Manny Rios, 62, retired Border Patrol canine handler, had spent the last seven years deliberately keeping his world small. After his wife Elena passed from ovarian cancer, he’d traded his uniform for a beat-up white mobile dog grooming van, catering exclusively to senior pet owners in the small border towns strung along the Rio Grande outside Laredo. His biggest flaw? He’d convinced himself any casual connection beyond trimming a Shih Tzu’s nails or swapping chili recipes at the annual fall cookoff was a betrayal of the 34 years he’d had with Elena. He’d turned down three blind dates, ignored the waitress at his regular taco stand’s not-so-subtle hints, and wrote off every flicker of interest as something he was too old, too set in his ways, to entertain.
He was parked at the county fairgrounds cookoff on a humid late October Saturday, stirring a dented pot of Elena’s award-winning pork and red chili, when he spotted Lila Marquez. 38, the niece of his old patrol partner Jesse, she was in town for six months doing field work for her sociology PhD, studying how border food traditions kept cross-family ties alive across the Rio Grande. He’d run into her three times in the last month at the H-E-B on McPherson Road, each time she’d leaned in to hug him, her shoulder brushing his bicep, her laugh bright enough to make his ears go pink. He’d told himself repeatedly it was wrong to even notice her—he’d met her when she was 17, visiting Jesse for summer, carrying a stack of poetry books and a bad fake ID she’d tried to use to buy beer at the corner store.
She sauntered over to his booth now, wearing cutoff denim shorts and a faded Texas Longhorns tee, a paper plate crumpled in one hand. “Heard you entered Elena’s recipe this year,” she said, leaning against the edge of his folding table, close enough that he could smell the jasmine perfume she wore, mixed with the smoky mesquite from the grills two rows over. She held out her plate, and when he passed her a scoop of chili, their fingers brushed. He felt the rough callus on her index finger, the same one she’d had as a teen from writing constantly in a beat-up notebook. “Still as heavy on the cumin as I remember,” she said after a bite, holding his gaze for three full beats longer than was polite, before licking a smudge of red sauce off her lower lip.
Manny’s throat went dry. He wiped his hands on the front of his faded denim apron, and took a step back, putting a foot of space between them. “Your uncle around?” he asked, deliberately casual, already kicking himself for the question. Jesse was in San Antonio for a grandkid’s soccer game, she’d told him that two days prior when she’d dropped off her aunt’s elderly Chihuahua for a nail trim.
Lila laughed, a low, warm sound that made the back of his neck tingle. “Nice try. You know he’s not.” She took another bite of chili, and tilted her head, studying him. “You know, when I was 17 I had the biggest crush on you. Used to make Jesse bring me to your house for dinner just so I could watch you fix the truck in the driveway.” She grinned, unashamed, and Manny felt his face heat up. Part of him was horrified—she was Jesse’s niece, half his age, he’d watched her graduate high school over FaceTime three years before. The other part of him, the part that had been cold and closed off for seven years, hummed at the attention, at the way she was looking at him like he wasn’t just some old guy who groomed dogs for a living.
He was about to stammer out some kind of polite rejection when the sky opened up. Rain came down in hard, cold sheets, sending cookoff attendees scrambling for cover. Lila yelped, grabbing his wrist to yank him out of the downpour, and they ran 20 yards to the awning of the small taqueria on the edge of the fairgrounds, squeezing into the small dry space between a stack of folding chairs and the building’s cinder block wall. Their sides were pressed tight together, rain dripping off the brim of Manny’s Border Patrol baseball cap onto Lila’s shoulder, her bare leg pressed against his jeans. He could feel the heat of her skin through the thin denim, hear her breath coming fast from running.
“Sorry,” she said, after a beat, not moving away. She looked up at him, rain droplets caught in her dark hair, and Manny felt that familiar war in his chest—disgust at himself for even considering this, for wanting something that felt so wrong, so forbidden, warring with the sharp, bright desire that he’d thought was long dead. “I know you think this is weird. That I’m too young, that I’m Jesse’s niece, that you’re still hung up on Elena.” She reached up, brushing a stray raindrop off his cheek, and he didn’t flinch away. “I’m not asking you to marry me. I’m not asking you to tell Jesse, or post about us on Facebook. I just know you’re lonely. I know you spend every Friday night eating takeout alone and watching old westerns. I know you haven’t let anyone get close to you since she died.”
Manny stared at her, stunned. He hadn’t realized anyone paid that much attention to him. He opened his mouth to speak, and then closed it again, and instead reached up, brushing a wet strand of hair off her forehead. His fingers lingered on her temple for a second, and she leaned into the touch, her eyes fluttering shut for half a second.
The rain slowed to a drizzle 10 minutes later. They walked back to his van together, their shoulders brushing every few steps, no one saying a word. He’d parked it on the side of the road a block away, the “Manny’s Mutt Grooming” logo faded on the side door. “My Airbnb is 10 minutes from here,” she said, leaning against the passenger side door, looking up at him. “I’ve got that cold brew you like in the fridge. The stuff from the little roaster on Convent.”
Manny hesitated for half a second, thinking of the empty house waiting for him, the leftover chili in his fridge, the John Wayne DVD he’d planned on watching that night. Then he pulled the van keys out of his pocket, and unlocked the passenger door for her. He rested his hand on the small of her back as they walk up the porch steps to her rental 15 minutes later, the faint smell of her jasmine perfume mixing with the damp cedar of the railing.
