Manny Ruiz, 52, makes his living patching dents and rewiring light fixtures in 1970s Airstreams out of a converted hay barn 20 minutes outside Lockhart, Texas. He’s avoided anything resembling a date since his wife walked out eight years prior, always brushing off setups with the same line: he’s got grease under his fingernails that never washes out, and no one wants to share a bed with a man who keeps a stack of vintage camper part catalogs on his nightstand. He’s at the small town fall festival on a crisp October Saturday because he scored a mint condition 1972 Airstream vent cover from a vendor that morning, and he’s lingering over a Shiner Bock to celebrate before he drives back to the barn.
The air smells like fried funnel cake, smoked brisket, and pine blowing in from the oak tree line at the edge of the fairgrounds. Crunched pecan shells stick to the soles of his scuffed work boots, and old Willie Nelson cuts through the chatter of kids chasing each other with cotton candy. He’s halfway through his beer when he spots the honey stand, and the woman behind it. It’s Lena, his ex-wife’s younger cousin. He hasn’t seen her in six years, not since his ex’s family Christmas dinner right after the divorce was finalized, when she snuck him an extra slice of pecan pie and told him he was better off without her cousin’s drama.
She waves him over before he can pretend he didn’t see her. Her dark hair is pulled back in a braid streaked with a single strand of silver, and she’s wearing a faded flannel rolled up to her elbows, smudges of beeswax on her forearms. The line at her stand is three people deep, but she ignores them for a full minute to lean across the wooden table, her grin bright enough to outshine the string lights strung above the booth. He walks over, suddenly hyper aware of the grease stain on the knee of his jeans, the fact that he hasn’t shaved in three days.
She passes him a sample of wildflower honey on a small plastic spoon, and their fingers brush when he takes it. He feels the rough callus on the pad of her thumb, left there from years of prying open beehive boxes, and the scent of clover and coconut lip balm hits him so hard he almost forgets to taste the honey. It’s sweet, bright, like summer trapped in a jar. He can feel the stares of a few old family friends lingering from across the fairgrounds, and he feels a sharp twist of guilt in his gut. This is wrong, he tells himself. She’s family, or as good as, and if his ex gets wind of them talking, the entire extended Texas side of the family will lose their minds. But he can’t make himself leave.
She tells him about the new hive she set up on her property out by San Marcos, about the time a bee stung her right on the tip of her nose last spring, and she leans in so close her elbow brushes his bicep when she laughs. He tells her about the 1968 Airstream he’s restoring for a couple from Portland, about the raccoon that broke into his barn last month and chewed through half his wiring supply. She tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear every time he makes a joke, and every time she does it, his chest feels tight, like he’s 16 again asking a girl to prom.
By the time the last customer leaves her stand, the sun is dipping low on the horizon, painting the sky pink and tangerine. She admits she’s been stuck for an hour, a flat tire on her old Ford F150 out in the parking lot, no one’s stopped to help even when she flagged them down. Manny doesn’t even think before he offers to fix it. He keeps a tire iron and a jack in the back of his own truck at all times, comes with the territory of hauling camper parts across back roads.
They walk out to the parking lot together, the noise of the festival fading behind them. He kneels down to jack the truck up, and she stands close, holding the lug wrench for him when he needs it. When he grunts, struggling to loosen a rusted lug nut that’s been stuck for god knows how long, she rests her hand lightly on his shoulder for two seconds, just long enough for him to feel the warmth of it through his flannel shirt. When he stands up after he’s done, wiping grease off his palms onto his jeans, they’re standing so close he can see the flecks of gold in her dark brown eyes, the faint smudge of beeswax on her left cheek.
He brushes a stray honey bee off the collar of her flannel, his fingers brushing the soft skin of her neck, and she doesn’t pull away. He tells her he’s thought about her every few months since that Christmas dinner, that he never reached out because he thought it would cause too much trouble. She smiles, soft, and leans in to kiss him first. Her lips taste like the honey she’s been sampling all day, like the peppermint gum she’s chewing, and he forgets all about the family drama, the judgmental stares, the stupid rule he made for himself eight years ago about not letting anyone get close.
He helps her load the wooden tables and crates of honey jars into the back of her truck when the festival shuts down for the night. She hands him a quart jar of her best wildflower honey before he climbs into his own truck, tucks a slip of paper with her phone number under the lid, and tells him to call her when he’s ready to show her that half-restored Airstream. He nods, too flustered to say anything smart, and watches her drive away before he gets in his own truck.
He twists the lid off the jar when he gets home that night, dips his finger in, and grins so wide his cheeks ache for the first time in almost a decade.
