Manny Ruiz, 62, spent 38 years managing 120 acres of tangerine groves outside Ocala before he sold the land to a conservation group last year. His biggest flaw, one his daughter ribbed him about every Thanksgiving, was that he held grudges like they were prize-winning fruit, polishing them regularly, never letting them rot no matter how much time passed. For 40 years, the top of that grudge list was Elara Voss, who he’d sworn ratted out his senior year beach bonfire to the principal, getting him suspended three days before the state baseball playoffs and costing his team the championship shot. He’d avoided every local event he thought she’d be at for decades, even skipping his 30th high school reunion when he heard she’d be attending.
He only broke that streak on a crisp October Saturday at the town’s annual fall festival, because his 7-year-old granddaughter had begged him for sourwood honey after her teacher brought a jar to class. He spotted her stand at the far end of the vendor row, strung with fairy lights and stacked with glass jars glinting gold in the late afternoon sun, and considered bailing for a full two minutes before he remembered his granddaughter’s pout. He adjusted the frayed work jacket he still wore, still faintly scented with citrus peel and pesticide, and trundled over, boots crunching on pine straw scattered across the grass.
Elara looked up from wiping down a wooden counter the second he stepped close, and a slow, knowing smirk tugged at the corner of her mouth. She was 60, her thick silver hair pulled back with a worn leather thong, a tiny black bee tattoo peeking out from the cuff of her flannel shirt, nails chipped at the edges from handling hive boxes. “Took you long enough to come over,” she said, her voice lower than he remembered, rougher from years of singing along to old country in her truck. She leaned across the counter to pass him a small sample dipper dipped in amber honey, and her bare forearm brushed his, warm and sun-kissed, sending a jolt up his spine he hadn’t felt since he was 17.
He was furious with himself for that jolt, for noticing the way her laugh lines crinkled at the corners of her eyes, for the way she smelled like clover and beeswax instead of the snobby, stuck-up scent he’d assigned her in his head for four decades. He snatched the dipper, avoided eye contact, mumbled that he was only there for sourwood for his granddaughter. When he reached for the jar she set on the counter, their fingers brushed, and he fumbled the glass a little, catching it before it tipped over. She laughed, loud and unapologetic, and he felt his ears turn red, equal parts embarrassed and annoyed that he was flustered.
He finally snapped about the bonfire when she teased him for still looking as grumpy as he did the day he got suspended. She froze, mid-wipe of the counter, stared at him for three full beats, then snort-laughed so hard a little sweet tea dribbled down her chin. She wiped it off with the back of her hand, shaking her head, and told him it had been Jake Millerton, the backup pitcher who’d taken his spot in the playoffs, who’d ratted him out. She’d heard him bragging about it at the 10 year reunion, had even tried to tell Manny once but he’d walked right past her in the grocery store like she was invisible.
The anger he’d carried for 40 years dissolved so fast he felt lightheaded, like he’d been holding a 50 pound sack of feed and someone had just ripped it out of his hands. He pulled up the wobbly wooden stool she gestured to, and their knees bumped under the counter when he sat, close enough that he could see flecks of gold in her green eyes, could hear the bluegrass band on the main stage switching to a slow, twangy love song as the sun dipped below the oak trees. They talked for 45 minutes, about his groves, her hives, the way the town had changed since they were kids, and he forgot all about the fried oreo he’d stuffed in his jacket pocket until it melted through the paper wrapper.
He bought three jars of honey before he left: one for his granddaughter, one for his daughter, one he had no real use for but couldn’t think of a reason not to buy. She scribbled her phone number on the back of the receipt in blue ballpoint, slid it across the counter, and her thumb brushed his knuckle when she handed it over, slow and intentional. He tucked the receipt in his inner jacket pocket, right next to the crumpled 1981 high school baseball card of himself he still carried, and walked back to his beat-up Ford F150, the honey jars clinking softly in the paper bag in his hand. He pulled out his phone when he got to the truck, already drafting a text asking if she wanted to get breakfast at the diner off Main Street the next morning.
