Manny Ruiz, 62, retired third-generation citrus grove manager, had dragged his rusted offset smoker to the town’s summer block party only because his next-door neighbor had showed up on his porch at 7 a.m. with a six-pack of his favorite Mexican lager and begged. He’d spent the three years since his wife Diane passed avoiding crowds, turning down every invite to cookouts, trivia nights, even the annual grove operator reunion he’d never missed before. His biggest flaw, as Diane had pointed out roughly 400 times over their marriage, was that he’d rather stew in silence than admit he was lonely.
He was wiping grease off his calloused hands when he caught sight of her, weaving through the crowd of kids chasing snow cones and retirees arguing over cornhole scores. Elara Voss, 58, Diane’s second cousin, the woman he’d only met once at their 1985 wedding, when she’d been a 20-year-old art student with a half-shaved head and a chip on her shoulder about “stuffy small-town weddings.” She looked different now: silver streaks in her dark curly hair, a smudge of paper glue on her jaw, canvas work boots caked in library dust from the archive restoration project she’d been hired for at the town’s tiny public library. She spotted him before he could duck behind the smoker, and smiled, walking straight over.
The hickory smoke curled between them when she stopped, close enough that her shoulder brushed his bicep when she leaned in to sniff the ribs. He caught jasmine perfume mixed with lemon Pledge, the scent he later learned she used to clean old leather book spines. “You’re Manny, right? Diane’s husband. I’d recognize that rib recipe anywhere, she used to send me tupperwares of it for Christmas when I was in college.” She held his gaze for three beats longer than casual politeness allowed, and he fumbled for a paper plate, his ears hot. He’d spent three years not looking at any woman longer than strictly necessary, had convinced himself even a passing glance was a betrayal. But he couldn’t look away from the crinkles at the corners of her eyes when she laughed at his terrible joke about the cornhole players cheating.
All the picnic tables were full, so they ended up perched on the tailgate of his beat-up 2004 F150, ribs in hand, watching a group of teens set off cheap sparklers by the park gazebo. She told him she restored rare pulp novels for a living, traveled the country for months at a time, had only decided to take this job because she’d always loved visiting Diane as a kid. She brought up the tiki bar he’d rambled about building at the wedding, the one he’d spent two years constructing in his backyard with Diane, the one he’d locked up and left untouched the day she died. “Diane used to send me photos of it every Fourth of July, said you made the best mai tais this side of Oahu. She always said you’d let it rot before you let anyone else use it, though.” The teasing was light, but it hit him square in the chest. He’d spent three years treating every memory of Diane like something fragile, something he couldn’t share without breaking it.
He didn’t remember agreeing to bring her back to his place, but the next thing he knew, he was fumbling with the padlock on the tiki bar’s bamboo gate, fireflies blinking through the oak trees in his backyard. He lit the tiki torches along the counter, pulled out the vintage blender Diane had bought him for their 25th anniversary, mixed two mai tais with the leftover lime and coconut syrup he’d stashed in the back of his pantry months ago, forgotten. She ran her fingers over the carved tiki statues he’d made himself from old citrus wood, her knuckles brushing his when she reached for her glass. Their feet knocked together under the counter, and neither of them moved away.
He admitted the guilt first, quiet, staring at the ice melting in his drink. Said he’d felt like even talking to another woman was cheating, like he was supposed to sit alone in his house forever waiting for something he couldn’t name. She leaned in, her elbow resting on the counter next to his, and her hand covered his for two full seconds, warm, calloused from handling old books, no hesitation. “Diane would have driven over here with a baseball bat if she knew you were holed up in that house alone, not using the bar you both built. She always told me you were too stubborn for your own good.”
They talked until the torches burned low, the crickets loud in the surrounding groves, the sweet smell of orange blossoms drifting over the fence from the abandoned grove down the road. He walked her to her beat-up Subaru parked at the end of his driveway, and when she leaned in to kiss his cheek, he didn’t flinch. He leaned in too, kissed her slow, the taste of coconut rum and the maraschino cherry from her mai tai on her lips, soft, no rush. She laughed when they pulled away, tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, told him she was in town for three more weeks, had a rental cabin out by the lake with a porch big enough for a smoker. Asked if he wanted to bring ribs tomorrow night. He nodded, didn’t even hesitate.
He stood in the driveway until her taillights disappeared around the bend, then turned back toward the tiki bar, the remaining torches casting warm golden light over the bamboo counter. He didn’t lock the gate when he walked past it, left the torches burning for the first time in three years.
