Manny Ruiz, 53, makes his living sanding rust out of 1970s camper shells and rewiring finicky vintage fridge units, and up until three hours ago, he’d gone seven straight years skipping the Maplewood Drive block party. His granddaughter Lila, home from community college for the summer, had begged him for two weeks straight to man her empanada stand while she ran the dunk tank for her marching band fundraiser, and he’d caved the second she held up a batch of his favorite pork and pineapple ones, still steaming from the oven. He’d showed up in the same oil-stained Carhartt shirt he’d worn to work that morning, faded Detroit Tigers cap pulled low over his eyes, grease crusted under his thumbnail that he’d scrubbed at for five minutes in the kitchen sink before he left, no luck.
He leaned against the oak tree by Lila’s folding table, half listening to the neighbor two houses down ramble about his lawn fertilizer, when the golden retriever came barrelling toward him, leash stretched tight behind it. The woman holding the leash yelped, stumbling forward, her plastic cup of iced sweet tea sloshing over the edge as she collided with Manny’s work boot, cold liquid seeping through the frayed lace hole to dampen his sock. She laughed immediately, no awkward flustering, no apologizing ten times in a row like most people did when they bumped into him, like they were scared they’d break the quiet widower everyone on the street walked on eggshells around. “Sorry about that,” she said, nodding at the dog who was now sitting at Manny’s feet, tail thumping against the grass. “Max thinks every new person he meets is a walking treat dispenser.”
She stood close enough that Manny could smell coconut shampoo and fresh cut clover on her t-shirt, no heavy perfume, no fancy jewelry, just a pair of beat up steel toe boots on her feet, blue nail polish chipped half off like she’d been lifting heavy things all week. He recognized her as the woman who’d moved into the old Henderson house three weeks prior, the one with the mobile pet grooming van parked in the driveway. When she reached out to hand him a crumpled napkin to wipe his boot, her fingers brushed his, calloused and warm, and he felt a jolt he hadn’t felt since Maria first grabbed his hand at a Tigers game in 1991.
He fought the immediate, sharp twist of guilt in his gut, the familiar voice in his head that said he had no business talking to a pretty woman when Maria was gone, that enjoying anything this much was some kind of betrayal. But she didn’t look at him like he was a sad story, didn’t mention Maria, didn’t ask how he was doing in that soft, pitying tone everyone else used. She just asked if the empanadas were any good, and when he told her Lila made them from his wife’s old recipe, she nodded, bought three, and said she could already tell they were better than the food truck ones she got down on Main Street.
He didn’t even realize he’d asked her if she wanted to come look at it until the words were out of his mouth, his throat tight, half convinced she’d say no, half convinced he was an idiot for asking. But she grinned, pulling a pen out of her back pocket, scribbling her phone number on a napkin printed with cartoon golden retrievers, and tucked it into the breast pocket of his Carhartt, her fingers lingering on the fabric for half a second longer than necessary. “Text me tomorrow morning,” she said, picking up Max’s leash. “I’ll bring coffee. The good stuff, not the instant swill I know you guys drink in garages.”
Lila wandered over a few minutes later, holding a stack of cash from the empanada sales, grinning so wide her dimples showed. “I saw that,” she said, nodding at the pocket where Manny had tucked the napkin. “You gonna ask her out, or are you gonna just stare at her number for three weeks like you did with the librarian last year?” Manny rolled his eyes, swatting playfully at her arm, but he tucked his hand into his pocket to make sure the napkin didn’t blow away. He stayed for the rest of the party, even let Lila drag him into the cornhole tournament, beat the couple that lived across the street so bad they bought him a beer as a consolation prize.
