Manny Ruiz, 53, is a minor league baseball scout for the Cleveland Guardians farm system, and he’s spent the last three years deliberately avoiding all small-town community events in the Ohio town he rents a tiny ranch in. His wife died of breast cancer back in 2020, and he got sick of the pitying looks, the half-hearted offers to bring him lasagna, the questions about when he’d “get back out there.” He spends 10 months of the year on the road, driving between small college fields and high school tournaments, and when he’s home he mostly sticks to walking his 10-year-old beagle Gus and watching 90s baseball tapes. He only showed up to the annual Maplewood Summer Beer Garden because he was starved for a proper grilled brat with sauerkraut, and figured he could get in and out in 15 minutes before anyone he knew spotted him.
Every picnic table was full, save for one spot across from a woman he recognized as Lila, the new Methodist pastor’s wife who’d moved to town six months prior. He’d only ever seen her in frumpy midi dresses on Sundays, passing out hymnals, but tonight she was wearing cutoff jean shorts and a faded Tom Petty tee, her auburn hair pulled back in a messy braid. She shifted over on the bench, patted the spot next to her, and said “Plenty of room, I don’t bite.” He sat, and their knees knocked under the table, the warmth of her bare leg seeping through his worn denim, and he tensed immediately, mumbled an apology. She laughed, loud and bright, and said it was fine, she’d already knocked over two IPAs tonight anyway.
He hadn’t made anyone laugh like that in years, and a tightness bloomed in his chest, half guilt half sharp, unnameable want. She was married, to the pastor for Christ’s sake, he shouldn’t even be sitting here enjoying the way she leaned forward, elbows on the table, their faces only a foot apart now. She said she knew what it felt like to be invisible; her husband Paul worked 12-hour days most days, visiting parishioners in the hospital, running the food bank, prepping sermons, and half the time he forgot to ask how her day was. She’d left her graphic design job in Portland to follow him out here, and didn’t know anyone in town except the old ladies who dropped off tuna casseroles every Sunday. She reached across the table to wipe a spot of mustard off his chin, her thumb brushing his jaw, soft and warm, and he didn’t flinch away.
The band switched to a slow, waltzy old George Strait track, and a handful of retired couples drifted onto the patchy grass dance floor to sway slow. She tilted her head at them, grinning, and said “You wanna dance? I haven’t danced in two years.” He hesitated for half a second, thinking about the gossip that would spread through the town by breakfast, the cold look Paul would give him across the grocery store aisle if he found out, but she was looking at him with those big hazel eyes, her hand resting an inch from his on the table, and he nodded.
They stood, and she stepped close, her hand resting light on his shoulder, his hand settling at her waist, the heat of her skin seeping through the thin cotton of her tee. They swayed slow, not too close, but close enough that he could smell the hops on her breath, her braid brushing his cheek when she leaned in to yell over the music “I see you walking Gus every morning. You always look like you’re somewhere far away.” He froze, then admitted he’d thought about stopping to talk to her a dozen times, never had the nerve.
When the song ended a minute later, she pulled back, grinning, and dug a crumpled receipt out of her back pocket, scribbled her number on it with a neon pink pen, and shoved it into the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. “Paul’s leaving for a three-day mission trip to West Virginia next Tuesday. The diner off Route 42 makes the best blueberry pancakes in the state. If you’re not on the road, you should meet me there at 8.”
She grabbed her empty beer cup, slung her crossbody bag over her shoulder, and waved over her shoulder as she walked toward the parking lot. He stood there for a minute, fingers brushing the crumpled paper in his pocket, Gus’s leash wrapped around his other hand, the faint echo of her laugh still hanging in the warm summer air. He pulled out his beat-up iPhone, opened a new contact, and typed her name before he could talk himself out of it.
