Manny Rios is 62, retired air traffic controller, spends three days a week welding custom parts and restoring vintage Airstream trailers out of a cinder block shop off Route 66 in northern Arizona. He’s got a scar across his left palm from a 1998 runway wiring accident, a habit of humming 70s rock when he’s focused, and a 20-year rule against letting anyone get close enough to disappoint him after his ex-wife left him for a 28-year-old commercial pilot mid-shift. He drove out to the annual county chili cookoff that Saturday only to drop off a 12-pound cast iron pot he’d welded for his neighbor, planned to be back at his shop sanding a 1978 Airstream shell by 2 p.m.
He didn’t see her until he rounded the corner of the craft booth row, the heavy pot slung over one shoulder, and bumped straight into her chest. Half a cup of green chili sloshed over the rim of the paper cup in her hand, splattering across the sleeve of his faded navy flannel. She yelped, then laughed, the sound gravelly and familiar, and grabbed his wrist before he could step back to dab at the stain with a crumpled paper napkin from her jeans pocket. Manny froze. It was Clara Marquez, his old air traffic control coworker Ray’s ex-wife, the woman he’d spent three years sneaking glances at at holiday parties and team cookouts back in the early 2000s, the woman he’d turned down a drink with in 2004 because he’d thought hitting on his friend’s wife was the lowest move a guy could make.
She was 58 now, silver streaks shot through her dark shoulder-length hair, a tiny scar still visible above her left eyebrow from the time Ray had accidentally clocked her with a golf club at a company tournament, the story Manny had teased Ray about for six months after. Her hands were calloused, rough from the raptor talons she handled at the bird rescue she ran out of her property 20 minutes outside town, and she smelled like pine sap and roasted cumin, like she’d been standing over a chili pot for hours. She held his wrist for three full seconds, longer than polite, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners when she recognized him. “Manny Rios. I thought you’d holed up in that shop of yours and forgotten how to talk to other people.”
His first instinct was to yank his hand back, mumble an excuse about dropping off the pot and leaving, blame the jolt of heat up his arm on the warm cast iron pressed to his side, not the way her thumb had brushed the edge of his palm when she wiped the last of the chili off his sleeve. He’d spent two decades talking himself out of every flicker of attraction he felt, convinced any interest he had in someone was just midlife loneliness talking, that he was too set in his ways to make anything work. But she didn’t let go of his wrist right away, and he noticed she was wearing the same silver turquoise ring he’d complimented her on at the 2003 Christmas party, the one Ray had gotten her for their 10th anniversary.
“Been keeping busy,” he said, and was proud his voice didn’t crack. The air around them smelled like smoked pork and cinnamon, a mariachi band playing off by the fairgrounds stage, kids screaming as a golden retriever darted between booths with a half-eaten cornbread muffin in its mouth. The cast iron pot was heavy on his shoulder, the metal warm even through his work glove, and he could feel the heat of her arm through his flannel, she was standing so close.
She finally let go of his wrist, but didn’t step back, tilting her head up to meet his eyes. “I stopped by your shop three times last month. Wanted to ask about a small Airstream, something I can take to birding festivals down in New Mexico. Didn’t see you around, figured you didn’t want to be bothered.” She paused, the corner of her mouth tugging up in a smirk that made his chest feel tight. “Heard you don’t do social calls these days.”
Ray had died three years prior, heart attack on a golf course, Manny had gone to the funeral but left before the reception, too awkward to say anything to Clara, too guilty for the crush he’d carried on her for years while Ray was alive. That guilt curdled in his stomach now, warring with the quiet buzz of excitement he hadn’t felt since he was 25, since before the divorce, before he’d decided being alone was safer than being let down.
She didn’t give him time to overthink it, nodding toward a beat-up white pickup truck parked under a gnarled oak tree at the edge of the fairgrounds. “I got a cooler of Modelo in the back, and first place green chili I spent three days perfecting. You gonna stand there looking guilty all afternoon, or you gonna sit with me?”
Manny hesitated for two beats, then shifted the cast iron pot higher on his shoulder and nodded. They walked over to the truck together, their shoulders brushing every other step, and he set the pot down in the bed of the truck before climbing up on the tailgate next to her. She passed him a cold beer, their fingers brushing when he took it, the condensation from the bottle dripping onto his jeans. She leaned back against the truck cab, her shoulder pressed solidly against his, and told him about the great horned owl she’d rescued the week before, hit by a pickup on Route 66, now living in a cage on her back porch while it healed.
He told her about the Airstream he was restoring for a couple from Chicago, the custom solar panels he’d welded onto the roof, the 1970s plaid upholstery he’d tracked down for the dinette. He didn’t realize how much he’d been missing talking to someone who actually cared about what he did, who didn’t just see him as the quiet guy who fixed trailers, until she laughed at the story of how he’d dropped a whole can of spray paint on his boot earlier that week, his left foot still neon orange under his work boot.
When he finished his beer, she passed him a paper bowl of her green chili, loaded with hatch chiles and lime, spicy enough to make his eyes water. He wiped at his face with the back of his hand, and she leaned in, her thumb brushing a smudge of chili off the corner of his mouth, their foreheads almost touching. “I always wondered why you never asked me out back then,” she said, quiet enough only he could hear over the mariachi band’s slow, brassy love song. “Everyone knew Ray and I were done long before we got divorced. I waited.”
He swallowed, the chili burning in his throat, and for the first time in 20 years he didn’t lie, didn’t make an excuse, didn’t run. “I thought it was wrong. Thought I’d betray Ray. Thought I’d mess it up, anyway.”
She smiled, soft, and tapped her beer bottle against his. “Ray always said you were the most honorable son of a bitch he ever worked with. I told him you were just too stubborn to see what was right in front of you.” She paused, nodding at the cast iron pot in the back of her truck. “You got any Airstreams that would work for a bird rescue lady who brings a great horned owl with her on road trips?”
Manny grinned, the tight knot in his chest unraveling for the first time in decades. “Got a half-restored 16-foot 1972 in the shop. Perfect size for one person and a grumpy owl. You can come by tomorrow, take a look. I’ll make coffee.”
“Bring extra napkins,” she said, laughing, and licked a smudge of chili off her lower lip.
When she licks a smudge of chili off her lower lip, Manny doesn’t look away for the first time in 20 years.
