Manny Ruiz, 53, makes his living stretching leather over motorcycle frames in a cinder block shop on the edge of Lima, Ohio, and he’s held a grudge against every new person who moves to town for the last eight years, ever since his wife packed her bags and followed a John Deere sales rep to Indianapolis. His nephew dragged him to the fire department’s annual chili cookoff that crisp October Saturday, and he’d spent the first 45 minutes hovering by the cider stand, picking at a bowl of three-alarm chili that burned the back of his throat so bad he’d already gone through three paper cups of spiced apple cider. He’d heard enough about the new elementary school principal from the old guys who hung around his shop to know he hated her before he even saw her: she’d banned Halloween costumes last fall, yelled at teens for riding dirt bikes behind the school, refused to let the PTA host a bake sale over “food safety concerns.” Everyone called her the Ice Queen behind her back, and Manny had bought into every word.
He turned to avoid a retired firefighter ranting about the new fire truck’s transmission, and bumped straight into her, chili sloshing over the edge of his bowl onto both their jackets. She wore a dark wool peacoat, fabric thick under his fumbling hands as he grabbed for napkins, stammering out an apology he’d never thought he’d give to someone he’d written off months prior. She laughed, a low, warm sound that cut through the crowd’s chatter, and brushed a fleck of tomato off the shoulder of his faded flannel, her fingers brushing the exposed skin of his wrist for half a second longer than polite. Up close, she smelled like lavender hand cream and wood smoke, her hazel eyes flecked with gold when she held his gaze, a tiny silver scar slicing through the skin above her left eyebrow. “Don’t worry about the jacket,” she said, wiping chili off her jeans with the napkin he handed her. “I got this at a thrift store for ten bucks. Beats the blazers I have to wear all week.”
He leaned against the wooden picnic table next to her, half expecting her to make an excuse to leave, but she asked about the calloused pads on his fingers, the smudge of leather dye on his jaw he’d forgotten to wash off that morning. He told her about his shop, the 1978 Harley Electra Glide he was reupholstering for a Toledo client, and she lit up, saying she’d been hunting for someone to redo the bench seat in her 1966 Ford Bronco, the one she’d spent two years restoring in her garage after moving to town. She explained the Halloween costume ban had come after a parent showed up with a realistic fake assault rifle as part of his costume, leaving three first graders hiding in the bathroom crying for an hour. The dirt bike ban? Kids were jumping ramps over the drainage ditch behind the school, and one had broken his arm two weeks prior. The bake sale rule? The district forced it on her after a kid with a severe peanut allergy had a life-threatening reaction the year before, even though she’d fought it for three months.
He agreed to meet her at his shop the next Saturday, and showed up an hour early to sweep up leather scrap, toss empty beer cans off the workbench, air out the glue fumes that usually hung thick in the air. She showed up with a six pack of his favorite IPA, the kind he only bought for special occasions, and a stack of fabric swatches she’d picked up at a craft store the week before. They spent three hours huddled over the workbench, comparing distressed brown leather to black canvas, her knee brushing his every time they leaned in at the same time to get a better look at a swatch. He caught her staring at the panther tattoo on his forearm, the one he’d gotten at 19 on a cross-country bike trip, and she laughed when he told the story of getting it in a tiny Wyoming parlor, the artist stinking of whiskey and cigarette smoke.
The sun had set by the time they settled on leather that matched the Bronco’s original tan interior, and he walked her out to the parking lot, cold October air nipping at his cheeks. She stopped next to her Bronco, rust around the wheel wells glinting under the streetlight, and leaned in before he could say goodbye, kissing him slow, her hand resting on the back of his neck, the faint taste of IPA and cinnamon cider on her lips. He didn’t overthink it, didn’t pull away, didn’t remind himself he’d sworn off dating for good, just cupped her jaw, the scar above her eyebrow rough under his thumb.
She pulled away after a minute, grinning, and swung herself up into the Bronco’s driver seat, rolling the window down as she turned the key, the engine rumbling loud enough to rattle the shop’s windows. She yelled that she’d drop the seat off Monday morning, and he nodded, leaning against the shop door as she pulled out of the parking lot, taillights fading down the road. He reached up, touching the corner of his mouth where her lipstick had left a faint pink smudge.
