Manny Ruiz, 51, has spent most of the last decade living out of a beat-up Ford F-150, driving between small town ball fields to scout high school and college pitchers for the South Bend Cubs’ farm system. His wife left him for a travel nurse eight years back, and he’s carried a quiet chip on his shoulder ever since—hates small talk, hates community events, hates any situation where he’s expected to perform friendliness for strangers. The only reason he’s even at the annual Spencer County Chili Cookoff is his 19-year-old niece Lula begged him to show up, said she’d spent three days perfecting a brisket chili she swears could beat the county sheriff’s 12-year winning streak.
He’s hovering by the beer tent, Cubs cap pulled low over his graying temples, work boots planted in still-damp grass from that morning’s rain, when it happens. A woman carrying a stack of paper trays stacked high with cornbread slices trips over a kid’s discarded scooter half-buried in the turf, slams chest-first into his shoulder, crumbs showering down the front of his faded navy flannel. Her left hand wraps around his bicep to steady herself, and he tenses up so fast he spills half his draft beer onto the dirt. He’s halfway to a gruff retort before he looks down. She’s got hazel eyes crinkled at the corners with embarrassment, a smudge of flour on her left cheek, and she smells like vanilla and cinnamon and burnt sugar, the same scent his grandma’s kitchen used to carry on Thanksgiving.
“Jesus, I am so sorry,” she says, laughing a little as she yanks her hand back like she’s been burned, brushing stray crumbs off her own high-waisted jeans. She reaches out like she’s going to brush the crumbs off his shirt, then pauses, her hand hovering an inch from his chest, waiting for him to signal it’s okay. His first instinct is to step back, mumble a fine, and disappear back to his truck. He hasn’t let anyone touch him that casually, even by accident, in closer to three years than he cares to count. But he doesn’t step back. He nods, and she brushes the crumbs off his chest, her fingers light through the thin flannel, and he swears his skin prickles where she touches.
She introduces herself as Maeve, owns the new sourdough bakery on Main Street that opened three months prior. He’s driven past it a dozen times, never bothered to stop, wrote off fancy sourdough as for city people passing through town. She teases him for looking like he’d rather be stuck in a three-hour rain delay at a rookie league game than here, and he snorts, surprised she picked up on his vibe that fast. They lean against the side of the beer tent, the hum of the Mellencamp cover band fading into background noise, as he tells her about the 17-year-old lefty he scouted last week who throws 94 miles an hour but sobs in the dugout every time he gives up a home run. She leans in when he talks, her shoulder brushing his every time a group of people walks past, and she doesn’t shift away. He can feel the heat of her arm through his shirt, can hear the lilt in her voice when she tells him she moved here from Chicago after her old bakery burned down, wanted a place where no one knew her name, where she didn’t have to answer questions about what she lost.
He’s so wrapped up in talking to her he doesn’t notice Lula walk up until his niece elbows him in the ribs, grinning so wide her dimples show. “I’ve been looking for you for 20 minutes,” Lula says, glancing between Manny and Maeve, her tone deliberately teasing. “You coming to the bonfire after the awards? We’re doing s’mores, I brought extra chocolate.” Before he can say no, the answer he’s given to every invitation like this for eight years, Maeve speaks up. “I’m heading over there too, I brought homemade marshmallows,” she says, tilting her head at him, her eyes glinting in the golden late afternoon sun. “You should come.” He says yes before he even thinks about it.
The cookoff winners blare over the speakers—Lula gets second place, whoops so loud the people three tables over turn to look. Maeve picks up her empty cornbread tray, tucks a strand of gray-streaked auburn hair behind her ear, and tells him she’ll save him a spot by the fire, far away from the group of drunk retirees who always bring bad karaoke CDs. He nods, and she winks at him over her shoulder before she walks away, her boots kicking up little clumps of grass as she goes. He brushes the last of the cornbread crumbs off his flannel, picks up his half-empty, warm beer, and takes a slow sip, watching her weave through the crowd. A breeze picks up, carrying the faint smell of her vanilla perfume over to him even from 20 feet away, and he turns to go congratulate Lula on her win.
