Manny Rios is 62, retired air traffic controller, spent 38 years talking down panicking pilots and rerouting thunderstorm-bound flights out of DFW, hasn’t let himself have an unplanned moment since his wife Maria died seven years prior. His biggest flaw? He’s convinced any romantic interest in another person at his age is a betrayal, a cheap slap to the 42 years he spent building a life with the only woman he’d ever kissed. His neighbor had badgered him for three weeks to come to the town’s summer street fair, saying the brisket taco truck he drove 45 minutes for once a quarter was set up by the gazebo, and he’d finally caved, figuring he could grab his food and hightail it home before anyone tried to strike up a conversation.
The air hums with the buzz of crickets and the tinny twang of a cover band playing 90s country, string lights strung between oak trees gilding the edges of every face that passes. He’s wiping taco grease off his calloused palms when he spots the library’s used book booth, stacked high with dog-eared paperbacks, and he veers off course before he can think better of it. He’s collected Louis L’Amour westerns since he was a kid, has three full shelves in his den lined with them, and he spots a first edition of *Hondo* tucked between a romance novel and a dog training guide almost immediately.
He reaches for it at the exact same time another hand does. Their knuckles brush, and he flinches like he’s touched a hot griddle, the cool metal of a silver turquoise ring pressing into the soft skin of his wrist for half a second. He looks up, and the woman behind the booth is grinning, dark hair streaked with gray pulled into a loose braid over one shoulder, faint smudge of charcoal on her left cheek from marking book prices. She doesn’t yank her hand away, just holds his gaze for three slow beats, her thumb brushing the spine of the paperback like she’s testing him. “Took you long enough,” she says, her voice low and warm, like she’s been laughing right before she spoke. “I’ve been hiding that one all night, didn’t want to hand it over to some teen who was gonna resell it for ten bucks on Poshmark.”
Manny freezes. His first thought is that he shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be talking to a woman who isn’t Maria, shouldn’t be noticing how the string lights catch the gold flecks in her brown eyes, how she smells like lavender hand lotion and the fried funnel cake someone is selling two booths over. He shifts his weight back, ready to mumble an apology and leave, when she tilts her head and nods at the dented plastic cup of sweet tea in his hand. “You gonna make me haggle for it, or you gonna buy me a frozen lemonade from the stand down the block and we call it even?”
The internal conflict hits him like a crosswind. Half of him is screaming that this is wrong, that he’s being unfaithful, that he should turn and walk straight to his truck and go home to his empty house and his shelf of westerns and his frozen dinners. The other half of him is tired, tired of eating alone, tired of only talking to his neighbor’s golden retriever when he takes the trash out, tired of pretending the empty side of his bed doesn’t feel like a cold weight every night. He hesitates, and she smirks, leaning forward a little across the booth so he can see the faint freckles across her nose. “C’mon,” she says. “I won’t bite unless you ask nice.”
He says yes. He doesn’t know why, but he says yes. She introduces herself as Lena, 58, part-time children’s librarian, moved to town six months ago after her husband died of a heart attack while they were hiking in Big Bend. They walk side by side down the crowded street, their elbows brushing every few steps, and he can feel the heat of her arm through the thin cotton of her floral blouse. A group of teens runs past, yelling, and one of them slams into Manny’s back hard enough that he stumbles forward, his chest pressing flush to Lena’s shoulder for a split second. He can feel the soft curve of her shoulder blade under his hand when he reaches out to steady both of them, and she laughs, putting her own hand on his forearm and leaving it there, her palm warm even through the thick denim of his work shirt.
They get their lemonades, cold and tart and so sweet it makes his teeth ache, and sit on a splintered wooden bench next to the town fountain, water splashing softly behind them. A mariachi band sets up on the gazebo stage a few feet away, their trumpets blaring a song Maria used to sing while she cooked dinner, and Manny’s throat tightens. He admits he hasn’t so much as had a cup of coffee with another woman since Maria died, that he feels like he’s cheating, like he’s throwing away all the years they had together for a stupid lemonade and a paperback.
Lena nods, swirling her lemonade with a plastic straw, and says she felt the exact same way for three years after her husband died. She’d turn down invites to dinner, delete dating app profiles before she even filled them out, convinced she was betraying the 31 years they’d had together, until her sister sat her down and told her her husband would have yelled at her for wasting the rest of her good years sitting on the couch watching old movies alone. “He always said the best gift you can give the person you love is living well after they’re gone,” she says, and she leans her shoulder against his, soft and steady, and he doesn’t pull away.
He opens the *Hondo* paperback when she gets up to drop her empty cup in the trash a minute later, and a pressed yellow sunflower falls out of the first page, its petals still bright and crisp. She picks it up and hands it to him, grinning. “I tucked that in there this morning,” she says. “Figured whoever got the book needed a little extra good luck.”
The sun is almost fully down now, fireflies flickering in the oak trees around them, the mariachi band switching to a slower, softer love song. Manny tucks the sunflower into the breast pocket of his worn denim shirt, and for the first time in seven years, he doesn’t feel guilty for smiling at a stranger.
