Manny Ruiz is 62, retired city tree trimmer, has a scar snaking 4 inches across his left forearm from a 2009 chainsaw slip that almost cost him the limb, and has not said yes to a single social invitation that didn’t involve the VFW or his sister’s annual Christmas dinner since his wife died 8 years prior. His biggest flaw, one his sister nags him about every holiday, is that he’s stubborn to a fault, still clinging to half-baked grudges he picked up in childhood, including a deep, irrational dislike of librarians that dates back to 1972, when the old branch librarian yelled at him for tracking fir needle mud across the new carpet and banned him from the kids’ section for a month.
He’s at the VFW’s weekly Friday fish fry in mid-April, rain lashing the cinder block walls outside, balancing a paper plate stacked with fried cod, creamy coleslaw, a side of hushpuppies, and a sweating can of Coors Banquet in one calloused hand, when he turns too fast to avoid a kid running for the arcade machine in the back and slams straight into a woman carrying a stack of large-print westerns. The coleslaw sloshes over the edge of its paper cup, dribbling pale creamy dressing down the front of her dark navy cardigan, and his free hand shoots out to steady her, palm brushing the soft curve of her hip through the knit fabric, calluses catching on a loose thread at her waistband.
She freezes for half a second, tilts her chin up to look at him, and he’s surprised by how warm her hazel eyes are, flecked with gold, no irritation on her face at all. He stammers out an apology, grabbing a handful of napkins from the nearby table and dabbing at the dressing on her cardigan, his thumb brushing the delicate bone of her collarbone by accident, and she laughs, low and throaty, the sound cutting through the hum of conversation and the Johnny Cash playing on the beat-up jukebox in the corner. “Easy there, lumberjack,” she says, swiping a napkin from his hand to wipe the rest off herself. “I’ve had grape juice, spaghetti sauce, and a full cup of hot cocoa spilled on me this month alone. Coleslaw’s nothing.”
She introduces herself as Mara Hale, 58, the new town library director who moved up from Sacramento three months prior, here to drop off free books for the homebound vets the VFW checks in on every week. All the other tables are full, so she asks if she can sit with him, and he nods before he can talk himself out of it. They sit shoulder to shoulder on the vinyl bench, the scratch of the patterned tablecloth under his elbows, the smell of fried grease and vanilla extract from the bake sale table by the door wrapping around them. She twists a silver oak leaf ring around her index finger when she talks, mentions that the two 100-year-old oak trees outside the library have branches scraping the roof shingles, that the city has pushed the trimming job back six months and she’s this close to climbing up there herself to do it.
Manny’s first instinct is to say he doesn’t do side jobs, that he’s retired, that he doesn’t want to be roped into anything that involves dealing with city paperwork, but then she leans in to listen when he talks about the difference between trimming oak and maple, her knee brushing his under the table once, twice, the second time deliberate, not accidental, and he feels a heat creeping up his neck he hasn’t felt in years. He’s fighting the stupid, decades-old grudge in his head, the voice that says librarians are stuck-up, that letting anyone new get close is just asking for hurt, but the way she’s looking at him like what he’s saying actually matters drowns that voice out.
He offers to trim the trees for free the next Saturday, no paperwork required, only on one condition: she buys him a slice of the VFW’s famous peach pie after he’s done. She grins, the corners of her eyes crinkling, and says it’s a deal, but only if he lets her bring him a coffee and a homemade cinnamon roll when he shows up at 8 a.m. to start. He agrees before he can overthink it, and it’s only when she scribbles her cell number on a scrap of receipt and slides it across the table to him that he realizes he hasn’t looked forward to a single day this much in almost a decade.
She stands up to leave a few minutes later, slinging her canvas book bag over her shoulder, and pats his scarred forearm gently when she says goodbye, her palm warm through the thin cotton of his flannel shirt. He watches her walk out, her rubber rain boots squelching on the wet linoleum by the door, the rain pouring harder outside now. He tucks the scrap of receipt with her number into the breast pocket of his flannel, pats it twice to make sure it’s secure, and flags down the bartender to order a slice of that peach pie for himself to test first, just to be sure it’s good enough for next weekend.
