Manny Ruiz, 59, makes his living patching rust out of vintage campers and fitting them with reclaimed oak cabinets and solar panels, has spent the last eight years avoiding small town gossip like it’s the West Nile virus the county warned about last spring. His wife passed after a long fight with breast cancer, and he’d shut down most casual connections after the third neighbor showed up at his door with a tuna casserole and a phone number for their single cousin. He only agreed to man the grill at the annual volunteer fire department BBQ because his best friend, the fire chief, owed him a favor for rebuilding the department’s old 1968 travel trailer for free, and he couldn’t say no.
The July sun beats down on the back of his neck, grease splatters his faded Carhartt work shirt, and he wipes sweat off his brow with the back of a forearm crisscrossed with faint scars from welding burns. He’s counting down the last 15 minutes of his shift when he spots her. Clara, his new neighbor of three months, the one who runs the native plant nursery on the edge of town, the one he’s gone out of his way to avoid since she moved in, because every time he sees her hauling a 50 pound pot of oak saplings up her driveway in those scuffed work boots and cutoff shorts, his chest gets tight in a way he hasn’t felt since he was 16. She’s wearing a faded blue linen button down tied at the waist, bare legs dusted with dirt, no makeup, laughing at something the old pastor said. He looks away fast, flipping a burger so hard a drop of grease flies onto his wrist.
The line for food stretches ten deep by the time she gets to the front, and she leans against the metal folding table he’s using as a counter, close enough he can smell lavender hand cream mixed with pine from the nursery and the charcoal smoke curling off the grill. “Been trying to catch you for three weeks,” she says, grinning, and he fumbles the pair of metal tongs he’s holding, they clatter to the ground. They both reach for them at the same time, his calloused, grease-streaked hand brushing hers, soft, with a tiny cut on the knuckle from pruning roses, he notices. He yanks his hand back like he touched a live wire, cheeks burning. “Sorry,” he mumbles, picking up the tongs and wiping them off on his jeans. She laughs, warm, not mocking, and leans in a little closer, so no one else can hear. “Relax, I don’t bite. Unless you ask nicely.”
He’s so flustered he almost drops a whole tray of burgers. He hands her two, piled high with extra pickles, the way he saw her order at the diner two weeks ago, when he’d sat in the booth by the door and stared at her for ten minutes before he realized what he was doing. She raises an eyebrow, tilting her head. “I didn’t say I wanted extra pickles.” He shrugs, pretending he doesn’t care, flipping another patty. “Got a good memory.”
The fire department guys drag out a portable speaker a few minutes later, blaring old 90s country, and the crowd starts milling around, a few couples dancing in the grass by the picnic tables. She leans back against the table, sipping a lemonade she grabbed from the cooler next to him, and nods toward the dirt path leading down to the river behind the park. “My aunt just headed home with her bridge club. Got a six pack of cold IPA in my truck. We could go sit by the water. I need to ask you about the 1972 Airstream I bought last month, rotting in my side yard. I can pay you.”
He hesitates. He knows the town gossips will have a field day if they see them leave together, knows he told himself he wasn’t going to let anyone get close again, that the pain of losing someone wasn’t worth the temporary good. But she’s looking at him, no expectation, no pity, just that lazy little smile, and he realizes he’s been so lonely for so long he can’t even remember the last time he had a conversation with someone that didn’t involve camper parts or fire department logistics. He nods, yells over his shoulder to the 16 year old kid who’s been helping him that he’s taking an hour break, wipes his hands on his jeans, and follows her.
The path is shaded with oak trees, the sound of the crowd fading behind them, the rush of the river getting louder. They find a fallen cedar log half buried in the grass by the bank, and she pulls two cans of IPA out of the paper bag she grabbed from her truck, hands him one. Their fingers brush again when he takes it, and this time he doesn’t pull away. The can is cold against his palm, condensation dripping down his wrist. She tells him she knows about his wife, the town told her, she didn’t ask, she doesn’t want to push anything, she just thinks he’s a good guy who’s been hiding from the world for too long.
He takes a long sip of beer, watches a group of kids skip stones across the river further down the bank, the sun dipping low enough that the light turns the water gold. For the first time in eight years, he doesn’t feel guilty for wanting to be there, for wanting to talk to her, for the warm buzz in his chest that has nothing to do with the beer. “I’ll come look at the Airstream Saturday morning,” he says, turning to look at her, the light gilding the edges of her hair. “9 a.m. You better have glazed donuts from the Main Street bakery waiting. The good ones, not the grocery store garbage.”
She grins, knocking her shoulder against his, the fabric of her shirt soft against his bare arm. “Got a whole dozen waiting. I even remembered you take your coffee black.” He laughs, a real one, deep in his chest, the kind he hasn’t laughed since before his wife got sick, and watches a dragonfly skitter across the surface of the river, its wings catching the sun.
