Rafe Ortega, 53, slumps into a cracked vinyl booth at Moe’s Taphouse an hour after the final out of the collegiate summer league game he’d driven three hours to see. A minor league scout for the Cincinnati Reds farm system, he’d spent the last six months courting the 19-year-old left-handed pitcher from Texas A&M San Antonio, only to get a text 20 minutes before first pitch that the kid had signed with a Kansas City Royals affiliate for a $15,000 signing bonus Rafe’s budget couldn’t touch. He’s got a cold draft beer in one hand and a bag of salted peanuts in the other, the air thick with the smell of fried dill pickles, old cigarette smoke trapped in the ceiling tiles, and humid July air seeping through the cracked screen door. His boots are still dust-caked from the ballpark parking lot, his signature worn Reds cap pulled low enough to hide the gray streaks at his temples. He’s halfway through his second beer when the screen door slams open, rain pouring off the brim of a faded straw cowboy hat perched on the head of a woman in a cream linen blouse and high-waisted denim jeans, a stack of library books tucked under one arm.
She slides onto the bar stool three feet from his booth, shaking rain off her sleeves, and orders a frozen margarita with extra salt. Rafe doesn’t mean to stare, but he notices the smudge of ink on her left wrist, the way her damp collar sticks slightly to the curve of her shoulder, the silver baseball charm peeking out from the chain around her neck. She catches him looking 10 minutes later, when he leans forward to grab a peanut off the tray the waitress left, and smirks. “You’re the scout that was yelling at the home plate umpire all game, right? The one who called that third strike on Lopez in the seventh?”
Rafe feels his ears go red. He’s always had a temper on the job, hates bad calls almost as much as he hates losing a recruit. “Guilty. That call cost Lopez the no-hitter he was gunning for. Figured I’d yell enough for both of us.” He nods at the baseball charm around her neck. “You a fan, or just wearing that to mess with guys like me?”
She laughs, a low, warm sound that cuts through the twang of the George Strait track playing on the jukebox, and shifts her stool closer to his booth. Their knees almost brush when she leans in, and Rafe catches the scent of lavender hand lotion and rain on her denim jacket. “My dad played AA ball for the Reds in the 90s. Grew up going to every home game within a two hour drive of our farm. I’m Clara, the new town librarian. Moved here three months ago from Austin.” She reaches across the gap between them to grab a peanut from his bowl, her forearm brushing his bicep, and the contact sends a jolt up Rafe’s spine he hasn’t felt since his ex-wife left him eight years prior.
He’d shut himself off after that, convinced any kind of romantic connection would just end in the same kind of messy, bitter fight that left him living out of a suitcase 10 months out of the year, talking to more teenage ballplayers than people his own age. He tells himself he’s leaving for a scouting gig in Oklahoma in three days, that there’s no point in getting to know her, that she’s just bored of small town life and looking for a distraction. But she keeps talking, telling him stories about her dad’s old minor league mishaps, teasing him about the crumpled scouting report sticking out of his back pocket, asking him questions about what he looks for in a young pitcher that don’t show up on a stat sheet. When she knocks her margarita glass over a half hour later, he grabs a stack of napkins to mop up the mess, his hand brushing hers as they both reach for the soggy coaster under the glass, and she doesn’t pull away.
The rain picks up as the bar empties out, the only sounds left the tap of raindrops on the tin roof and the low hum of the beer cooler behind the bar. Clara tucks a strand of damp hair behind her ear, and nods at the stack of library books next to her stool. “I’ve got my dad’s old game scorebooks at my place, from the three years he played for the Reds farm system. He scribbled notes in the margins of every single one, all the stuff they don’t put in the official records. You wanna come look? I live two blocks away.”
Rafe hesitates for half a second, the old voice in his head yelling that this is a bad idea, that he’ll just leave and break her heart or she’ll leave and break his, that he’s better off sticking to his hotel room and takeout burritos. But he looks at her, at the way she’s biting her lip like she’s nervous he’ll say no, at the smudge of blue ink on her wrist, at the baseball charm glinting in the dim bar light, and he nods. He slings his worn leather scout’s bag over his shoulder, holds the door open for her, and holds his old golf umbrella over both of them when they step out into the rain. She tucks her arm through his to stay close, her shoulder pressed against his, and he feels the tight knot in his chest he’s carried for eight years loosen a little, just enough to let something new in. Their boots squelch in the puddles on the sidewalk, and she laughs when a drop of rain drips off his cap onto her nose, leaning up to wipe it off with the pad of her thumb.
