Manny Ruiz, 62, retired high school woodshop teacher, had dragged his 20-quart stainless steel chili pot to the VFW cookoff only because his former student had begged him for three straight weeks. He’d avoided public events like this for three years, ever since his wife Linda passed, convinced they were just excuses for small town gossip and overcooked food. His biggest flaw, the one Linda had teased him about for 34 years, was that he’d rather spend 10 hours fixing a problem himself than ask for 10 minutes of help. That stubbornness had kept him isolated long after the worst of his grief had faded.
The October air smelled like mesquite smoke and cheap beer, the local cover band fumbling through a Toby Keith track at a volume that made his molars rattle. His booth was squeezed right next to the pie stand, run by a woman he’d recognized immediately: Clara Bennett, ex-wife of Jake Carter, the football captain who’d tripped him in the hallway senior year and called him “shop rat” every chance he got. He’d hated Jake for 40 years, had even turned down a promotion to department head back in 2010 just because Jake was on the school board. The idea of even talking to Clara felt like a betrayal of every petty grudge he’d held, let alone being attracted to her.
He was reaching for a jar of pickled jalapeños when his boot caught on the leg of a folding chair. The jar slipped, shattered on the asphalt, jalapeño brine splattering up his jeans. He swore under his breath, already reaching for the paper towels under his table, when Clara stepped over before he could protest. She was wearing faded Wranglers and a pink flannel tied around her waist, her dark hair streaked with silver pulled back in a loose braid, and she moved so close he could smell cinnamon and lemon Pledge on her shirt, a scent that made his chest feel tight in a way he hadn’t felt in years.
“Hold still, you’ll cut your hand,” she said, kneeling down beside him to pick up the larger shards of glass. Her forearm brushed his when they both reached for the same piece, the skin soft but dotted with tiny calluses from the tomato plants she grew in her front yard, he remembered, because he’d driven past her house a hundred times and seen her out tending them. He froze for half a second, yanking his hand back like he’d been burned, and she raised an eyebrow, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. “Relax. I don’t bite. Not unless you ask nicely, anyway.”
He felt his face heat up, something he hadn’t experienced since he was 17 and asking Linda to prom. He wanted to tell her to go back to her pies, that he could handle it, that he didn’t need help from Jake Carter’s ex-wife. But the words stuck in his throat when she grabbed his wrist, turning his hand over to show him the tiny cut on his palm he hadn’t even noticed, stinging from the jalapeño brine. She dabbed it with a wet napkin, her thumb brushing the edge of the wound gently, and he could see the faint laugh lines around her eyes when she looked up at him. “You always were clumsy. I remember you dropped a two-by-four on Jake’s foot in shop class junior year. Said it was an accident. I always knew you did it on purpose.”
He laughed before he could stop himself. The sound felt foreign, rusty, like a door that hadn’t been opened in years. He admitted he had, in fact, dropped that two-by-four on purpose, and she cackled so loud a few people at the next booth turned to look. They talked for the next two hours, between customers coming to sample his chili or buy her peach pie, the old grudge melting away faster than butter on warm crust. She told him she’d divorced Jake 12 years prior, caught him cheating with her former maid of honor, and she hadn’t spoken to him since. He told her about Linda, about the birdhouses he carved for the local animal shelter, about how he’d almost skipped the cookoff entirely.
When the awards were announced, he got third place for his brisket chili, she got first for her peach pie. They snuck off to the back porch of the VFW as the sun was setting, sharing a slice of her pie and a cold Shiner Bock, the noise of the cookoff fading into the background behind the sound of crickets starting to chirp. He’d spent the last three hours fighting the urge to kiss her, guilt warring with the warm, giddy feeling in his chest, like he was a kid sneaking out after curfew. He didn’t want to be disloyal to Linda, didn’t want the whole town talking about him hooking up with Jake Carter’s ex, but none of that felt important when she leaned in a little closer, her shoulder pressing against his.
“I’ve had a crush on you since sophomore year,” he blurted out before he could talk himself out of it. “You came into the shop to get your locker fixed, and I didn’t say a word the whole time because I was so nervous. Then you started dating Jake, and I figured I’d never get a chance.”
She smiled, leaning in even closer, her breath warm against his cheek. “I waited for you to ask me out that whole week. I thought you were the cutest guy in school, all quiet, always covered in sawdust. When you didn’t, I said yes to Jake just to make you jealous. Stupid, right?”
He kissed her then, slow, the taste of peach pie and beer on her lips, no rush, no pressure. He didn’t care who saw, didn’t care about the old grudge, didn’t care that he’d spent three years convinced he’d never feel this way again. When they pulled apart, she laughed, tucking a stray piece of sawdust that had been stuck in his hair behind his ear, and asked him what he was doing the next day.
He told her he was working on a custom bird feeder for his granddaughter’s 10th birthday, that he had extra cedar planks if she wanted to come over and carve the little perches, help him paint it pink like she’d asked. She said yes, kissed him again, then grabbed the leftover half-slice of pie from the plate between them, sticking a little sun sticker she’d had in her pocket on the plastic lid before handing it to him.
He tucks the leftover slice of peach pie into his cooler, his thumb brushing the tiny hand-drawn sun on the sticker, already counting the hours until he’d see her the next morning.
