Manny Ruiz, 53, minor league baseball scout for the Rangers’ Double-A affiliate, had only agreed to come to the town’s annual hot rod and barbecue festival to shut his abuela up. She’d called him three times that week, complaining her knees hurt too bad to push through the crowd to get her favorite brisket from the food truck run by the Gonzales boys, and he’d caved, even though he’d avoided the festival for 30 years straight. He wore his usual uniform: faded khaki cargo pants, a frayed Rangers ballcap pulled low over his salt-and-pepper curls, scuffed white New Balances caked with dust from the dozen high school baseball fields he’d visited that week. He was perched on a splintered picnic table in the beer garden, sweating through his t-shirt, nursing a frosty Shiner Bock, when the woman sat down next to him.
She was close enough that her denim shorts brushed his bare calf when she shifted, and he caught a whiff of coconut sunscreen, smoked brisket, and cherry seltzer before he even looked up. When he did, he recognized her immediately: Lena Voss, ex-wife of Jake Voss, the same asshole who’d stolen his prom date back in 1992. He tensed, ready to stand up and move to another table, but she laughed, low and warm, and tapped the side of his shoe with hers. “Those are the same New Balances you wore senior year, right? Jake used to make fun of them for being so beat up. Said you were too cheap to buy new ones.”
Manny’s jaw tightened, half out of old anger, half out of surprise she even remembered. He’d not spoken to a single person connected to Jake in three decades, had gone out of his way to avoid any family functions or local events he thought the guy might attend, and now here was his ex-wife, leaning in so close her elbow knocked his when she reached for a stack of napkins on the table, her hazel eyes crinkling at the corners like she was in on a joke he’d never heard. “I don’t throw away stuff that still works,” he said, and was shocked when she laughed so hard she snort-laughed, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.
She told him she’d divorced Jake six months prior, after catching him cheating on her with a 22-year-old high school cheer coach, the third time he’d stepped out in their 21 years of marriage. She said she’d seen Manny at half a dozen local baseball games over the past two years, yelling at umpires for bad calls, scribbling notes in that beat up leather notebook he always carried, and had been too nervous to walk over and say hi, worried he’d write her off as just another Voss. Manny’s chest twisted, part of him disgusted that he was even sitting here talking to her, that part of him was thrilled at the idea of getting one over on Jake even if the guy had no idea it was happening, but the other part of him liked how she didn’t treat his scouting job like a silly, dead-end hobby, how she asked specific questions about the left-handed pitcher he’d been scouting out of Uvalde, how she didn’t flinch when he told her he spent 10 months a year living out of his pickup truck.
The sun dipped below the oak trees lining the fairgrounds, and the first firework went off with a sharp crack, painting the sky neon pink. The crowd around them surged to their feet, cheering, and Lena grabbed his wrist to yank him up with her, so they wouldn’t get separated by the group of drunk teens pushing past to get a better view. Her palm was warm and calloused, he noticed, from the custom woodworking she told him she did out of her garage, and when she pressed close to his side to avoid a guy carrying a stack of beer cups, her chest brushed his arm for a split second, and he forgot all about Jake, all about the prom date he’d lost, all about the grudge he’d carried around for 30 years like a weighted blanket.
She tilted her chin up to look at him, the light from the fireworks painting her cheeks gold, and said she’d wanted to kiss him ever since she saw him chew out a college recruiter for badmouthing a 17-year-old kid from a low-income neighborhood who’d pitched a perfect game the week before. He didn’t overthink it. He leaned down and kissed her, tasted cherry seltzer and the faint tang of smoke on her lips, and when she tangled her fingers in the curls sticking out from under his ballcap, he didn’t pull away.
The fireworks ended 20 minutes later, and the crowd dispersed, laughing and yelling as they headed for their cars. Lena laced her fingers through his as they walked through the dust to his beat up Ford F-150, and he didn’t let go. He unlocked the passenger door for her, and she climbed in, rolling the window down as he rounded the front of the truck. He pulled the crumpled, faded photo of him and his old prom date at their senior shoot, the one he’d carried in his wallet for 31 years as a reminder not to let anyone get close, out of his pocket, and tossed it in a nearby overflowing trash can. He climbed in the driver’s seat, turned the key, and she rested her hand on his thigh as he pulled out of the parking lot, heading for the taco stand on the edge of town that stayed open till 2 a.m.
