Manny Ruiz, 53, makes his living restoring vintage campers out of a cinder block workshop tucked between oak trees outside Asheville, North Carolina. His worst flaw is he can’t say no—he’s fixed a stranger’s lawnmower at 9 p.m. on a Saturday, driven two hours to pick up a free water heater for the elderly widow down the road, even skipped his own 50th birthday dinner to help a friend haul a broken down truck. His ex-wife left him eight years ago for that exact reason, telling him he cared more about every random person in the county than he ever cared about her. He’s mostly kept to himself since, spending his days sanding aluminum siding and refinishing reclaimed barn wood for cabinet trim, his nights drinking cheap beer and watching old Westerns alone on his couch.
He’s at the county fire station’s annual chili cookoff only because the chief begged him to man the dessert judging table, and he couldn’t find a good enough excuse to turn him down. The mid-October air bites at his cheeks, sharp with the smell of spiced meat, burnt hot dog buns, and wood smoke curling out of the fire pit off to the side. He’s wearing the same oil-stained Carhartt jacket he wears to work, boots still caked with pine sap from hauling a water-damaged 1972 Airstream he picked up three days prior. The foam cup in his hand holds lukewarm domestic beer, and he’s half considering slipping out early when she walks up.
Her name is Lena. She moved into the 40-acre farm adjacent to his property two months ago with her husband, the quiet guy who wears camouflage hats and never waves when he passes Manny on the dirt road. She’s carrying a chipped ceramic crockpot in both hands, high-waisted jeans caked with garden mud, a faded red flannel tied around her waist, dark hair pulled back in a loose braid. She holds the crockpot out toward him, and when she leans in to speak over the wail of the fire truck siren blaring for a kid’s demonstration, her shoulder brushes his upper arm. He smells lavender shampoo and pine on her, warm and bright against the smoky cookoff air.
She says she’s been meaning to stop by his shop for weeks, to ask if he can fix the beat-up 1990s pop-up camper they found rotting in the back barn of their property. Her hazel eyes crinkle at the corners when she laughs, and she keeps glancing down at his hands, calloused, a fresh scab on his left knuckle from where he’d scraped it on a rusted trailer hitch that morning. When she lifts the lid of the crockpot to pass him a sample of her peach cobbler, their fingers brush when he takes the paper plate from her. Her skin is softer than anything he’s touched in years. He takes a bite, and the cinnamon and sweet, ripe peach taste like a summer he forgot he ever had. She says her husband hates peach cobbler, calls it “old lady food,” poured an entire batch she made last week down the sink before she could even offer him a bite. Manny’s chest tightens. That’s the dumbest thing he’s ever heard.
The fire chief grabs the mic a few minutes later, announces her cobbler won first place in the dessert contest. She cheers so loud she snorts a little, and wraps her arms around his neck before she thinks better of it, her chest pressed warm against his, the curve of her hip fitting right against his. She pulls back fast, cheeks pink, but she doesn’t step away. The chief hands her a $100 hardware store gift card and a free weekend pass to the national forest campground an hour up the mountain. She twists the pass between her fingers, glances up at him, says her husband’s going on a deer hunting trip next weekend, says he’d rather sleep in a ditch than a camper anyway. She asks if he can fix the pop-up by Thursday, if he’d want to come up with her to test it out, make sure it doesn’t leak.
For half a second, his default people-pleaser instinct kicks in, ready to say no, to do the “right” thing, to avoid being the guy who crosses a line with a married woman. But he’s spent eight years saying yes to everyone else, denying himself every small thing he’s wanted, and this feels like the first thing in a decade that doesn’t feel like an obligation. He nods, says he can fix the pop-up by Thursday, says he’ll bring extra blankets, the mountain nights drop into the 30s this time of year.
She scribbles her cell number on a crumpled napkin, tucks it into the front pocket of his Carhartt, her fingers brushing the edge of his undershirt under the jacket fabric. She says she’ll see him at 9 a.m. Thursday, then turns to walk toward her group of friends by the fire pit. Manny stands there for a full minute, his fingers pressed to the napkin through his jacket, the taste of peach still lingering on his tongue. He’d forgotten he was supposed to be judging the rest of the dessert entries until the chief claps him on the back, asks him what he thinks of the apple pie entry from the 4-H kids. He lifts his beer to his mouth, takes a slow, cold sip, and doesn’t bother making up an excuse to leave early.
