Manny Ruiz, 52, spent 26 years crisscrossing the Southeast scouting high school lefties for the Cleveland Guardians farm system before his left knee gave out mid-game last spring. He’d never been the type to linger at small-town events, the kind where every third person asks how his recovery’s going or if he’s started seeing anyone yet, but the annual Millersport rib fest was the one exception. He’d set up a rickety folding table off to the edge of the grounds, stitching broken laces and patching worn palm pads on old gloves for 10 bucks a pop, most of the cash going straight to the local little league fund. The air reeked of hickory smoke and sweet barbecue sauce, the tinny twang of a cover band playing old Johnny Paycheck cuts drifting over the crowd of kids chasing each other with snow cones and old guys arguing over who made the best dry rub.
He was halfway through restitching the pocket of a 12-year-old catcher’s mitt when a shadow fell over his work. He looked up, and for a second he didn’t place her. She was wearing cutoff denim shorts and a faded Guardians tank, sun streaks in her dark hair, a walkie talkie clipped to her belt and a smudge of charcoal on her left cheek. It was Lila Marquez, his late wife Elena’s cousin’s daughter, the same girl who used to sneak extra potato salad off his grill at 4th of July cookouts when she was 16. She’d moved back to town six months prior after a messy divorce from a corporate lawyer in Chicago, running most of the local event coordination now. She leaned against the edge of his table, her hip inches from his knee where he sat, and the smell of coconut sunscreen cut right through the thick rib smoke, sharp and sweet, nothing like the lavender perfume Elena used to wear every summer.
They made small talk first, about the record turnout that year, about the 12-year-old catcher who’d dropped off the mitt bragging he’d be in the majors by 21, about how his knee was holding up standing on the lumpy festival grass. He tried not to stare at the smattering of freckles across her nose, the way she bit her lower lip when she laughed at his dumb joke about the local barbecue joint’s sauce being 90 percent corn syrup and regret. When she reached across the table to pick up the half-finished catcher’s mitt, her knuckles brushed his, calloused from years of playing recreational softball, and he felt a jolt shoot up his arm that had nothing to do with his lingering knee pain. He felt stupid, guilty even. He’d changed her flat tire when she was 17, for Christ’s sake, taught her how to throw a curveball that same summer so she could prank her older brother by nailing him in the back with a wiffle ball. But the way she was looking at him now, eyes dark, no trace of the gawky, braces-clad teen he’d known, made his throat feel tight. She mentioned she’d seen him at the VFW the week prior playing pool, had almost come over to say hi but he’d left before she could work up the nerve. He fumbled for a response, knocking his half-empty can of Pabst off the table, and she laughed, bending down to pick it up, her shoulder brushing his thigh when she stood back up.
The rain slowed to a drizzle after 10 minutes, the sun peeking out from behind the clouds, painting a faint rainbow over the cornfield at the edge of the festival grounds. She pulled a crumpled slip of paper out of her pocket, scribbled her address on the back of a lemonade drink ticket, and pressed it into his palm, her fingers lacing with his for a beat before she let go. She said she’d bought an old custom glove display case for her apartment earlier that month, had no idea how to hang it on the flimsy drywall, asked if he could come over after the fest wrapped up that night to help. He nodded, tucking the slip into the breast pocket of his worn flannel shirt. She squeezed his wrist once more, grinning, before she turned to jog off toward the beer tent where a group of confused vendors were waving her over for help with a flooded cooler. He stood there for a minute, staring at the back of her head as she weaved through the damp crowd, the crinkle of the paper in his pocket a quiet, warm weight against his chest.
