Rafe Mendez, 53, minor league baseball scout with 27 years on the road and a left knee that throbs like a faulty car alarm every time the humidity climbs over 70 percent, slumps onto a cracked vinyl bar stool at The Dugout in southern Alabama just after 9 p.m. Tuesday. Rain lashes the storefront windows, the tin roof rattles, and the only other patron is Lila Hart, who he’s nodded at half a dozen times over the last six years at JUCO playoff games and local athletic department banquets, wife of the county high school’s athletic director. He almost gets up to leave when she meets his eye. Small town gossip moves faster than a 98 mph fastball, and he’s got enough on his plate without getting tangled up in whatever drama’s clinging to her family right now. He’d heard the murmurs at the ballfield earlier that day, that her husband had been arrested at lunch for embezzling $120k from the youth sports budget.
He bites into a fried pickle she slides across the counter, the crust crunching salty and sour against his tongue, and chews a peppermint gum to replace the chew his doctor made him quit last year, staring at the neon beer sign flickering above the bar. Her fingers brush his wrist when she pushes the wicker basket closer, skin cold from holding her chilled white wine, a smudge of navy ink on her index knuckle from stamping library books. She smells like lavender laundry detergent and rain that’s hit pine needles first. He’s never been this close to her before, never noticed the faint silver streak running through the left side of her dark brown hair, or the tiny scar above her left eyebrow from a childhood bike crash she mentions offhand when he asks about it.
She sits one stool away at first, then shifts closer when a group of rowdy construction workers pile in the door, yelling about a job delay. Their shoulders brush when she reaches for a napkin to wipe a drop of wine off the counter, and she doesn’t lean away. He’s fighting two impulses at once: the part of him that’s avoided all casual connections since his divorce 8 years ago, convinced anything that doesn’t have a shot at lasting is a waste of time, screaming that this is a terrible idea, that he’ll ruin his reputation in this scouting circuit if anyone sees them leave together. The other part of him, the part that’s spent 200 nights a year alone in motel rooms eating cold takeout and watching old baseball games, is hung up on the way she’s holding his gaze, no flicker of embarrassment or obligation, just tired, quiet curiosity. She twists her left hand around the stem of her wine glass, and he notices the wedding band is gone. She tells him she filed for divorce three weeks ago, moved out of the house that morning before the arrest hit the local news, has been planning her exit for two years.
They talk for an hour, about the left-handed pitcher he scouted that afternoon who hits 94 consistently but can’t throw a strike to save his life, about the teen book club she runs at the library that’s been reading old baseball memoirs lately, about how they both hate the way small towns pretend everyone’s business is public property. When the bartender yells that last call is in 10 minutes, the rain has slowed to a soft drizzle, and she asks if he’s staying at the old Route 23 motel down the road. He nods, says he’s leaving at 7 a.m. for a scouting stop in Pensacola. She says she’s got a new job at the Pensacola public library starting next month, no ties left to this town once she wraps up her final two weeks at the local branch.
He offers to drive her wherever she’s staying, but she shakes her head, says she’d rather walk, the air smells good. They step out onto the sidewalk, the asphalt still glistening under the orange streetlights, and her hand brushes his twice before she laces their fingers together. His knee aches with every step, but he doesn’t mention it, doesn’t rush. When they get to his motel room, he pauses with his key in the lock, asks if she’s sure this is what she wants, no pressure. She leans up and kisses him first, tastes like peach moscato and the peppermint gum she borrowed from him an hour earlier, her palm flat against his chest over his faded Alabama baseball tee.
He wakes up at 6:30 the next morning, sunlight leaking through the thin motel curtains, and she’s sitting on the edge of the bed pulling on her scuffed work boots. She hands him a scrap of gas station receipt with her cell number scrawled on it in that same navy ink he noticed on her knuckle the night before, says she’ll text him her new address once she’s settled in Pensacola. He tells her he’s back in the area every three weeks, they can get dinner at that taco spot on Palafox Street she mentioned liking. She smiles, leans down to kiss his cheek, and lets herself out.
He sits up, stretches, grabs the lukewarm coffee he picked up from the front desk the night before off the nightstand. He tucks the scrap of paper into the inner pocket of his scouting notebook, right next to the scouting report he wrote for that left-handed pitcher the day before. He twists the cap off his water bottle, taps the number scrawled on the paper twice with his thumb, and pulls up the Pensacola public library website on his phone to confirm her start date.
