Rudy Galvan, 57, minor league baseball scout for the Cincinnati Reds farm system, slumps into his usual scuffed vinyl booth at The Dugout, rain dripping off the brim of his faded Reds cap onto the crumb-dusted tabletop. He’s just come from a late-season American Legion game, where a lanky 19-year-old lefty from Des Moines threw 93 mph fastballs paired with a curveball that dropped so sharp it made three straight batters swing so hard they nearly twisted their ankles. He orders his usual: bourbon neat, no ice, a bowl of salted peanuts in the shell. The jukebox hums Johnny Cash’s *Folsom Prison Blues* low enough that he can still hear the rain lashing the tin roof, the distant rumble of thunder rolling over the cornfields outside.
Elara brings his order over ten minutes later, her scuffed white sneakers squeaking softly on the sticky linoleum. She’s 54, the widow of the town’s old Legion coach, has run the bar part-time since he died six years prior, and Rudy’s nodded at her a dozen times over the last three years he’s been passing through this corner of Iowa, but they’ve never exchanged more than a handful of words. She sets the bourbon down first, her bare forearm brushing his wrist for half a second, warm and a little calloused, and he catches a whiff of lavender hand soap and the faint, sweet smell of ripe peaches, like she’d been canning before her shift. He freezes for half a beat, flustered, before he mumbles a thank you, staring at his scouting notebook like the scribbled stats on the page hold the secrets of the universe. A sharp, uninvited tug of desire low in his gut makes him flinch, and he’s immediately disgusted with himself, like he’s just spit on Maria’s grave.
For the next twenty minutes, he pretends to be absorbed in his notes, but he keeps glancing up at her when he thinks she’s not looking. He notices the chipped navy polish on her fingernails, the same shade his wife Maria used to wear every summer before she died in a car crash eight years prior, and the guilt twists tighter. He’d made a promise to himself back then that he’d never so much as flirt with another woman, that any interest in anyone else was a betrayal of the 22 years they’d had together, and he’s stuck to that so strictly he’s turned down three separate setups from his sister back in Cincinnati. He tells himself he’s just tired, that the rain is making him soft, that he’s just projecting because the nail polish is familiar.
When she brings over a plate of fried cheese curds an hour later, unprompted, she slides into the booth across from him without asking. “Kitchen made a double batch by mistake,” she says, wiping her hands on the front of her frayed jeans, “no one else is here to eat ’em, I’m not gonna throw them out.” She nods at his notebook, her elbow resting on the table so close to his that their sleeves brush when he shifts his pen. “Saw that lefty you were watching today. His dad played for my husband’s 2003 Legion team. Had the exact same curve. Thought he’d go pro too, until he tore his UCL sliding into second.”
They talk for an hour and a half, the rain letting up to a soft drizzle, the jukebox switching over to old Patsy Cline tracks. He tells her about Maria, how she hated baseball but used to come to every single one of his son’s Little League games anyway, just to bring lemonade and yell at the umpires when they made bad calls. She tells him about her husband, how he collected vintage baseball cards and used to leave them tucked in her purse for her to find when he was gone on road trips with the team. The guilt that was sitting heavy in his chest earlier softens, turns into something lighter, something he hasn’t felt in years, like he’s allowed to laugh this loud with someone who isn’t a fellow scout or his grown son.
The power cuts out suddenly, a sharp crack of thunder shaking the windows, and Elara yelps, reaching across the table without thinking, her hand wrapping around his. Her palm is warm, a little sweaty, and he doesn’t pull away. He laces his fingers through hers for the ten seconds it takes for the emergency generator to kick on, the dim yellow lights washing over the bar, and when they pull apart, neither of them apologizes, neither of them looks away.
Her shift ends twenty minutes later, and he offers to walk her to her beat-up Ford F-150 parked around the back of the bar, even though it’s only a hundred feet away, even though the rain is barely falling now. He holds the passenger door open for her, and she pauses before she climbs in, leaning up to press a soft, quick kiss to his cheek, her lips warm against his stubble. “I’m coming to tomorrow’s game,” she says, grinning, “save me a seat next to you in the stands, okay?”
He nods, leaning against the doorframe as she starts the truck, waves as she pulls out of the parking lot, her taillights fading into the mist over the cornfields. He tucks his hands into the pockets of his jacket, feels the crumpled pack of sunflower seeds he keeps there, the folded scouting report for the lefty, and for the first time in eight years, he doesn’t feel guilty for looking forward to the next day. He turns back toward the bar, ready to grab his notebook and head to his motel, already mentally rearranging his schedule so he can stay an extra day past the game.
