Manny Ruiz, 53, has installed custom hardwood floors across western North Carolina for 28 years, and he’s got the calloused palms, nail-gun scar above his left eyebrow, and permanent faint dust of oak sawdust in the cuffs of his Carhartt jacket to prove it. His ex-wife left him 12 years prior, told him he cared more about matching grain patterns than he did about matching her schedule for date nights, and he’s carried that chip so long it’s practically part of his lumber belt. He doesn’t date people from the small mountain town he calls home, doesn’t mix his side volunteer work dropping off scrap lumber for the community garden with anything personal, doesn’t even stay for the potlucks the garden crew hosts every month. He showed up to the town’s annual fall beer festival alone, planned to drink one spiced Oktoberfest lager, listen to 20 minutes of the bluegrass band, and head home to rewatch a Clint Eastwood movie before 8 p.m.
That plan goes out the window when a woman’s elbow knocks his beer cup hard enough to slosh half an inch of amber liquid onto the front of his jacket. He blinks, looks down, then up, and feels his throat go tight. It’s Elara, the woman who runs the community garden, the one he’s avoided talking to for six straight months every time he dropped off lumber, the one he’d written off as entirely off limits because of the thin silver band he’d spotted on her ring finger the first time they met. She grabs his forearm to steady him before he can step back, her palm warm through the thick canvas of his jacket, her fingernails still dusted with dark garden dirt from planting garlic that morning, and he smells lavender from her messy braid, cedar mulch, and the faint hoppy tang of the beer she’s holding.
“Shit, I’m so sorry,” she says, laughing a little, the crinkles at the corners of her hazel eyes deepening when she spots the old stain from deck sealer right next to the new beer splotch on his jacket. “I was chasing my friend’s golden retriever, he stole a corn dog from a kid’s plate, and I didn’t see you standing here.”
He waves off the apology, says his jacket already has 19 different permanent stains, one more won’t hurt, and he’s surprised at how easy the words come out, how he doesn’t immediately make an excuse to walk away like he usually does. She offers to buy him a new beer, says it’s the least she can do, and when he nods, she tugs lightly on his forearm to lead him toward the beer tent, her hand lingering on his arm long enough for him to notice the thin scar along her wrist from a bike accident when she was a kid, she mentions offhand, before she drops her hand to fish cash out of her jeans pocket.
They step to the side of the tent once they have fresh drinks, pressed close to get out of the way of a group of college kids hauling a case of hard seltzer toward the picnic tables, and her shoulder brushes his bicep. She doesn’t step back. He notices the smudge of charcoal on her jaw, says she’s got a little something there, and when she swipes at the wrong spot, he almost reaches out to fix it before he stops himself, old stubbornness flaring. He asks about the ring on her finger, the one that made him think she was married, and she twists it with her thumb, says it’s her grandma’s, she got divorced eight months prior, kept the ring because it was the only nice thing she got from her grandma before she passed.
The bluegrass band switches to a slow, twangy cover of a Johnny Cash song, and the sun starts to dip below the hills, painting the sky pale pink and tangerine. He asks if she wants to walk down to the creek that runs behind the festival grounds, away from the noise, and she says yes before he finishes the sentence. The oak leaves crunch under their scuffed boots as they walk, the sound of the banjo fading behind them, replaced by the gurgle of the creek over smooth river rocks, the distant chirp of crickets waking up for the night. They sit on a flat, sun-warmed rock at the edge of the water, and he admits he’s been avoiding her for six months, that he thought she was married, that he didn’t want to make a fool of himself or stir up town gossip.
She laughs so hard she snorts a little, says she noticed he always bolted the second he dropped off lumber, that she thought he hated the garden, hated her, that’s why she kept leaving handwritten thank you notes on his truck windshield, why she kept inviting him to the potlucks. She leans in then, swipes a smudge of oak sawdust off his cheek with her thumb, her touch soft even with the calluses on her own fingers from hauling soil and planting seeds, and she doesn’t pull away right away, her face only a few inches from his, her breath smelling like the apple cider donut she ate earlier.
They talk for another hour, about the mess of his divorce, the mess of hers, about the new batch of white oak he just picked up for a job in Asheville, about the garlic she’s planting that’ll be ready next summer. The festival noise fades to a low hum in the distance, and the first star pops out in the darkening sky when he offers to drive her home, says his truck is parked just up the road. She says yes, mentions she has a jar of homemade peach jam in her fridge she’s been meaning to give him, as a thank you for all the lumber he’s dropped off over the last year. He holds out his calloused hand to help her stand up, and for the first time in 12 years, he doesn’t make a single excuse to leave early.
