Ronan O’Malley’s work boots sink into soft, dewy bluegrass as he slinks toward the park pavilion, lukewarm PBR sweating in his grip, already mentally mapping the quickest exit route. At 53, he’s spent 12 years avoiding the annual Maplewood summer cookout, petty enough to still hold a grudge against his ex-wife for running the dessert table the year she left him for a guy who sold custom hot tubs. His old high school baseball teammate Jim had begged him to come, said the JV team needed a scout’s eye on a few rising seniors, and Ronan had caved, fully prepared to leave the second he spotted his ex’s frizzy blonde perm and neon fanny pack.
The first thing he smells when he rounds the pavilion corner is burnt bratwurst and cinnamon sugar, no trace of the peach-scented perfume his ex wore every year. The woman behind the dessert table isn’t his ex. She’s got auburn hair streaked with sun-faded copper, cutoffs cuffed at the hem, flecks of cobalt and emerald paint crusted on her forearms, and a faded 1977 Fleetwood Mac tour tee stretched tight across her shoulders. She laughs so hard at a kid who dumps a cup of lemonade on her white canvas sneakers that her eyes crinkle shut, no eye roll, no sharp remark, just wipes the mess off with a paper napkin and hands the kid an extra chocolate chip cookie.
Ronan hangs back by the keg for 20 minutes, sipping his beer, pretending to watch a group of teens play cornhole, sneaking glances at her. He recognizes her now: Mara, the woman who moved into the blue bungalow two doors down from him two months back. He’d only ever waved at her from his driveway, when he stumbled home at 2 AM after a 10-hour drive from a scout gig in West Virginia, his truck covered in bug splatters and plastered with minor league bumper stickers from every league east of the Mississippi. He’d written her off as another small-town busybody, too caught up in local gossip to bother with a guy who’s gone 300 days a year.
He works up the nerve to walk over when the line for desserts dies down, says he’ll take a chocolate chip cookie. Her hand brushes his when she passes it to him, her palm warm, calloused at the fingertips, and he can smell lavender hand soap and vanilla extract on her skin. She grins, says she recognized his truck, has seen him hauling his duffel bag in and out at all hours, wondered what he did for work. He tells her he’s a minor league scout, spends most of his time sitting in rickety bleachers eating stale popcorn watching 19-year-olds throw 90 mph fastballs. She nods, says she’s a stained glass artist, that’s where the paint flecks come from, mentions his ex moved to Fort Myers six months ago, no one told him because no one ever sees him around town.
He’s mid-sentence telling her about a shortstop he scouted last week who can hit a home run off a curveball in the dirt when the sky opens up, fat raindrops slamming into the paper plates, people scrambling for cover under the pavilion awning. The flimsy metal awning over the dessert table starts to tip, and Ronan grabs the left edge to hold it down, his bicep brushing her shoulder through the thin cotton of her tee. She looks up at him, raindrops caught in her eyelashes, and for half a second he’s frozen, half convinced he’s going to screw this up like he screwed up every other good thing in his life after the divorce, the old familiar tug of disgust at himself for even wanting to get close to someone warring with the quiet hum of desire he hasn’t felt in over a decade.
She doesn’t pull away. She just holds the right edge of the awning, her shoulder pressed firm to his, and laughs over the roar of the rain, says she spent three hours baking those peach pies, is not letting them get waterlogged. They haul the stack of pie tins and cookie trays to the bed of his truck when the rain slows to a drizzle, sit on the tailgate sharing a slice of peach pie with vanilla ice cream, watching the sun set pink and orange over the oak trees at the edge of the park. He doesn’t mention his ex once, doesn’t complain about how much he hates small-town events, just tells her about the time he saw a kid hit a grand slam in the bottom of the ninth to win a rookie league championship in Tennessee. She tells him she’s working on a stained glass window for the local rec center, wants to incorporate vintage baseball cards into the design, has been meaning to knock on his door to ask if he has any spares.
By the time the rain stops completely, the parking lot is half empty, crumpled paper plates and soda cans scattered across the grass. He walks her to her beat-up Subaru, and she hands him a paper bag with two leftover cookies and a slice of pie, says she’ll knock on his door Wednesday afternoon, when he’s done with his short scout trip up to Toledo. He tucks the bag in the pocket of his flannel shirt, leans against the side of his truck while she pulls out of the parking lot, waving out the window. He stands there for five minutes after she’s gone, sipping the last of his warm beer, the grudge he’s carried around in his chest for 12 years feeling lighter than it has since the day his ex moved out. He pulls the cookie out of the bag, takes a bite, tastes chocolate and sea salt, and makes a mental note to dig out his old collection of 1980s baseball cards when he gets home that night.
