Ray Voss, 53, has spent the last decade as a minor league baseball scout, logging 32,000 miles a year in his beat-up Ford F-150 that’s got a dent on the passenger side from a deer he hit outside Hickory last winter, chasing high school pitchers with 95 mph fastballs and shortstops who can turn a double play like they were born with a glove on their hand. His biggest flaw? He holds grudges like a catcher holds onto a game ball, white-knuckled, no intention of letting go. For 12 years, he’s skipped every community event within 10 miles of his Asheville cottage, all because his ex-wife organizes most of them, left him for a comparative literature professor who wears linen shirts unbuttoned two buttons too low and calls everyone “darlin’” unironically, even the guy who bags his groceries.
He only shows up to this summer block party because his favorite 17-year-old prospect is grilling hot dogs, promised Ray he’d save him one with extra chili and pickled onions. He’s halfway to the grill when he cuts over to the beer cooler, reaches in for a Pabst, and his knuckles brush someone else’s. Warm, soft, a faint smudge of cobalt blue paint on the side of her index finger. He pulls his hand back, looks up.
It’s Lila, his ex-wife’s younger cousin. He met her exactly once, at his wedding 18 years prior, when she was 24 and fresh out of art school, had a streak of electric blue in her hair and kept sneaking sips of his groomsmen’s bourbon. Now she’s 42, the blue streak gone, replaced by a few strands of silver at her temples, wearing a linen sundress the color of wild clover, barefoot, her toenails painted the same cobalt as the paint on her finger. She holds his gaze for three full beats, longer than polite, a half-smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. “You still drink that cheap swill?” she says, nodding at the Pabst in his hand.
He snorts. “Cheaper than gas these days.” He leans against the oak tree next to the cooler, the bark rough through his faded Braves t-shirt, can hear cornhole bags thudding against boards, kids screaming as they chase a golden retriever with a popsicle in its mouth, his ex’s high, sharp laugh carrying over from the picnic table where she’s passing out potato salad that he knows will be too salty, just like it always was. Lila leans in a little, close enough that he can smell jasmine perfume and citrus shampoo, the faint tang of peach hard seltzer on her breath. “I know you hate being here,” she says, quiet enough no one else can hear. “I heard you only came for Javi’s chili dogs. Smart man. His are better than the ones at the stadium in Greenville.”
He blinks. He didn’t think anyone who knew his ex would pay attention to the stuff he cares about. He’d spent so long being the villain in his ex’s stories, he forgot there were people who might not buy every word she said. They drift away from the main crowd without talking about it, walking down the packed dirt path to the creek that runs behind the community center, the grass tickling his ankles through his frayed khaki shorts. He trips over a half-buried oak root halfway down, stumbles, the toe of his scuffed work boot scraping against the dirt, and she grabs his forearm to steady him, her palm warm through the thin fabric of his t-shirt, her thumb brushing the two-inch pale scar he got when a line drive hit him at a JV game last spring, still a little tender if you press hard enough. Her hand lingers for two seconds longer than necessary, and he doesn’t pull away, doesn’t even pretend to.
They sit on a half-rotted log half-submerged in the creek, the cold water swirling around their bare ankles, the sound of the party fading to a low hum behind the poplar trees. She tells him she’s a botanical illustrator now, lives in Portland, is only in town for a week to help her cousin move some boxes to her new house up on the mountain. She says she always thought his ex was an idiot for leaving him, that she’d read the profile on him in the local paper last year when he scouted that kid from Hendersonville who got drafted by the Braves, had even cut it out and sent it to her grandma, who’d always liked Ray better than the linen-shirt professor.
He’s half-convinced he’s dreaming when she leans in, her hand coming up to cup the side of his jaw, her thumb brushing the coarse gray stubble on his cheek, and kisses him. It’s soft at first, tentative, like she’s waiting for him to push her away, but he doesn’t. He kisses her back, can taste peach seltzer and mint gum on her tongue, her other hand tangling in the thinning graying hair at the nape of his neck, and for the first time in 12 years, he doesn’t care who sees them, doesn’t care that the gossip will get back to his ex before the sun dips below the Blue Ridge peaks, doesn’t care that he’s breaking every stupid rule he made for himself after the divorce.
They pull back after a minute, both breathing a little heavier, and she grins, tucking a strand of windblown hair behind her ear. “You still have that vintage baseball card collection you told me about at the wedding, right?” she says. “I want to see the 1957 Hank Aaron you bragged about.” He stands up, wipes the damp bark dust off the back of his shorts, picks up their empty drink cans to toss in the trash can at the top of the path, and holds out his calloused, sun-freckled hand for her to take.
