Manny Ruiz, 59, has scouted high school and independent league baseball across the southeast for the Atlanta Braves for 27 years, and he’s got the dented passenger door on his 2018 F-150 to prove it—foul ball off a 17-year-old lefty from south Alabama last spring, kid’s now pitching single-A in Rome. His biggest flaw, if you ask his older sister, is that he’s held a petty grudge against his ex-wife Karen’s entire extended family for 8 years, ever since she left him for a country club golf pro and spread lies that he cared more about pitching radar guns than her birthday. He’s spent those years skipping family weddings, holiday cookouts, even the annual pecan festival in the small north Georgia town where half of Karen’s family still lives, only stopping at the roadside pecan stand on the edge of town when he’s sure no one he recognizes is working.
He’s leaned against the sun-warmed brick side of the Fieldhouse Bar just off the high school baseball diamond, half-drunk on a cold IPA that’s dripping condensation down his wrist, when he spots her. It’s Lila, Karen’s second cousin, 54, who runs the pecan orchard outside of town, the one he’d accidentally made eye contact with at the grocery store last fall and had hidden in the cereal aisle for 10 minutes to avoid. She’s wearing cutoff denim shorts, scuffed work boots, and a faded 1995 World Series Braves tee, sun streaks running through her dark, shoulder-length hair, a smudge of barbecue sauce high on her left cheek. She’s laughing at a terrible joke one of the all-star players’ dads is telling, head tilted back, and Manny finds himself staring before he can stop himself, the hand holding his IPA going still.
She spots him a minute later, and instead of looking away like he expects, she grins, grabs two cans of peach hard seltzer out of the cooler by the picnic table, and walks straight over. The gravel crunches under her boots, and the air smells like charcoal smoke, cut grass, and honeysuckle from the bushes lining the lot when she stops a foot away, holding one of the seltzers out. “Figured you’d be hiding over here instead of making small talk with the booster club,” she says, and her voice is a little rough, like she smokes menthols on the weekends, which he finds weirdly attractive. His fingers brush hers when he takes the can, cold aluminum against her calloused palm—he knows those calluses are from pruning pecan trees, he’s seen her up on a ladder at the orchard a dozen times from the road—and he fumbles the can half a second before he gets a grip.
She points at his chin, snorting a little. “You’ve got brisket sauce all over you, by the way. Looks like a 7-year-old ate lunch by himself.” Before he can reach up to wipe it off, she lifts the back of her hand, swipes the smudge away, her thumb grazing the gray stubble along his jaw for half a second longer than necessary. He freezes, his throat going dry, and she just smirks, like she knows exactly what she just did. She tells him she never bought any of Karen’s lies, that she’s seen him stop at the pecan stand every October to buy 10 pounds of pecans for his mom’s pralines, that she’s been working up the nerve to say hi for years but always thought he’d brush her off.
They talk for an hour, leaning against the brick wall, the crowd around the cookout thinning out as the sun dips low below the treeline, painting the sky pink and orange. When a group of yelling teen players runs past, chasing a runaway wiffle ball, Manny leans in to avoid getting knocked into, his shoulder pressing firm to hers, warm through the thin cotton of their tees, and she doesn’t move away. He tells her stories about the lefty who throws 97 but cries every time he strikes out a batter, about the time he got stuck in a tornado watching a game in Mississippi, about how his mom still texts him every week asking when he’s going to settle down. She tells him about the time a flock of wild turkeys got into her orchard and ate half her pecan crop last fall, about how she hates going to family events too because everyone asks when she’s going to remarry, about the pecan pie moonshine she distills in a small shed behind her house that’s won first place at the county fair three years running.
When the last of the stadium lights flick on over the diamond, she tilts her head at him, biting the corner of her lower lip a little, like she’s nervous. “I’ve got a fresh baked pecan pie on my kitchen counter, and that moonshine is cold in the fridge. My place is 10 minutes down the road. I know you’ve got a scouting meeting at 8 a.m. tomorrow, you don’t have to stay long.” Manny’s first instinct is to say no, the old petty voice in his head yelling that messing with anyone related to Karen is just asking for drama, that he’ll regret it, that all she wants is to run back and tell Karen she talked to him. But then he looks at her, dark eyes warm, no agenda, just that little half-grin, and he realizes he’s spent 8 years saying no to good things just because he was mad at someone who doesn’t even live in the state anymore.
He tosses his empty IPA can into the metal trash can by the wall, the sound echoing over the quiet murmur of the remaining crowd. He follows her to her beat-up silver 2006 Toyota Tacoma, the bed stacked high with pecan crates, and she holds the passenger door open for him. The interior smells like pecan shells and citrus air freshener when he climbs in, and when she pulls out of the gravel lot, she rests her hand lightly on his knee, calloused, warm, steady, and he doesn’t pull away.
