Elio Ruiz, 53, has built custom fishing rods out of his cinder block workshop on the edge of Port Aransas for 17 years. He’s got scar tissue snaking up his left forearm from a time a faulty bandsaw jumped track 8 years back, and a habit of leaving his truck windows down even when it rains, because he likes the way salt air crusts on the dashboard. He hasn’t willingly attended a town community event since his wife died of ovarian cancer six years prior, and only showed up to the annual fire department chili cookoff because his best friend, a volunteer firefighter, begged him to bring his oak-smoked brisket, the one he only cooks once every three months for people he actually likes.
He’s leaned against the bed of his beat-up 2008 Silverado, sipping a lukewarm Shiner Bock and ignoring the three different people who’ve already tried to corner him to ask about custom rod pricing, when she walks over. She’s got on high-waisted denim cutoffs and a faded Willie Nelson tee, bare legs dusted with a light layer of cookoff parking lot sand, and she’s holding a crumpled paper napkin in one hand. He recognizes her immediately: Clara, the mayor’s new wife, the one who moved to town three months ago from Santa Fe, the one everyone’s been gossiping about because she’s 12 years younger than the mayor and doesn’t bother hiding how bored she is at his town hall meet-and-greets.
She stops so close to him that her elbow brushes his bicep when she gestures at the foil-wrapped brisket sitting on the tailgate. He can smell jasmine perfume tangled with the hickory smoke curling off the chili pots 20 feet away, and the faint, earthy scent of wet clay clinging to her cuticles. “Everyone over there’s saying this brisket’s better than any restaurant within 100 miles,” she says, nodding her head at the cluster of firefighters by the cookoff tent, and she holds eye contact with him for two full beats longer than casual politeness demands. He’s used to people looking away first, when they notice the faint scar splitting his left eyebrow, the permanent scuff of workshop dust on his work boots, but she doesn’t flinch.
He nods, pulls the foil back a little to reveal the pink, juice-dripping brisket underneath, and picks up a pair of tongs to slice her a piece. When he passes her the paper plate, their fingers brush, and he feels the thick, rough callus on her index finger, the kind you only get from hours of working with your hands. “You do pottery,” he says, not a question, and she grins, so bright he has to look away for half a second to catch his breath. She says she keeps a small pottery studio in the garage of the mayor’s big waterfront house, that no one here asks about her work, everyone only ever wants to talk about her husband’s re-election campaign, about the new boardwalk he’s pushing to build.
They talk for 22 minutes, he counts without meaning to, while the country cover band off to the left slurs through a bad version of Amarillo by Morning, while kids run past chasing a stray dog, while three different people shoot them curious, side-eye looks. Elio knows better. Everyone in this town talks. The mayor’s a well-liked guy, donates to the youth baseball league, shows up to every high school football game, and Elio’s spent six years keeping his head down, avoiding any kind of drama that would make people whisper about him. He feels a sharp, hot twist of disgust in his gut when he catches himself staring at the way her mouth curves when she laughs, at the freckles dusted across her nose, at the way she shifts her weight so her hip is almost touching his. He should excuse himself, walk back to his workshop, turn on the bandsaw, forget this ever happened.
She leans in a little closer, so her mouth is almost by his ear, and he can feel her warm breath on his neck when she speaks, quiet enough no one else can hear. “I rented that little cabin up on Redfish Bay for next weekend,” she says, and she slips a scrap of torn paper into the front pocket of his faded gray flannel shirt, her fingers brushing the bare skin of his chest where the top two buttons are undone. “My husband’s flying to Austin for a conference, won’t be back till Monday. I’ve been wanting to learn how to cast for redfish. I hear you’re the best teacher around.”
He stands there for ten seconds after she walks away, holding his beer so tight his knuckles go white, fighting the urge to yank the paper out of his pocket and throw it in the trash. He’s got no business doing this. He’s got no business feeling this light, this giddy, like he’s 17 again sneaking out to meet a girl his mom didn’t approve of. He pulls the paper out ten minutes later, when everyone’s distracted by the chili contest prize announcement, and looks at it: it’s a torn edge of a pottery order form, scrawled with her cell number, and a tiny doodle of a fish in the corner.
He texts her that night, at 9:17, after he’s washed the brisket grease off his hands, after he’s spent an hour sanding the blank for a custom rod he’s building for a client in Dallas. He types one line: I’ll bring the 7-weight, it’s perfect for redfish. She writes back 30 seconds later, a single red heart emoji, and a photo of her holding a half-thrown clay mug, her hands caked in mud.
He packs his cooler with beer and smoked sausage and a container of his wife’s famous potato salad the following Friday, loads the 7-weight rod into the bed of his truck, and drives the 27 miles up to the cabin at 6 a.m., before the sun’s even fully over the horizon. He sees her sitting on the porch swing when he pulls up, wearing waders that are too big for her, holding a travel mug of coffee, and she waves, so big her whole arm moves. He cuts the engine, steps out of the truck, and the first thing he smells is jasmine, and salt air, and wet clay, and it feels like coming home.
