Manny Ruiz, 62, retired high school auto shop teacher, had been dragged to the small Ohio town’s annual harvest festival kicking and screaming. His niece had shown up at his garage at 4 p.m. sharp, plucked the rusted wrench from his hand where he was prying a stuck piston out of a 1972 Ford F-150, and told him he wasn’t spending another Saturday covered in grease and talking to a dead truck. He’d protested, argued the festival was just an excuse for bored retirees to hit on each other and overpay for candied apples, but she’d already tossed his clean flannel at his head and herded him into her SUV.
He’d been hovering by the craft beer tent for 45 minutes, nursing a spiced pumpkin ale that tasted better than he’d admit, when he turned to set his empty cup on the folding table and collided with someone. Warm apple cider sloshed over the rim of the paper cup, splattering a dark splotch on the cuff of his gray flannel, and he grunted an apology before he even looked up.
The woman in front of him was 58 or so, dark hair streaked with silver pulled back in a loose braid, hazel eyes flecked with gold crinkling at the corners like she was already amused. She grabbed a crumpled napkin from the stack on the table and reached out, dabbing at the wet spot on his sleeve before he could step back. Her knuckle brushed his wrist as she worked, cool from holding the cold cup, and he caught a whiff of cinnamon and lavender coming off her cable-knit sweater. “Relax,” she said, her voice low and warm over the twang of the bluegrass band playing 20 feet away. “That flannel looked like it needed a little fall-themed flair anyway. I’m Clara, just moved here three months ago to run the local library’s part-time history room.”
Manny stared for a beat longer than was polite, suddenly aware he still had grease under his fingernails and a smudge of dirt on his jaw. He’d avoided every public event in town for four years, ever since his wife Maria passed, convinced everyone just wanted to offer him pitying smiles and set him up with their widowed sisters. He should have mumbled another apology and bolted for the exit. Instead, he snorted. “Manny. That shirt’s from 2001. It’s survived transmission fluid spills, my niece’s slumber party punch, and a hailstorm. A little cider’s nothing.”
They talked for the next hour, leaning in closer every time a group of screaming kids ran past or the fiddle picked up volume. Her shoulder brushed his every time she laughed, soft and low, and he found himself telling her about the auto shop, about the 15-year-old kid who’d come in last semester and built a working go-kart out of scrap parts, about the woodworking he did on the side when he wasn’t messing with trucks. She told him about the beat-up 1920s oak card catalog cabinet in the history room, its drawers stuck shut, its finish scratched to hell, how she’d been asking around for someone who knew how to restore old furniture without charging a small fortune.
The guilt hit him slow, sharp, at first. He’d not talked to a woman his age for fun since Maria died. It felt like cheating, like he was breaking a promise he’d never actually made. But when she tilted her head and asked him if he knew anything about fixing stuck drawer slides, her eyes crinkling, he couldn’t bring himself to lie. “I know a thing or two,” he said, and she grinned so wide the little scar on her left jaw pulled tight.
She nodded toward the tree line at the edge of the park, where the sun was dipping low over the apple orchard, painting the sky pink and tangerine. “Wanna walk over there? I can’t hear myself think over this band, and I wanna hear more about that go-kart.”
Manny hesitated for half a second, his throat tight. He should say no, go home, watch the football game he’d recorded, forget this ever happened. Instead, he nodded.
The fallen oak and maple leaves crunched under their work boots as they walked, the noise of the festival fading behind them. Their hands brushed twice, three times, as they stepped over gnarled roots, and when she laughed at his story about the kid who’d crashed the go-kart into the school’s dumpster, he worked up the nerve to lace his fingers through hers. Her hand was soft, but had thin calluses on her fingertips from turning thousands of book pages, and she squeezed his hand immediately, like she’d been waiting for him to do it.
They stopped at the split-rail fence bordering the orchard, the air sharp with the smell of ripe apples and wood smoke from the festival bonfire. She leaned her head on his shoulder for a slow, quiet minute, and he didn’t move. “I haven’t had this much fun since I moved here,” she said, so quiet he almost didn’t hear it. “Everyone in town’s either related or been friends for 40 years. I felt like an outsider.”
Manny squeezed her hand again. He knew what that felt like, even after living here 30 years. He’d felt like an outsider the second Maria died, like everyone else was moving on with their lives and he was stuck in his garage, talking to old trucks.
They stood there until the sun dipped all the way below the horizon, the sky turning deep purple, the chill of the October evening seeping through their flannels. She dug a scrap of paper out of her coat pocket, a library checkout slip for a 1972 western novel, and scrawled her phone number on the back, pressing it into his palm. “Come by the library Thursday around 2? I’ll have the card catalog pulled out, and I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie. Extra chips, no nuts.”
He tucked the slip into the inside pocket of his flannel, where it wouldn’t get crumpled, and walked her to her beat-up Subaru parked on the side of the road. She leaned in before she opened the door, pressed a soft, quick kiss to his cheek, her lip balm tasting like peppermint. “Don’t be late,” she said, grinning, before she climbed in and pulled away.
Manny stood there for a minute, the cold air nipping at his cheeks, the spot where she’d kissed him still warm. He pulled out his phone, typed the number into his contacts, and saved it under “Clara Library / Cider Stain.” He didn’t even mind that his niece was gonna gloat for three weeks straight when she found out.
