Manny Ruiz, 52, has spent the last eight years covered in two-stroke oil and old motorcycle grease, running his vintage restoration shop out of a cinder block building on the edge of Asheville, North Carolina. His ex-wife left him for a commercial real estate broker who wore tailored khakis and never had a scrap of dirt under his nails, and since then he’s cultivated a deliberately gruff persona, avoiding community events, turning down setups from well-meaning neighbors, convinced anyone who looked twice at him was either after a discount on a bike or laughing at the guy whose wife walked out. The only reason he’s at the county fall BBQ cookoff at all is because his childhood buddy, who runs the whole thing, threatened to drag his old Yamaha XS650 out of the shop and park it on the main drag with a “FOR SALE, $500” sign if he didn’t show up.
He’s leaned against a splintered pine picnic table on the far edge of the crowd, koozie-clad Pabst in one hand, when she walks over. He recognizes her immediately—Lila, his next-door neighbor’s niece, the travel nurse who’s been in town for three months helping her aunt recover from knee replacement surgery. He’s seen her walking the old golden retriever down his street at dusk a dozen times, always looked away fast, told himself a guy with a graying beard and a permanent crease between his brows had no business staring at someone 14 years his junior. She’s holding a paper plate stacked high with pulled pork and pickles, her auburn hair pulled back in a loose braid, coconut shampoo cutting through the thick hickory smoke hanging over the field.
“Figured you’d be hiding over here,” she says, setting the plate down on the table in front of him. He fumbles a little when he reaches for it, their knuckles brushing, and he yanks his hand back like he’s been burned. Her laugh is warm, no mockery in it, and she sits down on the bench next to him, close enough that her denim-clad knee presses against his flannel-covered thigh. He can hear the bluegrass band twanging off to the left, the crunch of peanut shells under people’s boots, the distant hoot of a kid chasing a stray dog across the field. She nods at the dark grease crusted under his fingernails, the same stuff he scrubbed at for ten minutes before he left the shop and still couldn’t get off. “Saw you rolling that 1978 CB750 out of your bay yesterday. Gorgeous. Guys who know how to build something with their hands are impossible to find these days.”
Manny’s throat goes dry. He’s spent so long convincing himself any attention from anyone, let alone someone like her, is either a joke or a trap, that he can barely form a sentence. He tells himself he’s being a ridiculous old man, that the group of retirees he plays poker with every Friday are probably staring, that people will talk if they see him sitting this close to her. The thought makes his skin prickle with equal parts embarrassment and sharp, unnameable desire, the kind he hasn’t felt since he was a kid sneaking his older brother’s bike out to ride to the drive-in. He opens his mouth to make an excuse, to say he’s got to get back to the shop to finish a carburetor rebuild, but she reaches out and touches his forearm, her palm warm through the thin flannel, and the words die in his throat.
“I leave for my next assignment in Portland day after tomorrow,” she says, holding his eye contact so long he has to fight the urge to look away. Her thumb brushes the scar he got from a kickback on a socket wrench three years back, light, like she’s memorizing it. “I’ve been wanting to ask you for a ride on that CB all month. You gonna make me beg?”
Manny blinks. For a second he’s back in the weeks after his wife left, listening to the guys at the diner make jokes about how he’d be alone forever, how he cared more about rusted bikes than people. He looks at Lila, at the faint smudge of BBQ sauce on her cheek, at the way she’s smiling like she already knows his answer, and he realizes he’s tired of hiding. Tired of caring what people say, tired of spending every night alone in his shop with only old engine parts for company.
“Seven tomorrow morning,” he says, and his voice is rougher than he means it to be. “Bring a jacket. The highway gets cold that early.”
She grins, grabs a crumpled napkin from the table, scribbles her cell number on it in blue ballpoint, and presses it into his palm, her fingers lacing with his for half a second before she stands up. She winks over her shoulder when she walks back to her aunt’s booth, and Manny sits there for another ten minutes, staring at the napkin crumpled in his hand, sipping his beer, the faint smell of coconut still hanging in the air next to him. A kid runs past, yelling, and knocks his elbow, and he tucks the napkin into the front pocket of his work jeans, patting it twice to make sure it’s secure.
