Manny Ruiz, 62, retired citrus grove manager from Polk County, leans against a slash pine at the VFW’s monthly fish fry, paper plate weighed down with fried catfish, slaw, and two extra hushpuppies he grabbed just in case. He’s avoided these events for six months, fed up with the same questions about when he’ll “get back out there,” but the promise of cook Ron’s secret jalapeño batter dragged him out tonight. The air smells like hot peanut oil, cut St. Augustine grass, and the cheap lager the guys are chugging by the cornhole pit. He’s just bitten into a hushpuppy, crisp outside and fluffy with bits of pickled jalapeño inside, when he hears that laugh—loud, unapologetic, a little rough around the edges from years of smoking menthols she swears she quit five years ago.
Clara Bennett, 58, Jesse’s ex-wife, is carrying a stack of dog-eared western paperbacks to drop off for the VFW’s tiny library nook, sun-bleached auburn hair pulled back in a messy braid, ink smudge on her left wrist from stamping library books that morning, cutoff jean shorts and scuffed work boots caked with red clay from her backyard. She spots him, waves, and cuts through the crowd of guys yelling about a bad cornhole toss, dropping the books on the folding table next to his chair before sitting down, her denim-clad knee brushing his work pants hard enough that he can feel the heat of her leg through the thin fabric. He freezes for half a second. He’s liked her for years, ever since she brought Jesse a cooler of sweet tea to the grove during the 2017 frost, when they worked 18 hour days running space heaters under the Valencias to save the crop, but he’s always written it off as off-limits. Jesse was his foreman for 27 years, for Christ’s sake. Bro code doesn’t have an expiration date, even if their divorce was amicable, even if Jesse remarried a high school math teacher in 2018 and now lives three hours north in Valdosta. Even if his wife Elena has been gone eight years, even if her own sister has begged him to stop moping and find someone to laugh with.
They chat first about the grove, the new manager they both think is overwatering the tangerine trees and ruining next year’s crop, then about the stray calico cat that’s been hanging around the library cart she runs for the county. She reaches across him to grab a stack of napkins tucked under his arm, her forearm brushing the worn cotton of his work shirt, and he catches a whiff of lavender hand lotion mixed with the orange oil she uses to clean sticky library book spines. His chest tightens. He’s half furious at himself for even noticing, half giddy like a stupid 16 year old asking a girl to prom. She holds his gaze when she asks if he’s free Saturday to come look at the tangerine tree in her backyard that hasn’t fruited in two years, her dark eyes glinting with the reflection of the string lights strung above the fry tent, and he can’t think of a single excuse to say no. He’s about to say he’ll swing by around 10, when she nods toward the parking lot, says she has a six pack of his favorite Abita root beer in her truck cab, says the sun’s still up for another two hours, they can go look at it tonight, no rush.
He hesitates for two full beats, half of him screaming that this is wrong, that the guys will talk, that Jesse will hear about it and be pissed, that Elena would roll her eyes at him for being so stupidly loyal to a rule that doesn’t even matter. The other half of him is thinking about how she brought him a jar of her grandmother’s pickled okra when he had that knee replacement last year, how she laughs at all his bad jokes about citrus mites, how she never looks at him like he’s a sad widower who needs to be pitied. He grabs his half-eaten plate, nods, and stands up.
They walk to her beat-up 2008 Ford Ranger, the gravel crunching under their work boots, and when he passes her the plate she left on the folding chair, his hand brushes hers, and she laces their fingers together for three slow seconds before letting go, no one around to see them tucked behind the pine trees at the edge of the lot. The windows are down when they pull out of the parking lot, warm March wind blowing through the cab, and she sings along to the George Strait song playing on the old country station, off key but unselfconscious. He holds the cold root beer she hands him, the condensation dripping down his wrist, and watches the citrus groves roll by outside the window, rows of deep green trees glowing gold in the setting sun.
She pulls into her gravel driveway, and he spots the tangerine tree immediately, tucked next to her back porch, tiny black aphids clustered on the new growth at the ends of the branches, an easy fix with some neem oil and a little pruning. She kicks her boots off on the porch step, bare feet sinking into the thick St. Augustine grass, and sits down next to him, passing him a bottle opener for the root beer. She leans her shoulder against his, the soft flannel of her shirt warm against his arm, and he doesn’t move away. A firefly blinks past the edge of the porch, slow and bright, right above the top of the tangerine tree.
