Rafe Ortega, 59, has spent the last four years dodging the annual Maple Falls street fair. A minor league scout for the Kansas City Royals farm system, he’s on the road 11 months out of the year anyway, but even when he’s in town the week before fall instructional league, he’s holed up in his bungalow watching old game tapes, avoiding the small-town pity that clings to him like pine sap after his wife Linda died of ovarian cancer. He only showed up this year because his regional boss begged him to check out a 17-year-old lefty pitcher throwing a demo set by the corn roast stand, a kid with a 94 mph fastball and a curve that drops off a table.
He’s leaning against a gnarled oak, wiping pork tenderloin crumbs off his flannel shirt, half-empty lemonade in his other hand, when he turns to head for the beer tent and slams right into someone. The lemonade sloshes over the plastic rim, splattering pale yellow across a cream linen button down, right over the stranger’s ribs. He stammers an apology, fumbling for a crumpled napkin in his jeans pocket, reaching out to dab the mess before he thinks better of it. His knuckle brushes the soft, warm skin of her side just below the shirt’s hem, and she flinches, not from discomfort, but surprise, before she laughs, low and familiar.
“Rafe Ortega. Still in as much of a hurry as you were when you forgot your cleats three games in a row senior year.”
He looks up, and his throat goes dry. It’s Marnie Caldwell, Coach Caldwell’s youngest daughter. He used to drive her to soccer practice when she was 10, back when he was 17 and the town’s golden boy, a week away from signing his first pro contract before he blew out his throwing arm sliding into second at the state playoffs. He’d babysat her when her mom worked night shifts at the county hospital, brought her popsicles after her games, helped her build a treehouse in the Caldwells’ backyard. He hasn’t seen her in 32 years.
She’s not the pigtailed kid covered in grape popsicle stains anymore. Silver streaks thread through her dark curly hair, pulled back in a loose braid, and there are laugh lines fanning out from her hazel eyes. She’s wearing beat-up white Converse, the same scuffed style she used to beg her dad for, and a thin silver chain around her neck with a tiny book charm hanging off it. She tells him she moved back to town three months ago, her dad’s dementia has progressed to the point he can’t be left alone, and she runs a vintage book restoration business out of the old carriage house on their property, working remote for clients across the country. She’s been single for six years, she says, her ex-husband left her for a rock climbing instructor he met on a trip out west, and she’d been drifting from town to town until her dad’s doctor called.
He feels that weird, twisting pull in his gut, half guilt half sharp, unexpected arousal. He shouldn’t be looking at Coach Caldwell’s kid like this, shouldn’t be noticing the way her shirt pulls tight across her shoulders when she crosses her arms, or the way she leans in close when she talks, her shoulder brushing his every time a group of fairgoers pushes past on the sidewalk. She keeps holding eye contact, a beat longer than casual, and when she tucks a stray curl behind her ear, her fingers brush his wrist, warm and calloused from sanding book spines and gluing leather covers.
They head to the beer tent, grabbing two plastic cups of draft lager, and sit at a rickety picnic table in the back, out of sight of the gossiping church ladies who’d have a field day if they saw the two of them together. He tells her about Linda, about the long days on the road driving between small town ball fields, watching kids with the same hungry, hopeful look he used to have, the scar on his left forearm throbbing every time he sees a pitcher blow out his arm. She tells him about her dad, how he doesn’t remember her half the time, but he still asks for Rafe, asks when the team’s next practice is. The sun dips below the cornfields, painting the sky pink and orange, and the string lights strung above the beer tent flicker on, gilding the edges of her hair.
She reaches across the table, tapping the thin, ragged scar on his forearm, the one he got crashing his dirt bike the summer after he graduated, when he showed up at the Caldwells’ house bragging it was a war wound. Her fingers linger on his skin, rough and warm, and he doesn’t pull away. He admits he almost skipped the fair entirely, hates the way people pat his arm and ask if he’s doing okay, like he’s a lost puppy. She snorts, says she gets the same treatment, the single middle-aged daughter moving back to care for her senile dad, no one knows what to say to her either. They’re both outsiders here, now, even though they both grew up on these streets.
The fair band strikes up a slow, twangy cover of Jack and Diane, and a handful of couples drift onto the patch of grass by the stage to dance. She stands, wiping beer foam off her jeans, and holds out her hand to him. He hesitates for half a second, thinking about the town gossip, about the popsicle-stained kid he used to drive to soccer practice, about the voice in the back of his head saying this is wrong. Then he takes her hand, her palm fitting perfectly in his, rough and warm and solid. He walks her to the dance floor, his hand resting light on the small of her back, just above the waistband of her frayed jeans.
