Manny Ruiz, 62, retired air traffic controller, stands in line at the weekly VFW fish fry like he has every Friday for 18 years. His order never changes: two pieces of beer-battered cod, vinegar-doused coleslaw, three hushpuppies, one cold draft Coors. He wears the same faded navy flannel every time, sleeves rolled to show the scar on his left forearm from a 1987 National Guard training accident, and he always sits at the same corner table facing the door, so he can see everyone coming and going. It’s a routine he’s clung to since his wife Linda passed seven years prior, amplified by the hyper-vigilance he never shook after a 2011 near-miss on his shift left him second-guessing every small, unplanned choice.
The first thing he notices about the new woman in line is her laugh, loud and unapologetic, cutting through the hum of old war stories and the crackle of the deep fryer. She’s standing two spots ahead, wearing a well-worn plaid flannel, steel-toe work boots caked in dog hair, her dark hair pulled back in a loose braid streaked with silver at the temples. When the bartender calls her order under the name Carter, he connects the dots: that’s Joe Carter’s daughter, Clara, who he’d heard moved back to town six months prior to care for her dad after his stroke. Joe’s been his closest friend since the Guard, and Manny still remembers teaching 10-year-old Clara to skip stones at the county lake back in 1992, her pigtails flying as she chased rocks across the water.
A jolt of sharp, unwanted heat hits him when she turns, meets his eye, and smiles, crinkles fanning out at the corners of her hazel eyes. He looks away fast, face warm, equal parts embarrassed and hungry for another glance. It feels wrong, looking at Joe’s kid like that, like he’s breaking some unspoken brotherhood rule, even though he knows she’s 52, owns her own mobile pet grooming business, lives alone in the cottage down the street from her dad’s house.
She grabs her tray a minute before he does, and when he turns to head to his usual table, she’s standing right there, holding her plate, nodding at the empty seat across from him. “All the other tables are full,” she says, and he can smell coconut shampoo and fried cod on her when she leans in a little to be heard over the crowd. “Mind if I crash? Dad kept saying I’d run into you here.”
He nods, unable to find his voice for a beat, and pulls the chair out for her. She sits, sets her plate down, and her elbow brushes his when she reaches for the malt vinegar on the table. The contact is brief, just a split second of warm skin through flannel, but he feels it all the way up his arm. He notices the faint scar across her left knuckle, calluses on her fingers from handling dog clippers all day, chipped pale blue polish on her nails.
They talk for 45 minutes straight, no lulls. She tells him about the golden retriever that bit her last month, how her dad’s been driving her crazy with his stubborn refusal to go to physical therapy, how she still remembers that lake day, spent the rest of that summer practicing until she could get seven skips in a row. He tells her about the tomato garden he grows in his backyard, the 1978 Ford F-150 he’s been restoring in his garage, how he hasn’t been out to the lake in three years, because he kept overthinking every possible thing that could go wrong.
When she leans across the table to pluck a hushpuppy off his plate, her hair falls forward, brushing his forearm, and he can feel the heat of her shoulder less than an inch from his. She holds eye contact the whole time, no smile this time, just a soft, steady look that makes his chest tight. “Dad’s been nagging me for weeks to ask you out,” she says, quiet enough that no one at the next table can hear. “Said you’re the only good man left in this town he trusts not to waste my time. I was scared you’d think it was weird, given how long you’ve known him.”
Relief hits him so hard he almost laughs out loud. He’d spent the last hour fighting the urge to reach across the table and touch her hand, convinced he was crossing a line, that Joe would never speak to him again if he found out he was interested in his daughter. “I thought the same thing,” he admits, letting his hand rest on the table close enough that his pinky brushes hers. “Didn’t want to make things weird between me and your dad.”
She grins, laces her fingers through his, her hand warm, a little rough, perfect. “He’s the one who told me to sit here, dummy. Said if I didn’t make a move today, he was gonna corner you at his next physical therapy appointment and badger you until you asked me out yourself.”
They finish their food long after the fryer’s been turned off, most other patrons already heading home. He walks her out to her truck, cool October air stinging his cheeks, and she leans up against the driver’s side door, still holding his hand. There’s a sticker of a goofy golden retriever on the back window, her license plate frame says “I <3 My Grooming Clients” in bubble letters. She leans up, kisses him on the cheek first, soft, then on the mouth, and she tastes like lemonade and beer, lips chapped a little from the wind. He puts his free hand on her waist, and she sighs into the kiss, pressing closer for a second before pulling back.
She scribbles her phone number on a crumpled napkin from her pocket, shoves it into his flannel shirt pocket, taps it with her finger. “I’ll pick you up at 10 a.m. Saturday,” she says, grinning. “We’re going to the lake. I’m gonna beat your skip stone record, just so you know.”
He tucks the napkin deeper into his pocket, watches her climb into her truck, wave through the window, and pull out of the parking lot. For the first time since that 2011 near-miss, he doesn’t run through a list of worst-case scenarios for Saturday, doesn’t overthink whether he should bring a jacket, snacks, or a first aid kit, doesn’t worry that something will go wrong if he steps outside his usual routine.
He turns to walk to his own truck, the crumpled napkin with her number pressing warm against his chest through the flannel.
