Manny Ruiz, 53, has built custom fishing rods out of his coastal Oregon garage for 12 years, ever since he quit his corporate sales job to stop making himself miserable for a quarterly bonus. His biggest flaw is that he’s clung to a dumb, self-imposed rule for 8 years, ever since his wife left him for a guy who sold timeshares: no dating anyone more than 10 years his junior, no exceptions. He’s convinced any bigger gap is just a recipe for embarrassment, for people whispering, for him getting attached to someone who’ll get bored of his quiet routine and bolt before the next salmon run.
He’s set up at the annual Newport Seafood Festival the third weekend of July, his booth strung with hand-carved rod handles, when the woman running the ceviche stand next to him leans over the two-foot gap between their tables, one hand braced on the edge of his display, to ask for a heavy-duty rubber band to tie down her flapping tarp. Her sun-warmed forearm brushes his when he passes it over, and he catches a whiff of lime juice and coconut sunscreen, the kind that sticks to skin for hours after you leave the beach. She holds eye contact a full two seconds longer than polite, grinning when she sees the tiny marlin carving he’s etched into the spine of the rod he’s been sanding between customers. “Those are cool,” she says, nodding at the carvings, before she turns to batten down her tarp, cutoff denim shorts riding up just enough to show a scar on the back of her left thigh from a childhood bike crash. He finds himself staring before he yanks his gaze away, annoyed at himself. She’s Lila, his best friend Tom’s niece, 28, he remembers that from Tom’s cookout last summer, and that alone should be enough to kill any dumb flicker of interest.
She pops over every hour after that, even when the festival is slammed. Brings him a free cup of ceviche at lunch, extra habanero, like she somehow knows he likes his food spicy enough to make his eyes water. Sits on the edge of his booth when a quick summer rain blows through, huddling under his awning, their knees knocking together when a gust of wind shifts the tarp. She asks him about the dented 1972 Ford F-150 parked behind his booth, listens for 20 minutes while he rants about how he’s been rebuilding the engine for two years, how parts are impossible to find, how his ex-wife used to call the truck a rusted waste of space. She doesn’t laugh, doesn’t tell him he’s being silly. She just nods, says her grandpa had the exact same truck, used to take her clamming in it when she was a kid. The rain lets up, but she stays another 15 minutes, flipping through his binder of custom rod orders, pointing out the carvings she likes best, her shoulder pressed to his the whole time. He doesn’t move away. He tells himself it’s just nice to have someone to talk to, that’s all.
Manny’s first instinct is to pull his hand away, to remind her he’s old enough to be her dad, that Tom would lose his mind if he saw them this close. But then he looks at her, at the way she’s biting her lip like she’s scared he’ll laugh at her, at the little marlin charm hanging on a silver chain around her neck, and the tight knot of resistance in his chest unravels. He admits he’s seen her at the window a handful of times, thought he was imagining it, thought there was no way a girl that bright would be interested in a guy who spends most of his nights sanding wood and watching old westerns with his hound dog.
She asks him if he wants to go get carnitas tacos and a beer at the dive bar down the road, says they don’t card people who look like they’ve lived through enough bad dates to know what they want. He says yes, lets her carry the box of his smallest rod handles to the truck, even though he could lift it with one hand. She beats him to the passenger door, yanking it open before he can get there, and when he reaches past her to set the box on the floor, his chest brushes her shoulder, and he can feel her heart beating fast under her thin cotton tank top. He climbs into the driver’s seat, turns the key in the ignition, the truck rumbling to life, and grins when she cranks up the Johnny Cash song playing on the old factory radio.
