Manny Ruiz, 62, retired air traffic controller, had avoided the town’s annual summer BBQ for 17 straight years out of pure stubbornness. His ex-wife ran the bake sale table every year, and he’d long held the stupid, unshakable rule that he wouldn’t set foot anywhere she was volunteering, not after she left him for a high school biology teacher the week of their 20th anniversary. His neighbor all but dragged him out of the house this time, saying the volunteer fire department’s tri-tip was so good it’d make him forget every bad memory he’d ever had, and Manny had caved, mostly because he’d eaten nothing but frozen burritos for three straight nights and was sick of talking only to his half-finished Cessna 172 model in the garage.
He was leaning against the beer cooler, cracking open a frosty Coors, when a woman stepped around the cooler and their shoulders collided hard enough to slosh beer down the front of his faded navy air traffic control hoodie. She smelled like clover honey and citrus sunscreen, her dark hair pulled back in a braid streaked with a single strand of silver, and she laughed, low and warm, before she even apologized. He recognized her a beat later: Lila, his ex-wife’s younger cousin, the one who’d been 19 and covered in glitter at their wedding, running around stealing shrimp off the appetizer plates. She was 47 now, a traveling beekeeper in town for a month to help pollinate the local cherry orchards, and she said she remembered him specifically, the guy who folded dinner napkins into tiny stunt planes for all the bored kids at the reception.
Manny flushed, tucking his scarred left knuckle (a souvenir from replacing the alternator on his 1998 Ford F-150 two weeks prior) into his jeans pocket. He hadn’t thought about that napkin trick in decades, hadn’t done anything silly or frivolous since his golden retriever Max died last winter. They migrated to a picnic table under the gnarled old oak at the edge of the park, far enough from the bake sale table that his ex wouldn’t glower at them every five minutes, and Lila pulled a small jar of raw honey out of her canvas bag, pushing it across the table toward him. When he reached for it, their fingers brushed, and Manny felt a jolt run up his arm, sharp and warm, the kind of tingle he’d assumed he was too old to feel anymore.
He was conflicted, sharp and sour, for the next 20 minutes. This was his ex’s cousin. It was the kind of unwritten taboo he’d spent his whole career abiding by, the same way he’d never veer from a landing pattern even when the sky was clear. But Lila leaned in when he talked about the chaos of managing 30 planes at once during thunderstorms over Portland, her knee brushing his where they sat on the splintered bench, and when she licked a drop of honey off her thumb slow, like she didn’t even notice she was doing it, Manny forgot how to form a full sentence for three whole seconds. She held eye contact a beat longer than necessary every time he spoke, her dark eyes crinkling at the corners when he made a dry joke about how the worst part of retirement was not having a valid excuse to yell at people who ignored instructions.
The climax hit when his ex walked over, her arms loaded with lemon bars, and gave Manny a look sharp enough to cut glass. “Didn’t think you’d ever show your face here,” she said, before turning to Lila. “You two catching up?”
Manny tensed, ready to mumble an excuse, grab his beer, and bolt for his truck like he’d done every other time he’d run into someone connected to his old marriage. But Lila just smiled, nodding at Manny like he was the best surprise she’d had all month. “We’re talking about the hives I’ve got set up by the old lighthouse up the coast. The view of the ocean from the cliff there is insane, and I know he used to do plane spotting back in the day, so I invited him to come check it out tomorrow. Bring those old binoculars you keep in your truck, yeah?”
Manny looked at his ex, then at Lila, and for the first time in 18 years, he didn’t care about the stupid rules he’d tied himself to. “Yeah,” he said, loud enough that a couple of kids playing frisbee glanced over. “I’ll be there.” His ex huffed, turned on her heel, and walked back to the bake sale table, and Manny didn’t even feel a flicker of the old resentment he’d carried for so long.
He showed up at the lighthouse at 10 a.m. the next day, cooler of beer in the backseat, a paper bag of cherry turnovers from the downtown bakery tucked next to it. Lila was leaning against the fence surrounding her hives, her white beekeeper suit unzipped halfway, a daisy tucked behind her ear, and she waved when she saw his truck pull up. She handed him a mesh veil, and when he leaned in so she could adjust the strap under his chin, their faces were inches apart, the faint buzz of the bees humming in the background. “You look less grumpy than you did at the BBQ,” she said, grinning, and Manny laughed, a loud, unforced sound he hadn’t heard come out of his own mouth in months. When she laced her fingers through his to lead him toward the first hive, he didn’t pull away.
