Manny Ruiz is 57, a vintage pinball machine restorer who’s spent the last eight years holed up in his detached garage outside Akron, Ohio, since his wife died of ovarian cancer. His worst flaw? He’s turned stubborn self-denial into a personality trait, turning down every invite to cookouts, poker games, even the annual neighborhood block party, convinced any joy not tied to work or his grandkids is a betrayal of the woman he spent 28 years married to. The only reason he’s at the 2024 block party at all is his 19-year-old grandson, Javi, begged him to show off the custom cornhole set they sanded, stained, and painted with a retro pinball motif over spring break. The neighborhood association just lifted their three-year post-pandemic ban on alcohol at community events, so the air hums with a rowdier energy than the old, dry gatherings Manny avoided, thick with the smell of charred burgers, citronella candles, and cheap domestic beer.
He’s leaning against the cinder block side of his garage, half-listening to Javi brag to his friends about the cornhole set, sipping a beer he’d only grabbed to avoid people asking him if he wanted a soda, when a woman he doesn’t recognize steps up next to him. She’s got curly auburn hair streaked with gray, worn in a loose braid over one shoulder, and she’s wearing a faded Johnny Cash t-shirt and cutoff denim shorts, scuffed white sneakers caked with dust from walking the block. She stands close enough that her bare shoulder brushes his bicep when she leans in to get a better look at the 1978 Space Invaders pinball machine he’s propped against the garage door, priced to sell to a collector from Cleveland who’s supposed to pick it up next week. “You restore that yourself?” she asks, holding his gaze for two full beats longer than polite small talk calls for, her dark brown eyes crinkling at the corners when he nods.
He learns her name is Lena Marlow, she’s 52, moved into the blue house three doors down three months prior, runs a mobile used bookstore out of a converted 1998 Ford Econoline van. When she reaches out to run a finger along the hand-painted alien decal on the side of the pinball machine, her hand brushes his where it’s resting on the machine’s front leg, and he can feel the faint, rough callus on the pad of her index finger, the kind you get from turning thousands of book pages over decades. He’s immediately disgusted with himself for noticing, for the jolt that runs up his arm at the contact, for the way he’s leaning in a little closer to smell her perfume, a mix of vanilla and old paper and cut grass. He’d promised himself he’d never do this, never look at another woman like that, never let himself feel anything that didn’t tie back to the life he’d built with his wife.
But Lena doesn’t push. She laughs loud and unselfconscious at his dumb joke about how pinball machines are way less high maintenance than people, only need a new rubber band or a tightened screw every few months, no arguments about who left the toothpaste cap off. She tells him she moved to Akron after a messy divorce from a corporate lawyer who hated her bookstore, hated that she’d rather drive around rural Ohio selling used westerns and poetry collections than go to fancy dinner parties with his coworkers. He finds himself telling her about his wife, about how she used to drag him to garage sales every weekend to hunt for broken pinball machines for him to fix, about how she’d beat him three games out of four every time they tested a finished restore. He doesn’t realize he’s been talking for 20 minutes until Javi yells across the yard to tell him he’s heading to a friend’s house, be home later.
When Lena asks if he wants to walk down to the small creek at the end of the block to get away from the noise of the party, his first instinct is to say no, to make an excuse about needing to lock up the garage, about being tired. But he looks at her, at the way the sun is catching the gray streaks in her hair, at the chipped red polish on her fingernails, and he says yes. They walk the two blocks in comfortable silence, the noise of the party fading behind them, replaced by the sound of crickets chirping and water running over smooth rocks in the creek. They sit on a fallen oak log at the edge of the bank, and when she reaches out to touch his wrist, deliberate this time, no accidental brush, he doesn’t pull away. “You don’t have to punish yourself for being happy, you know,” she says, soft enough that he almost misses it over the sound of the water.
He doesn’t say anything for a long minute, just stares at the way the light is turning the water pink and gold as the sun dips lower in the sky. For eight years, he’s carried that guilt like a weight in his chest, convinced any joy that didn’t involve his wife or grandkids was a betrayal, that he didn’t deserve to feel light again. But sitting there next to Lena, the callus on her finger still burning a little on his wrist, he realizes that weight doesn’t feel as heavy as it used to.
They walk back to the block as the streetlights flicker on, the party winding down, people packing up coolers and herding half-asleep kids to their cars. He tells her he’s got a 1981 Pac-Man pinball half-restored in his workshop, if she wants to come by tomorrow morning to check it out. She grins, says she’ll bring a thermos of strong black coffee and a stack of the old Louis L’Amour paperbacks he mentioned he’s been hunting for. She gives his arm a quick squeeze before she turns to walk to her house, and he leans against the fence post at the end of his driveway to watch her go. He watches her walk to her house, the pink sunset gilding the edges of her curly auburn hair, and for the first time in 8 years, he doesn’t feel guilty for looking forward to tomorrow.
