Manny Ruiz is 52, runs a vintage camper restoration shop out of a cinder block building on the edge of Des Moines, and has not let anyone who isn’t a paying customer get within arm’s length of his personal life for eight straight years. His ex-wife left him for a software sales rep who wore loafers without socks and thought “roughing it” meant staying at a hotel without a continental breakfast, and he’d taken the split as a universal sign: anyone who showed interest in him after that only wanted a free bathroom remodel for their beat-up travel trailer, or a discount on a frame-off reno. He’s got a scar along his left forearm from a rusted awning spring, a 1972 Airstream he fixed up from a pile of scrap parked behind his shop, and a regular booth at the VFW’s Friday fish fry where he shows up at 6pm sharp, orders a cod platter extra tartar, and drinks two Bud Lights before heading home to watch old westerns alone.
The air is sharp with wood smoke and fallen apples the first Friday Clara shows up. She’s not a regular, wears high-waisted work jeans and a faded flannel, has a smudge of white latex paint on her left cheek, and she’s scanning the room like she’s looking for someone. Manny’s first instinct is to slump lower in his booth, because he recognizes her: she’s left three handwritten notes taped to his shop door over the past two weeks, asking for advice on sourcing hard-to-find rubber seals for a 1970 Scotty Sportsman she picked up at an estate sale. He’d thrown all three notes away. He didn’t have time for free consults, didn’t have time for people who thought his job was a hobby they could pick up for cheap.
She spots him anyway, walks over holding a plastic basket of fried catfish and a bottle of hard cider, and stops at the edge of his booth. “You’re Manny, right?” Her voice is low, a little rough, like she’s spent the past week yelling over a circular saw. “I’ve been leaving notes at your shop. I’m not here to beg for free parts, before you say anything. I just wanted to buy you a beer, say I get it if you don’t want to help, I’ve just heard you’re the only guy within 100 miles who doesn’t mark up vintage seals 300 percent.”
He blinks, gestures for her to sit down. He didn’t expect that. She slides into the booth across from him, sets her basket down, and when she reaches across the table to grab the bottle of vinegar, her forearm brushes his. Her skin is warm, calloused at the wrist, and he doesn’t jerk away like he thought he would. The jukebox in the corner is playing Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues,” the fryers in the back are hissing, and she smells like vanilla and pine, like she keeps a candle burning in her garage while she works.
They talk for an hour, first about the Scotty, then about how she moved to town three months prior, after her kid left for college in Chicago, how she wanted to fix up the camper to drive out to visit him on weekends, how she’d spent the past three weekends patching holes in the aluminum siding by herself, no help. He makes a dumb joke about how the last person who asked him for seal advice tried to trade him a half-eaten jar of pickles for a full set, and she snorts, loud enough that the guys at the next table glance over. She leans in when he talks about the Airstream he took out to the Rockies last spring, her elbows on the table, eyes locked on his, no darting away, no awkward glancing at her phone. He finds himself telling her about the ex-wife, about the software sales rep, about how he’d stopped letting people in after that, and she nods, says she gets it, her ex-husband left her for a yoga instructor who thought processed sugar was a sin.
The internal battle has been humming under his skin the whole time she’s been talking. Half of him is screaming that this is a trap, that she’s gonna ask for a free reno the second he lets his guard down, that he’s gonna get burned again. The other half of him hasn’t felt this light, this seen, in almost a decade, hasn’t had a conversation with someone that didn’t revolve around invoice due dates or water line repairs. When she leans over to grab a napkin off the edge of the table, her hair brushes his jaw, and he doesn’t flinch. That’s the turning point. He realizes he’s not disgusted by the idea of letting someone close, he’s been scared of it, big difference.
She asks him if he wants to come by her place tomorrow morning, take a look at the Scotty, says she baked a peach pie that morning, still in the fridge, extra cinnamon. He almost says no, almost makes up an excuse about a 1968 Winnebago he has to finish stripping that weekend. Then he sees the paint smudge on her cheek, the way she’s twisting the edge of her flannel sleeve like she’s nervous he’ll say no, and he agrees.
He shows up at her place at 9am the next day, box of the exact seals she needs tucked under his arm, no charge. She’s wearing work boots and a baseball cap, the Scotty is parked in her driveway, dented but solid, and the pie is sitting on her porch counter, still a little warm around the edges. She hands him a plastic fork, and when he reaches to take it, their fingers brush. The first bite of pie is sweet, cinnamon sharp on his tongue, and he grins before he can stop himself.
