Manny Ruiz, 52, has spent the last eight years splitting his time between dusty minor league dugouts and the quiet three-bedroom ranch he bought after his wife’s cancer took her. He hates crowded events, hates small talk, hates the way neighbors always ask if he’s “seeing anyone yet” like his life is a half-finished roster he just needs to sign a new player to fix. His cousin drags him to the town fire department’s annual rib cookoff on an 82-degree July Saturday, and Manny goes only because his cousin promises there’s cold craft beer and no one will bug him about his love life for at least two hours. The sun beats warm on his bare forearms, and the air smells like hickory smoke and fried pickles the second he walks through the gate.
He’s wearing the frayed navy scout’s jacket he’s had since 2017, a crumpled notebook full of batting averages and arm strength metrics tucked in the inner pocket, a lukewarm IPA in one hand, when he reaches for a wet wipe at the condiment table at the same time as a woman with sun-streaked brown hair and a faded Def Leppard tank top. Their knuckles brush. The contact is quick, electric, and Manny pulls his hand back like he’s touched a hot grill before he looks up.
It’s Jenna Marlow. His old high school teammate’s little sister. He hasn’t seen her since he was 24, driving over to pick her brother up for summer league games, and she was 16, slamming the front door in his face because he’d hidden her favorite stuffed seal in the dryer the week before. He’s about to mumble an apology and bolt, when she grins, the laugh lines around her hazel eyes crinkling, and says his name like she’s been waiting to run into him for months.
The first thought that hits him is that this is wrong. He’s always thought of her as a snotty kid with a mouth too big for her face, the type to throw water balloons at him and his friends when they were hanging out in the driveway. But now she’s leaning against the table, one hip propped against the edge, close enough that he can smell vanilla body wash mixed with the hickory smoke hanging thick in the air, and he can’t look away from the smudge of barbecue sauce on the left side of her jaw.
She teases him about the notebook, says she remembers him scribbling in it nonstop back when he’d camp out on their porch waiting for her brother, that she’d sneak peeks at the stats when he left it sitting out. She says she’s been following his work, saw the shortstop he drafted out of the local high school last year is tearing up Single A in South Carolina, that her 12-year-old son who plays travel ball begs her to ask Manny for tips when he hears his name mentioned on the local sports radio.
They drift over to an empty picnic bench set back from the crowd, under a gnarled old oak tree. She tells him she got divorced two years ago, moved back to town to open a small bakery on Main Street, that she makes snickerdoodle cookies that taste exactly like the ones her mom used to make, the same ones Manny used to sneak off the kitchen counter when he thought no one was looking. He tells her about driving 12 hours last week to scout a 19-year-old lefty in Iowa, about the way his wife used to laugh at him for bringing his scouting notebook on their anniversary trips, about how he stopped going to cookoffs and festivals and everything else after she died because it all felt too loud, too empty.
She doesn’t say the usual pitying “I’m so sorry” that everyone else does. She just nods, and her shoulder presses into his when she leans over to point at a golden retriever chasing a toddler across the grass, her bare arm warm against his through the thin flannel of his shirt sleeve. When she turns back to look at him, their faces are only a few inches apart, and he can see the flecks of gold in her eyes, can hear the way her breath catches a little like she’s nervous too. She admits she had a huge crush on him back when he was coming around the house, that she only pretended to hate him so he’d stay longer to tease her, that she used to practice asking him to prom in the mirror even though she knew he was 8 years older and dating a girl from college.
Manny laughs, a real, loud laugh he hasn’t let out in years, and he reaches up with the back of his hand to wipe the barbecue sauce off her jaw. The contact is slow, intentional, and she doesn’t pull away. He asks her if she wants to get coffee at the little diner on Main Street the next morning, before he drives out to Toledo to scout a doubleheader, and she grins so wide her cheeks dimple. She grabs his scouting notebook out of his hand, flips to a blank page, scribbles her cell number across it, adds a little doodle of a baseball bat next to it, and smudges a tiny streak of sauce on the edge of the paper when she hands it back.
He tucks the notebook back into his jacket pocket, the weight of it warmer than it’s been in eight years, and watches her wave as she jogs over to pick up her niece who just tripped over a lawn chair.
