Manny Ruiz, 53, minor league baseball scout for the Cincinnati Reds, sat hunched over a scuffed linoleum bar top in downtown Macon, Georgia, the brim of his faded Reds cap pulled low to block the neon beer sign glow from bleaching his scouting notes. He’d driven three hours that afternoon to watch a 17-year-old lefty touch 94 on the radar gun, and his lower back ached from the lumpy seat of his 2018 Ford F-150, which had logged 187,000 miles running up and down the Southeast for scouting trips. His pint of hazy IPA sweated through a paper coaster, the hoppy pine scent mixing with the bar’s background aroma of salted peanuts, burnt pretzels, and old oak that had soaked up decades of spilled beer. He’d avoided this spot for years, preferring to drink alone in his motel room, but the motel’s mini fridge was broken, and he’d had enough of lukewarm gas station beer that tasted like aluminum.
The bar stools filled up fast as the post-work crowd poured in, and when a woman slid onto the stool two down from him, he barely glanced up until her elbow knocked his forearm hard enough to jostle his pen, smudging a note about the lefty’s inconsistent curveball. She apologized immediately, her voice warm and rough, like she spent half her day yelling over barking dogs. When he looked up, he recognized her instantly: Lena Hart, ex-wife of his high school baseball teammate Jase, who’d left her for a college freshman 15 years prior and hadn’t been back to town since. Manny had only spoken to her a handful of times back in the day, when he and Jase would grab burgers after practice, but he’d always thought she was too good for the loud, cocky guy he’d shared a dugout with. He still remembered Jase making fun of her for volunteering at the local animal shelter back then, calling it a waste of time that could be spent on his baseball prospects. She was 48 now, her dark hair streaked with silver at the temples, a thin scratch running across her left knuckle, work boots caked in red Georgia clay propped on the footrest below the bar.
She laughed when he pointed out the smudge on his notebook, leaning in a little closer so he could hear her over the clink of glasses and the low rumble of a Johnny Cash track playing over the speakers. “Sorry, I just spent three hours chasing a feral cat under a rotting porch, my coordination is completely shot,” she said, holding up her scratched knuckle as proof. Manny snorted, a sound he didn’t make often outside of dugout banter with 19-year-old rookies, and told her he’d had worse run-ins with overzealous little league parents who thought their 12-year-old was the next Mike Trout, screaming at him from the stands for not handing their kid a contract on the spot. She moved her stool a foot closer to his, the edge of her frayed jeans brushing his knee under the bar when she shifted, and Manny tensed up, his first thought a sharp, guilty lurch: he hadn’t been this close to a woman who wasn’t a grocery store cashier or a player’s mom since his wife Maria passed seven years prior from ovarian cancer.
He tried to pull back at first, giving short, one-word answers, focusing on his notebook like the half-finished scouting report was the most important thing in the world. But Lena didn’t push, just sipped her pinot grigio and rambled about the 12 kittens she’d just dropped off at the no-kill rescue she ran now, showing him photos on her cracked iPhone, her hand brushing his when she passed the device over. Her palm was calloused, rough from hauling cat carriers and stacking 40-pound bags of feed, and the contact sent a jolt up his arm that he hadn’t felt since he was a teenager sneaking into Maria’s dorm room. He felt stupid, guilty, like he was betraying Maria by even noticing how her eyes crinkled at the corners when she laughed, how her perfume smelled like jasmine and lemon dish soap, how she kept leaning in so their shoulders were almost touching when a group of construction workers yelled too loud across the bar. He kept thinking about the photo of Maria he kept in his wallet, her smile bright, like she was waiting for him to stop moping and live his life again, the way she’d always told him to do if something ever happened to her.
He finished his beer around 8, told her he had to head back to his motel to get up early for another high school playoff game the next morning. He shook her hand, his own palm sweating, and turned to walk out, already kicking himself for being such a coward, for letting seven years of grief turn him into a guy who couldn’t even ask a woman out for a damn cup of coffee. He was halfway to his truck, the cool spring night air hitting his face, the smell of cut grass and fried chicken from the 24-hour diner down the street wrapping around him, when he stopped, turned on his heel, and walked back into the bar before he could talk himself out of it. Lena was still there, scrolling through her phone, and when she looked up and saw him, she raised an eyebrow, a small, knowing smile playing on her lips. He asked her if she wanted to get pancakes at that diner down the street the next morning, before he left town for a scouting trip in Alabama, his voice steadier than he felt.
She nodded so fast her hair fell in her face, grabbing a napkin and a ballpoint pen from behind the bar, scribbling her number on it before sliding it across the bar to him, her fingers lingering on his for a beat longer than necessary. He slipped the napkin into the inner pocket of his worn leather scout’s jacket, right next to the folded photo of Maria he kept there, and walked back out to his truck, the crickets chirping loud in the oak trees lining the street. He unlocked the door, slid into the driver’s seat, and pulled the napkin out again, staring at the messy scrawl of her number, a tiny lopsided drawing of a cat in the corner next to her name. He turned the key in the ignition, the radio flipping on to a 90s country track he and Maria used to dance to in their kitchen after too many margaritas, and smiled, his cheeks tight from how long it had been since he’d done it for something that didn’t involve a kid nailing a perfect 95 mph fastball down the middle of the plate.
