Rafe Sorrento, 51, has spent the last six years as a part-time minor league scout for the Appalachian League, logging 400-plus miles a week in his dented 2016 Silverado, eating gas station burritos for breakfast and pulled pork sandwiches for dinner, avoiding every small-town community event within 30 miles of his rental cabin outside Asheville. His biggest flaw, per his older sister, is that he’s convinced any attempt to move past his wife Linda’s 2017 cancer death would make him a bad person. He’d showed up to the town’s annual summer street barbecue only because his boss threatened to reassign him to West Virginia if he skipped the team’s recruitment table, so he grabbed a paper plate heaped with vinegar-based pork and a can of Pabst, planted himself against the chipped brick wall of the old downtown hardware store, and planned to leave as soon as he said hello to the three team parents he was supposed to schmooze.
He was halfway through his beer, mentally mapping the backroad route home that would avoid 5 o’clock parkway traffic, when a shadow fell across his plate. He looked up, and there was Maren Hale, the 38-year-old part-time park ranger who’d moved to town three months prior. The only time they’d spoken before was a 90-second phone call two weeks earlier, when he called the county to report a downed oak blocking the access road to his hunting spot, and he’d replayed her low, scratchy, laugh-lined voice in his head for three days afterward, feeling stupid and guilty every time. She wore cutoff denim shorts caked with mud, a faded U.S. Forest Service tee with a hole at the elbow, scuffed work boots laced tight to her calves, and there was a smudge of charcoal on her left cheekbone that looked like it had been there since lunch.
She leaned against the wall a foot away from him, crossed her ankles, and nodded at his plate. “Heard the barbecue this year’s less burnt than last. Good call skipping the coleslaw, by the way, they used Miracle Whip instead of mayo.” He grunted in agreement, suddenly hyper aware of the red clay caked on his own work boots, the faded Braves cap he’d worn every day for 10 years pulled low over his eyes. When she reached for the stack of napkins tucked under his arm, her elbow brushed his, warm and solid through the thin flannel of his shirt, and he caught a whiff of pine soap and cheap lager off her, sharp and bright next to the smell of charcoal and fried dough drifting down the street.
They made small talk for 10 minutes, about the oak tree he’d reported, the string of bear sightings near the mountain campgrounds, the way half the town had spent the last two months trying to set her up with the 42-year-old elementary school PE teacher who wore tie-dye every Friday. “They all think I’m a lesbian, y’know,” she said, laughing so hard her shoulders shook, and Rafe felt his face heat up so fast he was sure he looked like a tomato. He’d thought the same thing, honestly, had written off the stupid flutter in his chest every time he saw her truck parked at the grocery store as a waste of time, on top of being a betrayal to Linda’s memory. “Nah, I like men,” she said, tilting her head at him like she could read his mind, and he fumbled his beer can so bad a little sloshed over the edge onto his wrist.
A group of kids chasing a golden retriever came barrelling down the sidewalk a second later, and she stepped into him to get out of the way, her palm flat against his chest for two full beats before she pulled back. He could feel the callus on the heel of her hand, rough from climbing trees and fixing fence posts, and she didn’t look away from his eyes when she apologized, no awkward dart of her gaze, no nervous laugh. He didn’t step back, didn’t brush off his shirt, didn’t make the awkward joke he’d rehearsed for situations like this.
She nodded at the lanyard around his neck, the old plastic minor league pass he’d had since 2002 hanging off the end. “I heard you used to play ball at the old field up on Black Mountain, the one that’s been half overgrown since the 90s. I’ve been meaning to hike up there and see if it’s salvageable for the rec league kids. Wanna come with me next Saturday? I’ll bring beer. No weird small talk required.” Rafe froze. He thought about the framed photo of Linda on his fridge, the one taken on their wedding day, her grinning so wide her dimples showed. He thought about the way the town gossips would whisper if they saw him hiking the mountain with a woman 13 years younger than him, a woman everyone had written off as off-limits for every straight man in town. He thought about the last time he’d done anything that didn’t involve driving to baseball games or fixing leaky faucets at his cabin, and realized he couldn’t remember.
He nodded, and her face lit up so bright it felt like the sun had broken through the clouds hanging over the valley all afternoon. She scribbled her number on the back of a park service flyer for a guided hike, handed it to him, and gave his bicep a quick, firm squeeze before she turned to help her roommate carry a cooler of lemonade across the street. He folded the flyer up tight, tucked it into the pocket of his flannel shirt, and took a sip of his warm beer, the corner of his mouth tugging up in a smile he hadn’t felt in six years.
