Manny Ruiz is 62, a retired lineman who spent 38 years climbing poles for the Hill Country Electric Co-op outside Fredericksburg, Texas. His biggest flaw is he’d rather spend three days fixing a leaky roof himself than ask a neighbor for a hand, a habit he picked up after his ex-wife left him three months post-bypass, saying she didn’t sign up to be a full-time caregiver. He’s avoided every community social event for six years, but his 12-year-old hound dog, Bo, ate half a pan of brownies his niece left on his counter that morning, and the vet recommended he walk off the stress after Bo got cleared, so he found himself at the volunteer fire department fish fry, plastic plate of catfish and hushpuppies in one hand, cold Lone Star in the other, leaning against a tent pole far from the crowd.
He’d already turned down three separate attempts from old coworkers to set him up with the widow who ran the local bakery, when he spotted her. Clara Voss, 54, new county extension agent, moved to town three months prior, widowed two years before that. The town’s been buzzing about her ever since she stood up at the city council meeting and called the old guard “stubborn as mules” for shooting down the dog park proposal. Manny was one of the guys who voted against it, thought it was a waste of tax money that could go to fixing potholes. She was laughing at a joke the fire chief told, a smudge of topsoil streaked across her left forearm, sun-streaked brown hair pulled back in a braid frayed at the end, wearing faded denim overalls over a white tank top, scuffed work boots caked with mud. She caught him staring, waved, and walked over before he could duck behind the beer cooler.
She leaned in close enough that he could smell lavender hand lotion mixed with cut grass and the faint, greasy tang of the fryers when she thanked him for dropping off those 30 old utility poles for the community garden raised beds two weeks prior. He’d hauled them over at 6 a.m. on a Saturday just to avoid talking to anyone, so he blinked, mumbled that they were just taking up space in his side yard, and tried to step back. His boot caught on a tent stake, he stumbled, and she grabbed his forearm to steady him, her palm warm, calloused at the fingertips from digging in dirt, and he felt a jolt he hadn’t felt since he was 17 and snuck into a drive-in with his high school girlfriend. The country cover band behind them cranked up a Toby Keith track, a group of teens darted past, and her shoulder brushed his when she stepped out of their way. She didn’t move back.
He fought the urge to make an excuse and leave. Half his brain was screaming that this was a bad idea, that the town was already side-eyeing her for being too loud, too independent, that any kind of involvement would just end with him getting burned again. The other half was fixated on the way her eyes crinkled at the corners when she laughed at his grumbled story about the poles almost sliding off his trailer when he hit a pothole on the county road. She asked him if he wanted to walk down to the creek behind the fairgrounds to get away from the noise, and he almost said he had to get home to Bo, but he nodded instead.
The gravel crunched under their boots as they walked, the sound of the fish fry fading behind them, fireflies blinking on in the oak trees lining the path. They stopped at a flat rock half-buried in the creek bank, she sat down, patted the spot next to her, and he sat, leaving a six-inch gap between them at first. She rambled about the native wildflower seeds she was planting along the highway median, he ranted about the new linemen the co-op hired who couldn’t tell a crossarm from an insulator, and for 20 minutes neither of them brought up dead spouses or exes or the gossip mill. She reached over to pluck a wild blackberry from a bramble growing next to the rock, her hand brushing his denim-clad thigh, and he didn’t flinch. She held the berry out to him, he took it, his fingers brushing hers, the tart-sweet juice bursting on his tongue when he bit into it.
He pulled the crumpled hushpuppy he’d stuffed in his jacket pocket for Bo out, broke it in half, and offered her the bigger piece. She took it, smiled, and when she brushed a crumb off his chin with her thumb, he didn’t pull away.
They walked back up to the fairgrounds as the band switched to a slow George Strait deep cut. The old linemen he’d worked with for decades spotted them, nudged each other, raised their beer cans in a teasing salute, and Manny didn’t even flip them off like he usually would when they stuck their nose in his business. He stopped at the edge of the dance floor, turned to her, and asked if she wanted to dance. She said yes. He rested his hand on her waist, she put hers on his shoulder, they swayed a little off beat, her braid falling over her shoulder as she leaned in to say something he couldn’t hear over the music, so he stepped closer, their chests almost brushing, and smelled that lavender lotion again. He didn’t think about his ex, didn’t think about the city council meeting, didn’t think about all the years he’d spent closing himself off from anyone who might get too close. He just tightened his grip on her waist a little, and matched her step.
