Manny Ruiz, 52, has spent the last decade turning his grandma’s habanero recipes into a small hot sauce empire that sells out at Texas craft beer festivals within three hours of setup. His biggest flaw? He holds grudges until they rot in his bones, so much so he’s skipped half the local food events he’s invited to just to avoid Lena Marlow, his ex-wife’s former best friend, the woman he swore ratted him out to the health department back in 2011, costing him his line cook job and $1,200 in fines he could barely afford.
The Dripping Springs fall beer fest is cool enough that he’s wearing his faded pearl snap flannel, string lights strung between oak trees glowing gold over tables of hazy IPAs and smoked brisket sliders. He’s wiping up a spill of his extra hot ghost pepper blend when he hears a sharp clatter, and looks up to find Lena standing in front of his table, a splotch of bright red sauce blooming on the cuff of her cream cashmere sweater, a half-empty pear cider in her other hand. She’s close enough he can smell cedar perfume and crushed mint on her, no heavy makeup like he remembered from his ex’s holiday parties, dark hair pulled back in a messy braid, chipped sage-green nail polish, dirt crusted under the edges of her nails from the landscape design job she’s held for 15 years.
He’s halfway to a snarky comment about her being clumsy on purpose when she laughs, soft and sheepish, and says she’s been trying to track down his booth for an hour, she’s heard his mango habanero is good enough to make you forget your own name. The snark dies in his throat. He blinks, says, “Thought you hated everything I did. You’re the one who called the health department on me back when I was selling sauce out of my F-150, remember?”
Her smile drops. She shifts her weight, steps closer so the crowd milling past doesn’t bump into her, her shoulder brushing his bicep through the flannel. “I didn’t call them, Manny. That was your ex’s new boyfriend, the one who worked at the restaurant with you? He hated that you were making extra cash on the side, thought you’d quit and leave him with the closing shifts. I even dropped $600 in your mailbox a week later to cover half the fine, with a note explaining. You never called.”
His chest goes tight. He remembers the envelope, thought it was a prank, threw it in the trash without opening it. 12 years of hating her, for nothing. He stares at her, the way her cheeks are pink from the cool wind, the small silver hoop earring in her left ear, the way she’s holding eye contact like she’s been waiting to say that for years. He grabs a wet wipe from the stack on his table, holds it out to her to clean the sauce off her sweater, and their fingers brush when she takes it. Her skin is colder than his, calloused at the knuckles from hauling stone for her garden projects, and the jolt that runs up his arm is so sharp he almost drops the rest of the wipes.
He asks her if she wants to ditch the festival, go around the corner to his taco truck he keeps parked out there, says he’s got fresh carnitas he slow roasted all morning and a bottle of his 2-year aged habanero reserve he only pulls out for people he doesn’t hate. She grins, grabs his arm, her hand warm even through the thick flannel, and says she’d like that a lot.
They walk through the oak grove, crunching dry fallen leaves under their boots, her shoulder brushing his every few steps. She tells him about the native pollinator garden she’s building at the local elementary school, complains about the parent volunteer who keeps trying to plant non-native roses that will die in the Texas heat, and he tells her about his plan to launch a limited edition prickly pear sauce next year, using fruit from his cousin’s ranch outside of San Antonio. When they get to the truck, he turns on the tiny string lights strung inside the back, pulls out two paper plates piled high with carnitas, corn tortillas, and pickled red onions, and they sit on the tailgate, their knees knocking together every time one of them shifts to take a bite.
By the time they finish the tacos, the sun’s gone all the way down, and the sky’s dark enough you can see stars through the oak leaves. She pulls a small jar of wildflower honey from her tote bag, says she keeps bees in her backyard, it pairs perfect with extra hot sauce, cuts the burn without killing the flavor. She writes her phone number on the back of her business card, scribbled in blue ink, and hands it to him, her fingers brushing his again. She leans in, presses a quick, soft kiss to his cheek, her lips warm against his stubble, before she walks to her SUV parked a few spots over.
He stands there holding the honey jar in one hand and the business card in the other, watching her taillights fade down the dirt road, and pops the lid off the honey to dip his index finger in, the sweet, floral taste bursting across his tongue sharp enough to drown out the last of that 12-year old bitter grudge he’d been carrying like a weight.
