Manny Rios, 53, minor league baseball scout, had been dragged to the town fire department chili cook-off against his better judgment. His old high school teammate, now a captain on the force, had shown up at his rental at 6 PM, beer in hand, and refused to take no for an answer, even though Manny had made it clear he’d rather rewatch 2019 Midwest League playoff tapes than make small talk with people he’d gone to high school with who still asked if he was “still playing around with that baseball stuff.” He’d given in eventually, mostly to avoid the guy hovering on his porch for an hour, and now he was propped against a cinder block wall by the beer tent, sweating a little through his worn flannel under a scout jacket crusted with minor league team patches, sipping a cheap lager that tasted like carbonated cardboard. The air reeked of smoked chili, pine firewood, and the vanilla body spray the 16 year old volunteer working the beer tap was wearing, and the country cover band off to the left was butchering a Garth Brooks track so bad Manny’s ears were ringing.
He turned to grab a napkin off the folding table behind him when his shoulder connected with something soft, and a sharp, amused huff hit his ear. He looked down to see a woman standing 3 inches shorter than him, holding a half-full paper bowl of chili, a tiny dollop of it splattered right on the breast of his jacket over the Dayton Dragons patch. Her hand came up before he could say anything, her knuckles brushing his bicep through the flannel as she dabbed at the spot with a crumpled napkin from her own pocket. She smelled like cedar and peppermint lip balm, her hazel eyes crinkled at the corners like she laughed more than she frowned, and a streak of sky blue paint streaked the side of her left wrist. “My bad,” she said, her voice low, rough around the edges like she smoked a pack a day or yelled over construction noise for a living. “Was too busy staring at that kid on stage messing up the guitar solo to watch where I was going.”
Manny’s first instinct was to brush her off, mumble an apology, and slip out to his truck to drive home. He’d spent four years avoiding conversations with women in this town, ever since his ex wife had left him for a suburban real estate agent who wore boat shoes in December and called scouting a “dead end job for boys who never grew up.” Every woman his age he’d run into at the grocery store or gas station had immediately started prying about his relationship status, or offering to set him up with their cousin or coworker, and he’d had enough of it. But before he could turn away, she nodded at the patch on his jacket. “Dayton Dragons? I used to go to their games with my dad when I was a kid. He’d sneak me frozen lemonades even when my mom said I’d get a brain freeze. You work for them?”
He blinked. No one had asked him about his job because they were actually interested in years. He leaned back against the wall, crossing his ankles, and told her he scouted for the entire Reds minor league system, spent most of his year driving 10 hour days to watch 17 year old lefties throw fastballs in empty high school stadiums. She leaned in a little to hear him over the band, her shoulder pressing against his, and he could feel the heat of her skin through two layers of fabric. She said her name was Clara, she was a muralist, in town for three weeks helping her brother, the new fire chief, settle in after his divorce, and she’d been commissioned to paint a mural of local history on the side of the fire station. She asked him about the weirdest park he’d ever scouted, about the best pitcher he’d ever signed, and when he rambled about a 19 year old kid from rural Kentucky who threw 92 miles an hour with a curveball that dropped off a table, she didn’t check her phone or cut him off to talk about herself, she just nodded, sipping her chili, and asked follow up questions like she actually cared what he had to say.
The band switched to a slow, syrupy cover of a 1998 Tim McGraw track, and a handful of couples wandered onto the patch of worn grass by the stage to dance. Clara tilted her head, the silver hoops she was wearing catching the glow of the string lights strung between the oak trees, and held out her hand, her palm smudged with neon green paint. “You dance, Manny?” He hesitated, his first thought being that he hadn’t danced since his wedding, that he was terrible at it, that people would stare. But her hand was warm when he slipped his into it, calloused at the fingertips from holding paint brushes for hours, and she pulled him into the crowd before he could overthink it. He stepped on her foot twice in the first minute, and she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, leaning her forehead against his shoulder for half a second, the cedar scent of her shampoo filling his nose, and he forgot all about the people around him, forgot about the game tapes waiting for him at home, forgot about every awkward set-up and condescending comment about his job he’d endured in the last four years.
By the time the cook-off wrapped up, people were hauling coolers to their trucks, folding up folding chairs, and the band was packing up their gear. Manny walked Clara to her beat up 2008 Toyota Tacoma, the bed full of paint cans and drop cloths, and she leaned against the driver’s side door, pulling a crumpled business card out of her jeans pocket. She scribbled her cell number on the back in hot pink marker, then handed it to him, the edge of the card brushing his palm. “That old minor league park off Route 23, the one that’s been abandoned for 10 years? I was thinking of pitching a mural there to the city council next week. If you’re not too busy hiding from community events, you wanna come with me? You probably know all the old stories about the place that I could work into the design.”
Manny tucked the card into the inner pocket of his scout jacket, right over the splatter of chili she’d left there earlier, and nodded. He watched her climb into her truck, wave out the window, and pull out of the parking lot, her tail lights fading into the dark down Main Street. He pulled his keys out of his jeans pocket, already mentally rearranging his off-season schedule to clear the day she’d mentioned.
