Manny Ruiz, 61, retired professional airshow stunt pilot, now runs a small custom propeller repair shop out of a cinder block hangar outside Dayton, Ohio. He’s kept himself deliberately closed off for eight years, ever since his wife and longtime crew chief collapsed between sets at the 2015 Dayton Air Show and never woke up. He sold his custom stunt biplane two weeks after her funeral, only flies the beat-up 1972 Cessna 172 he keeps tied down at the county airfield for 20-minute solo sunrise runs, and turns down every cookout invitation his old pilot buddies send his way, convinced he’s too set in his gruff, quiet ways to be worth anyone’s time.
He’s at the county fair the third week of August judging the teen RC airshow competition, the hem of his faded 2014 Oshkosh Airshow jacket stiff with old propeller grease, when the last competitor lands their mini jet and he realizes his throat is dry enough to scratch. The smell of fried dough and hickory smoke from the rib stand wraps around him as he trundles toward the food row, and he spots the elote cart first, the woman behind it wiping sweat off her brow with the back of her forearm, a tiny black Cessna tattoo peeking out from under the cuff of her flour-dusted flannel shirt.
She greets him with a half-smile, calls him “judge” when he orders, and he notices the calluses on her fingers when she hands him the corn slathered in chili lime seasoning and cotija cheese, rough from cutting cobs and squeezing lime wedges for 12 hours straight. She nods at the patch on his jacket when he leans against the side of the cart to eat, says her dad flew freight out of the same county airfield Manny uses, and she’s seen his Cessna tied down next to the line shack half a dozen times when she drops off care packages for the old guy who runs the fuel pumps.
He doesn’t mean to stay as long as he does. He checks his watch three times, reminds himself he has a custom propeller to finish for a vintage plane owner coming in Monday, but every time he opens his mouth to say goodbye, she says something that makes him pause: teases him about the scuffed steel-toe flight boots he still wears even to the fair, asks if the story about him pulling an inverted flat spin 100 feet off the ground at Oshkosh is as wild as the online clips make it look, laughs so hard at his story about spilling a full cup of black coffee in his cockpit mid-stunt that she snorts, then claps a hand over her mouth, her cheeks flushing pink under the string lights strung above the cart.
The first firework announcement blares over the fair speakers right as he’s about to force himself to leave, and a group of screaming teens sprint past, one slamming into the side of the cart hard enough that she stumbles forward, catching herself on his arm, her palm flat against the leather of his jacket right over the Oshkosh patch. She doesn’t step back right away, just looks up at him, the first red firework bursting behind her painting her face bright pink and gold, and she says she’s been working up the nerve to talk to him for three years, ever since she first saw him judging the RC competition, always looking like he’s a million miles away, like he’s still up in the air somewhere.
He doesn’t overthink it, doesn’t talk himself out of it the way he’s talked himself out of every small, good thing that’s crossed his path in eight years. He lifts a hand, brushes a stray strand of dark hair stuck to her sweat-shiny forehead behind her ear, his thumb grazing the soft curve of her cheekbone, and says he hasn’t felt this grounded in longer than he can remember.
They stay leaned against the side of the cart through the entire 18-minute fireworks show, their shoulders pressed tight enough that he can feel the warmth of her through his jacket, as she shares the stash of churros she’d hidden under the counter for her break, pointing out every firework that looks like a plane doing a barrel roll. He tells her stories about stunts he pulled that never made the highlight reels, the ones that only his wife ever knew about, and he doesn’t feel the sharp twist of guilt he’s come to expect when he talks about her to other people.
When the last silver firework fades and the crowd starts shuffling toward the exit gates, she grabs a paper napkin, scribbles her cell number on it in bright blue marker, and tucks it into the inside pocket of his jacket, right next to the folded photo of his wife he’s carried there since her funeral. She says her cart will be set up at the airfield next Saturday for the vintage fly-in, and he can get a free elote if he brings his Cessna out.
He tucks his hand into the pocket to press the napkin flat against the photo as he walks to his beat-up Ford F-150 in the dark, the distant sound of the fair’s closing announcements fading behind him. He turns the key in the ignition, the radio flickers on to an old 90s country song he and his wife used to blast on road trips to airshows, and he doesn’t reach to change the station.
