Rudy Galvez, 58, retired postal route supervisor from Portsmouth, Ohio, sits in his usual vinyl booth at the VFW’s Friday night fish fry, the plastic tablecloth sticky under his forearm from a half-spilled Bud Light the guy two tables over knocked over an hour prior. He’s worn the same faded navy USPS hoodie every Friday for four years, ever since his wife Maria died of ovarian cancer, and he hasn’t changed his order once in 16 years of coming here: two-piece cod, extra tartar, coleslaw, no hushpuppies. Maria was allergic to cornmeal, and he never got back in the habit of eating them after they got married. The jukebox bleats Merle Haggard’s Mama Tried, the air thick with the smell of fryer grease, Old Spice, and rain seeping in through the cracked front door.
He flags down the new server, the one he’s deliberately avoided making eye contact with for three weeks, and when she leans over the edge of the booth he freezes mid-sip. Denim jeans cuffed at the ankle, a frayed Johnny Cash tee under her grease-stained apron, dark hair pulled back in a braid strung with loose gray strands, and when she grins, the corners of her eyes crinkle exactly like Maria’s. It’s Lila, Maria’s baby cousin, the kid who used to crash their Fourth of July cookouts as a teen, who slept on their couch for three months when she was 20 running from an abusive boyfriend. She sets his plate down, her forearm brushing his, and he catches a whiff of coconut shampoo and the faint, sharp tang of fryer grease on her clothes. “Rudy Galvez. Knew it was you. You haven’t changed a bit.”
He stammers out a clumsy greeting, suddenly hyper-aware of the hole in his hoodie elbow, the gray stubble coating his jaw he forgot to shave that morning. For the next two Fridays he avoids his booth, sits at the far end of the bar, leaves as soon as he finishes his food, refuses to make small talk with anyone. He feels stupid, guilty, like even glancing at her is a betrayal of the 32 years he had with Maria, like his old coworkers from the post would rib him for weeks if they found out he was even thinking about his dead wife’s cousin. But she still leaves an extra side of coleslaw next to his beer every time, slips a pack of the peppermint gum he used to keep in his mail truck for the neighborhood kids into his jacket pocket when he’s not looking. He catches himself staring when she bends to wipe down a table, at the faint scar on her left wrist from the time she crashed Maria’s dirt bike when they were 16, and he has to look away, his face hot.
The third Friday it pours, thick, cold October rain that soaks through your coat in 10 seconds flat. The post clears out fast, the dishwasher called out sick with flu, so Lila’s stacking folding chairs alone when he gets up to leave. He hesitates by the door for a full minute, then walks over to help, grabbing a stack of chairs from the corner by the pool table. They reach for the same stack at the exact same time, their hands brushing, and he feels the rough callus on her palm from 25 years of mixing hair dye at the salon she used to own in Louisville, the same kind of callus Maria had from planting tomato seedlings every spring. She doesn’t pull away, just looks up at him, her dark eyes soft, and says “Maria called me once a month until she got too sick to talk. Told me if I ever moved back to town, you were the first person I should look up. Said you’d keep me out of trouble.”
The confession knocks the wind out of him. He admits he’s been avoiding her, that he felt like even wanting to talk to her was wrong, like he was breaking some unwritten rule he made for himself the day Maria died. She snorts, leans back against the edge of the table, crosses her arms. “You think Maria would want you moping around that empty house alone for the rest of your life? She yelled at me for an hour once when I told her I’d never date again after my divorce. Said life’s too short to turn down good company just because you’re scared of what people might say.” He laughs, the first real, unforced laugh he’s had in months, and the tight, guilty knot in his chest loosens all at once, gone like it was never there.
He walks her out to his beat-up 2017 Ford F-150, holds the frayed plaid umbrella he’s had since 2012 over her, her shoulder pressed tight to his the whole way, rain dripping off the edge of the umbrella onto the toe of his scuffed work boot. He opens the passenger door for her, and she pauses before she climbs in, brushes a cold raindrop off his cheek with her thumb, says she’s got a bottle of reposado tequila back at her rental that she’s been saving for someone who doesn’t think drinking on a weeknight (even if he’s retired) is a waste. He nods, walks around to the driver’s side, climbs in, turns the key. The radio flickers on, Patsy Cline’s Crazy playing low, the same song Maria used to sing while she fried eggs on Saturday mornings. He shifts the truck into drive, the wipers slapping steady against the windshield, and heads toward the address she scribbled on a napkin an hour earlier.
