The folding table dug into his ribs. Manny Ruiz shifted, popping his left knee with a sharp crack that made the old vet sitting next to him wince. 62, 38 years as a county utility lineman, he still carried twice his weight in calluses and scar tissue, even three years after he hung up his climbing spikes for good. His late wife Linda had teased him for decades that he was too stubborn to admit when he was hurt, and she’d been right: he’d carried a folding chair for that same vet ten minutes earlier, ignoring the throb in his knee that had been getting worse since the weather turned cold, because asking for help felt like surrender. The fire station fish fry was the only monthly event he bothered showing up to, usually sitting alone, eating his cod and coleslaw, and leaving before the raffle drawing to avoid the well-meaning neighbors who kept trying to set him up with their sisters, their cousins, their widowed coworkers. He’d turned them all down, every time, convinced that dating again would be a betrayal of the 34 years he’d had with Linda, that he was too old, too set in his ways, too broken to be worth anyone’s time.
The seat across from him scraped against the linoleum before he could look up. “Sorry, every other table’s full,” a woman said, sliding into the spot, her elbow brushing the sleeve of his faded flannel as she set her paper plate down. She smelled like lavender and lemon polish, the kind Linda used to use on the oak kitchen table they’d bought the year they got married. Manny tensed, his jaw tightening, ready to mumble some excuse about saving the seat for someone, but then he looked up. Hazel eyes, flecked with green, streaks of silver in her dark brown hair pulled back in a loose braid, a smudge of ink on the side of her thumb. “Clara,” she said, holding out a hand. “Just moved to town last month, took over the librarian job at the downtown branch.”
He shook her hand, his calloused palm wrapping around her smaller, softer one, and felt a jolt run up his arm that had nothing to do with the old electrical work he’d done half his life. He pulled his hand back fast, crumpling a paper napkin in his fist so hard his knuckles turned white, angry at himself for the spark of heat he felt in his chest, disgusted that he was even looking at another woman like that when Linda’s photo was still on his dash, still on his fridge, still on the nightstand next to his bed. “Manny,” he said, staring at his half-eaten hushpuppy like it held the secrets of the universe. “Retired lineman.”
She laughed, a soft, warm sound that cut through the hum of the portable speaker playing 80s country and the roar of the crowd yelling over the football game on the old TV in the corner. “I thought so,” she said, nodding at his hands. “My dad was a lineman for 40 years out in Toledo. Had the exact same calluses on his palms, the exact same scar across his left knuckle from dropping a wrench on a transformer.” She nodded at the bottle of hot sauce between them, the local homemade stuff that was so spicy it made his eyes water every time he ate it. “That any good?”
He pushed it across the table, their fingers brushing again when she grabbed it, and this time he didn’t flinch. “Tastes like battery acid,” he said, and she laughed again, loud enough that the couple at the next table glanced over. She knocked her knee against his under the table by accident when she shifted to reach for a napkin, and apologized, but he waved her off. “Knee’s busted,” he said, tapping it. “Fell off a pole during the 2019 blizzard, trying to get power back to the nursing home on the west side. Barely feel it half the time anyway.”
He didn’t know why he was telling her that. He didn’t tell most people that, didn’t like admitting he was weak, that he couldn’t climb a ladder higher than six feet anymore without his knee screaming. But she was listening, leaning forward a little, her elbow on the table, her chin in her hand, no pity in her eyes, just interest. He told her about the time he’d gotten stuck on a pole for two hours during a thunderstorm, about the time his crew had pranked the new hire by gluing his climbing spikes to the floor of the truck, about Linda bringing him sandwiches to the job site every Friday for 20 years, and she laughed at the dumb jokes, asked follow up questions, didn’t look bored for a second.
When the volunteer came around with a tray of coconut cream pie slices for the fundraiser, he didn’t even think before he asked if she wanted one. She said yes, grinning, and when he stood up to get two slices, his knee buckled a little, and she put her hand on his arm to steady him, her palm warm through the thin flannel, and he didn’t pull away. The pie was sweet, the whipped cream light, and when she got a smudge of it on the corner of her mouth, he almost reached over to wipe it off, before he caught himself. She told him about the western novel book club she was starting at the library, for people who loved Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey, and he told her he had a whole shelf of L’Amour paperbacks in his den that he hadn’t touched since Linda died, that she’d bought him a new one every year for his birthday.
“Come to the first meeting,” she said, when she stood up to leave, the sky outside turning dark pink and orange as the sun set. She pulled a pen out of her pocket, scribbled her phone number on a crumpled napkin, and tucked it into the breast pocket of his flannel, her fingers brushing the stubble on his jaw for half a second, light as a feather. “I’ll save you a spot.”
He nodded, too stunned to say anything, and watched her walk to her beat up blue Subaru, waving over her shoulder before she got in. He sat there for another ten minutes, finishing his pie, the napkin crinkling in his pocket every time he breathed. When he got in his truck, he pulled it out, stared at the scrawled numbers, the little smiley face she’d drawn next to it. He turned the key in the ignition, the radio kicking on with a Johnny Cash song he and Linda used to dance to in the kitchen after the kids went to bed, and smiled for the first time in months that wasn’t forced for the grandkids.
