Manny Ruiz is 58, a retired commercial abalone diver who’s run a cluttered bait and tackle shop on Monterey’s Old Fisherman’s Wharf for the last decade. He lost the tip of his left index finger to a rogue crab pot in 2008, has a thin, silvery scar wrapping 10 inches up his right forearm from a great white that nicked him mid-dive three years later, and has not so much as asked a woman out for coffee since his wife left him for a real estate agent in 2011. His biggest flaw is that he’s convinced his rough, salt-crusted edges are too much for anyone who doesn’t spend their days covered in fish guts and boat grease, so he’s spent the last 12 years actively avoiding even casual flirtation, even when the regulars at the waterfront bar tease him nonstop about it.
He’d only come to the fire department’s annual fish fry fundraiser because his nephew was volunteering at the grill, and he owed the kid a new fishing rod for helping him restock the shop’s freezer the previous weekend. The sun was dipping low over the bay, painting the water streaks of tangerine and pale purple, and the air smelled like charcoal smoke, fried catfish, and briny wind off the waves. A local cover band was hammering through a rough version of *Folsom Prison Blues*, and plastic cups of cheap light beer were being passed around faster than the plates of hushpuppies.
He was leaning against a pine tree, sipping beer and watching a group of kids chase each other with sparklers, when he felt an elbow brush his bicep. He turned, and there was Clara Bennett, the new town librarian who’d moved to Monterey from Portland three months prior. He’d avoided her like the plague since he checked out a 1972 copy of *Diving Logs of the Central California Coast* from her branch in June, and still hadn’t returned it. She was 52, wore flowy linen dresses and scuffed white sneakers, had a streak of silver in her dark brown hair that she always tucked behind her ear when she laughed, and Manny had spent three months telling himself she was way too soft, too put-together, too interested in poetry and quiet afternoons to give a guy like him the time of day.
She was holding a paper plate stacked with catfish, and she leaned in close enough that he could smell lavender hand lotion and coconut sunscreen on her skin, her shoulder pressed to his to be heard over the band. “I’ve been wondering when I’d run into you,” she yelled, grinning, and Manny’s throat went dry. He fumbled for a second, nearly dropping his beer, and she laughed, not unkind, when he wiped a drop of spilled lager off his flannel shirt. “That diving book you checked out is 78 days overdue, by the way. I’ve had to fend off three old surfers who wanted to check it out already.”
He flushed, the permanent sunburn on his cheekbones darkening. “Uh. I’ve been using it as a coaster on my shop counter. The margin notes are better than any tide chart I’ve ever bought.” He paused, then blurted the first thing that popped into his head. “Your nail polish is the same color as the water off Point Lobos on a calm day.” He wanted to kick himself the second the words left his mouth, but she looked down at her chipped pale blue nails, then back up at him, and her smile softened. She held out a hushpuppy to him, and their fingers brushed when he took it; her skin was cool, soft, a stark contrast to his calloused, scarred hands.
The band shifted to a slower, wobbly cover of Patsy Cline’s *Crazy*, and a few couples drifted into the open space between the picnic tables to dance. Clara tilted her head, the silver streak in her hair catching the last of the sun, and nodded at the dance floor. “You dance?” Manny laughed, sharp and self-deprecating. “Haven’t danced since my wedding. I’m terrible. I step on feet. I trip over my own boots.” She shrugged, wiped a crumb of catfish off her lip, and held out her hand. “I don’t mind. I’ve had three beers. I’ll probably step on yours first.”
He hesitated for half a second, every alarm in his head blaring that he was going to make a fool of himself, that she was just being nice, that this would end with her never talking to him again. But he took her hand anyway. She pulled him into the crowd, and he stiffened at first, keeping a full six inches between them, until a kid darted past holding a melting cherry snow cone, and he had to pull her closer to avoid the kid slamming into her. His scarred forearm brushed her waist, and he could feel the heat of her skin through the thin linen of her dress. She looked up at him, her dark eyes warm, and when she spoke her voice was low, just loud enough for him to hear over the music. “I’ve been stopping by your shop every other week pretending to ask about fishing licenses because I wanted to talk to you. I thought you hated me.”
Manny froze mid-step, nearly tripping over his own work boot like he’d predicted. “Hated you? I’ve been leaving extra copies of the new tide chart on my front counter every week hoping you’d come in. I thought you thought I was just some grumpy old diver who never returned books.” She laughed, quiet, and rested her head on his shoulder for half a second, the scent of her lotion wrapping around him. The crowd around them faded, the band’s off-key vocals, the hoots from his regulars who’d spotted them dancing, the yells of the kids, all of it faded to background noise for a minute.
When the song ended, he didn’t let go of her hand. He walked her back to her small cottage a few blocks from the wharf, stopping by his shop on the way to grab the overdue diving book, and a small, polished abalone shell he’d pulled up on his last dive before he retired, the inside swirled with streaks of blue and purple and gold, the same color as the sunset they’d just watched. He handed her both when they got to her front steps, and she turned the shell over in her hands, running a finger over the smooth iridescent surface. She leaned in, kissed his cheek, soft and warm, and tucked the shell into the pocket of her dress. “Come over tomorrow at 10. I’ll make coffee. And I won’t charge you the late fee.”
He stood on the sidewalk watching her lock her front door, the light from her porch lamp gilding the edges of her hair, and he didn’t move until he saw the light in her kitchen flip on. He stuffed his hands into the pockets of his work jeans, the corner of his mouth tugging up into a grin he hadn’t felt in 12 years, and turned to walk back to his small trailer parked behind the shop.
