Manny Rios, 62, retired Texas highway patrol K9 handler, leaned against the splintered wooden leg of his chili cookoff booth and sipped warm Shiner Bock from a dented can. He’d only shown up because his former patrol partner had begged him to enter his brisket chili, swearing it’d beat the church ladies’ bland, bean-heavy slop for the third year running. Four years after his wife’s cancer took her, he still avoided most small-town events, hated the pitying looks, the unsubtle attempts to set him up with every widowed woman within a 20-mile radius. His personality flaw, if you asked his sister, was that he’d built a wall so thick around his routine of fixing up decommissioned patrol jeeps and running his old K9’s old training trails that he wouldn’t let anyone crack it even if they tried.
The air reeked of smoked paprika, charcoal, and the sweet, fermented tang of pickled jalapeños. A mariachi band played off by the park pavilion, their trumpets cutting through the hum of chatter, and peanut shells crunched under his work boots every time he shifted his weight. He was halfway to packing up his leftover chili, ready to bail before the senior line dance started, when a woman stepped up to his booth, leaning in so close the shoulder of her faded denim work shirt brushed his forearm.
Lena Marquez, 58, the new county extension agent who’d moved to town six months prior, held out a paper sample cup, her nails painted a muted terracotta, no frills, no chipping. She smelled like jasmine hand lotion and citrus seltzer, not the powdery old lady perfume he’d come to associate with every woman who’d tried to flirt with him since his wife died. “Heard this is the only chili here that won’t make me reach for a gallon of milk immediately,” she said, grinning, the corners of her eyes crinkling with faint sun lines.
Manny grunted, ladling a scoop into her cup, his knuckles brushing hers when he passed it over. He told himself he shouldn’t notice how her high-waisted jeans fit, how a strand of gray-streaked dark hair fell across her face when she bent to blow on the chili. He’d spent four years shutting down any flicker of interest, disgusted with himself for even considering seeing someone else, like it was a betrayal of the 32 years he’d had with his wife.
She took a sip, hummed low in her throat, and nodded. “Worth the walk across the park. The Baptist booth’s chili tasted like canned tomato soup and regret.” She leaned against the booth next to him, their shoulders pressed together now, no space between them, when a group of kids ran past, nearly knocking over his stack of sample cups. He didn’t move away.
They talked for 45 minutes, about the drought that was killing the live oaks on the west side of town, about the dumbest calls he’d responded to on patrol, about the half-restored 2008 Ford Crown Victoria patrol jeep she’d bought at a county auction three weeks prior, the one she had no clue how to fix up. He tensed up when she asked if he’d be willing to show her the basics—working on jeeps was his thing, his private ritual, the only thing that made the quiet of his empty house bearable.
A gust of wind blew charcoal smoke directly into his face, making his eyes water. Before he could reach up to rub them, her hand was on his temple, brushing a strand of gray hair off his forehead, her fingers warm, calloused at the tips from working in community gardens. She held eye contact for two full beats longer than she needed to, her thumb brushing the edge of his eyebrow before she pulled her hand away. “Sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all.
Manny didn’t say anything for a second, the weight of four years of stubborn loneliness fighting the quiet, thrumming desire to let someone in, to stop acting like his life ended when his wife’s did. He grabbed a crumpled chili recipe card from the edge of the booth, scribbled his cell number and his address on the back, and passed it to her. “Swing by my place Saturday morning, 9 a.m. I’ve got all the parts you’ll need for that Crown Vic. Don’t be late.”
She tucked the card in the breast pocket of her denim shirt, grinning so wide he could see the faint gap between her two front teeth. “I’ll bring peach cobbler. Homemade. My grandma’s recipe.” She nodded once, turned, and walked back toward the extension agent booth, her boots kicking up a small cloud of dust on the park path.
Manny took a long sip of his beer, watching her go, and for the first time in four years, he didn’t feel guilty for looking forward to something new. He picked up his ladle, served a sample to a kid with a face smudged with barbecue sauce, and smiled.
