Manny Ruiz is 62, a retired high-tension line inspector with 38 years of climbing utility poles through Texas heat, hurricane gales, and the occasional lightning strike that left a silvery, ropy scar snaking up his left forearm from wrist to elbow. He’s lived alone in his cinder-block ranch outside Corpus Christi since his wife left him 12 years prior, his only regular company a three-legged hound named Spark and a shelf of half-restored vintage fishing reels. He avoids crowds on principle, hates small talk, and only showed up to The Salty Spur’s weekly shrimp boil because his old work partner Jimmie all but dragged him out the door, muttering something about key lime pies that’d make him forget he hated people. The fundraiser, for families displaced by the latest Gulf hurricane, packed the bar’s weathered deck wall to wall, the air thick with Old Bay, fried onion, and salt wind that tangled hair and pulled the brims of baseball caps askew. ZZ Top hummed low over the din of shouting kids and clinking beer bottles, the boards under his work boots sticky with spilled soda and melted butter.
He grabbed a Shiner Bock from the keg line and tucked himself into the corner farthest from the live music, planning to drink his beer, grab a pie, and slip out before anyone could corner him into asking how retirement was treating him. The pie table was run by a woman he hadn’t seen before, mid-50s maybe, with sun-streaked brown hair pulled back in a braid and flour smudged on the knee of her jeans, selling slices for ten bucks a pop, all proceeds going to the relief fund. He’d just stepped over a cooler of ice to get to her when his boot caught on a warped deck board, sending him lurching forward, his scarred forearm slamming lightly against hers as he caught himself on the table edge. He mumbled an apology, already bracing for the flinch he usually got when someone felt the raised, rough texture of his scar, but she didn’t pull away. She just smiled, her hazel eyes crinkling at the corners, and nodded at his arm. “Lightning?” she asked, wiping her hands on her apron. He stared at her for a second, surprised. No one had asked him about the scar without looking vaguely horrified in over a decade. “2017, Harvey,” he said, shifting his weight, the cold beer bottle sweating through the paper napkin wrapped around it in his other hand. “Was fixing a downed line outside Victoria, got too close to a re-energized transformer. Knocked me 20 feet off the pole. Only thing that saved me was my harness.”
She handed him a slice of pie in a tinfoil tin, her thumb brushing his when he took it, the callus on the pad of her finger rough from kneading dough, same as the calluses on his own hands from 40 years of gripping wrench handles and climbing spikes. “Clara,” she said, holding out her other hand to shake. “Just moved down here from Portland last spring, opened that little sourdough bakery on Main Street. Tired of the rain. Figured Texas had better weather.” He huffed a laugh, shaking her hand. “Manny. You picked a hell of a year to move down. We had three heat advisories in July alone.” She leaned against the table edge, her shoulder brushing his when a group of teens ran past yelling, and she didn’t shift away. “Yeah, well, the rain got old. Plus, my sister lives down here. I needed a change after my husband passed two years ago.” He nodded, not pushing for more, the way most people did. He knew what it was like to lose the life you thought you’d have, to wake up alone in a house that felt too big. They talked for 20 minutes, standing there by the pie table, him leaning against the splintered wood, her wiping flour off her apron every few seconds, laughing at his stories about climbing poles in 105 degree heat, his old work partner’s habit of bringing pickled okra to every job site. He found himself leaning in when she talked, too, listening when she told him about her sourdough starter she’d had for 15 years, the way she’d had to adjust her recipe for the Gulf humidity.
He’d almost forgotten how easy it was to talk to someone, how it felt when someone looked you in the eye like what you had to say mattered, not like they were just waiting for their turn to talk. The logical part of his brain was screaming at him to leave, that he was too rough around the edges, too broken, too used to being alone to ruin a good thing before it even started. He felt stupid, old, out of practice, like he was making a fool of himself standing there grinning like a teenager at a woman who was way too nice to be wasting her time on him. But he couldn’t make himself leave. The local cover band switched to a slow George Strait track, the kind of song he’d danced to at his wedding, back when he thought he’d have forever with a woman who’d eventually left because he was always on call, always gone, always putting the job first. Clara tilted her head at him, nodding at the small patch of open deck by the speakers where a few other couples were slow dancing. “You wanna?” she asked, her voice just loud enough to hear over the music. He froze, his mouth going dry. He hadn’t danced with anyone in 18 years, not since his ex-wife had stormed off the dance floor at their 20th anniversary party, yelling that he cared more about a downed line outside Laredo than he did about her. He almost said no, almost made up an excuse about his knee acting up, about needing to get home to his dog, but then he saw the little smudge of key lime filling on her left cheek, the way she was twisting the hem of her apron like she was nervous too, and he nodded.
He set his beer and the pie tin on the table, took her hand, and led her out to the dance floor. His hand was sweaty when he rested it on her waist, hers warm on his scarred forearm, their bodies close enough that he could smell the coconut shampoo in her hair, the tang of lime on her breath when she laughed at him when he stepped on the toe of her white canvas sneaker. “Sorry,” he mumbled, his face hot. “I’m real out of practice.” “Me too,” she said, leaning her head a little against his shoulder, her braid brushing his neck. “My husband couldn’t dance to save his life. We stepped on each other’s feet every single time we tried.” They swayed to the music, slow, no rush, the salt wind blowing through their hair, the crowd fading into background noise for a minute. When the song ended, they stayed standing there for a second, close enough that their foreheads were almost touching, and he didn’t overthink it. He leaned down and kissed her, slow, soft, the taste of her cherry lip gloss mixing with the taste of beer on his tongue. A few people whooped from the bar, but he didn’t care. He pulled back, smiling, and she laughed, wiping the lip gloss off his chin with her thumb. He asked her if she wanted to go get breakfast at the 24/7 taco stand down the road the next morning, the one that served carnitas tacos with pickled red onion and lime, and she said yes, scribbling her phone number on the back of a pie receipt and tucking it into the pocket of his faded flannel shirt. He stood there holding the cold pie tin in one hand and the crumpled receipt in the other, watching her walk back to her booth, and for the first time in 12 years, he didn’t feel like running.
