a tiny tomato emoji. “My husband works on oil rigs in North Dakota. He’s home three weeks a year. My stepson’s leaving for a travel tournament in Illinois next Tuesday. Text me if you want to come over for dinner. I make a mean tomato pie. No one has to know.”
Manny types his number into her phone, hands it back, feels his chest tight like he’s 16 again asking a girl to prom. He finishes his beer, says he has to get back to his hotel, has a six-hour drive to Indianapolis tomorrow to scout another kid. She nods, waves as he walks to the door. He steps out into the rain, which has slowed to a soft drizzle, pulls his phone out of his pocket, checks three times to make sure he saved her number right, that the silly little tomato emoji is still there.
He turns up the Johnny Cash playing on his truck’s radio, grins so wide his cheeks ache, and hits the gas a little harder than he needs to down the empty county road.
