Manny Ruiz, 62, retired air traffic controller, leans against the dented passenger side of his 2008 Ford F-150, sweating a little through his worn gray flannel even with the October wind nipping at his ears. He’d dropped off his smoked brisket chili entry 20 minutes prior, has a cold Pabst in one hand, is half-listening to a group of volunteer firefighters argue about last weekend’s Ducks game when the collision happens. She turns too fast, her canvas tote slung over one shoulder, a stack of library hold slips peeking out the top, and slams right into his wrist, spilling half his beer down the front of his shirt.
She gasps, immediately patting at his chest with a crumpled napkin she pulls from her jeans pocket, and Manny freezes. He’d recognize that messy auburn hair, the smudge of fudge on her left jaw, the faint scar above her right eyebrow anywhere. Clara Bennett. Ex-wife of Greg Hale, his old shift partner from the Portland ARTCC, the woman he’d nursed a stupid, guilty crush on for three years back in the mid-2000s, before she left Greg and moved out of state, before Elaine got sick. The guilt hits first, sharp and hot, like he’s doing something wrong just standing this close to her, even with Elaine gone eight years now. He’d made a promise to himself after she died, no new women, no distractions, no betraying the 34 years they’d had.
Clara’s hand brushes his sternum when she dabs at a wet spot right above his heart, and he can smell lavender lotion and burnt sugar on her sleeve, hear her quiet laugh when she realizes he’s not yelling. “Sorry, sorry, some kid just ran past with a face full of cotton candy and I was trying not to trip over him,” she says, leaning back just far enough to look him in the eye, her thumb brushing a stray drop of beer off his shirt cuff. “Manny, right? Greg used to talk about you all the time. Said you were the only controller in the whole building who never lost his cool even when a pilot forgot how to read a runway sign.”
He nods, his throat tight, and gestures to the tailgate of his truck, pulls out two paper bowls of the chili he’d spent three hours smoking that morning. She sits, their knees brushing when she tucks her legs up under her, and he can feel the warmth of her through the denim of their jeans. They talk first about the old days, the terrible office Christmas parties, the time Greg passed out in the break room after drinking too much spiked eggnog, and Manny finds himself laughing, a real laugh, the kind he hasn’t had since before Elaine’s chemo started. She tells him she moved back to town three months ago, took a part-time job at the small town library, lives alone in a little cottage on the edge of the woods, has two rescue cats that keep her up all night knocking over her books.
The internal fight nags at him the whole time, half of him screaming that he’s being disrespectful to Elaine, the other half hungry for the way she leans in when he talks, the way her eyes light up when he mentions his vintage radio collection, the way she keeps accidentally brushing her hand against his when they reach for the extra napkins he keeps in his truck bed. When the sun starts to dip below the treeline, painting the sky pink and orange, she stands, brushing chili crumbs off her flannel, and tilts her head at him. “I’ve got a bottle of 12-year bourbon my brother sent me from Kentucky back at my place,” she says, her voice steady, no hesitation. “I’ve waited 18 years to ask you if you want to come share it. No pressure if you don’t.”
Manny freezes for a full ten seconds, the old guilt flaring so hot he almost says no immediately. But then he remembers what Elaine said two weeks before she died, when she was lying in the hospital bed, holding his hand, telling him he didn’t have to spend the rest of his life being lonely just because she was leaving. He looks at Clara, her hand resting on the side of his truck two inches from his, her cheeks pink from the cold, and he nods. They drive separately, him following her small Subaru down the winding back roads, his hands a little shaky on the steering wheel. When he pulls into her gravel driveway, she’s already on the porch, holding the bourbon bottle in one hand, her boots kicked off by the door. She steps forward when he climbs out of his truck, reaches up to brush a dry oak leaf off the collar of his flannel, her thumb brushing the edge of his jaw, and he doesn’t pull away.
