Manny Ruiz, 58, has run a vintage baseball card shop in west-central Ohio for eight years, ever since he retired from scouting for the Reds farm system, ever since his wife Elaina died. His worst flaw, per his 22-year-old niece Lila, is that he’d rather re-sort his 1990s Topps collection alone in his back office than interact with any human who doesn’t care about OPS stats or 1995 World Series trivia. She’d badgered him for three weeks to set up a booth at the town’s annual summer street fair, and he’d caved only when she threatened to hide his prized Joe Morgan signed rookie card.
He’s sweating through his faded 2002 Reds road polo, fanning himself with a stack of ungraded Ken Griffey Jr. commons, when the water bottle rolls between his booth and the one next door. He reaches for it at the same time the woman running the adjacent heirloom tomato stand does. Their knuckles brush first, then their palms, and Manny freezes when he feels the rough callus across the base of her thumb, the faint smear of potting soil on her wrist. “Sorry about that,” she says, pulling back to tuck a strand of gray-streaked chestnut curls behind her ear, and her voice is low, rough around the edges, like she smokes a cigarette on her porch after dark every now and then. He’s spent eight years convincing himself he doesn’t notice things like that anymore.
Her name is Lena, 54, she’s the new county extension agent who moved to town six months prior, and Manny has avoided every event she’s hosted because he thought community gardening workshops were for bored retirees with nothing better to do. Now he’s leaning against the edge of his booth, listening to her rant about the guy who tried to haggle her down to 50 cents for a heirloom Cherokee Purple start, and he’s laughing, actually laughing, so hard his sides hurt a little. She leans in when he talks about scouting, when he tells the story of driving 12 hours through a snowstorm to watch a 19-year-old Joey Votto play a summer league game in Canada, and her shoulder presses into his bicep, warm through the thin fabric of his polo. He can smell lavender hand soap mixed with damp potting soil and the sweet fried dough scent wafting from the concession stand three booths down, and he feels like a teenager again, panicking that she’ll notice he’s staring at the freckles across her nose, that he’s fighting the urge to brush a crumb of funnel cake off the corner of her mouth.
He’s always told himself he’d never be interested in someone who spends her days covered in dirt, who wears cutoff flannel over tank tops and work boots with holey soles, who posts photos of her rescue chickens on the town Facebook page. It’s a stupid, arbitrary line he drew after Elaina died, part of the whole “no new things” rule he’s lived by for almost a decade, and now he’s sitting there wanting to cross it so bad his palms are sweating. She asks if he has any 1990s Reds cards, says her dad was a huge fan before he passed last year, and he pulls a mint 1995 Barry Larkin rookie he’s had stashed in his personal collection for 28 years, hands it to her for free. She tries to pay, he refuses, so she shoves a paper bag full of Sungold cherry tomato starts into his hands, the plastic pots warm against his fingers.
The rain hits without warning, a sharp summer downpour that has everyone scrambling to cover their stock. Manny’s card boxes are spread out on the table, and he panics, fumbling for the tarp he threw in the back of his truck that morning, when Lena appears at his side holding a heavy vinyl tarp from her booth, yelling over the rain to help him hold it down. They stretch it over the table, and when a gust of wind pulls the edge out of his hand, she steps in closer, pressing her whole body against his side to hold the tarp in place, her chest against his arm, her hair brushing his cheek. He can feel her heart racing through her shirt, same as his, and when she looks up at him, their faces are inches apart, rain dripping off the edge of the tarp onto the tip of her nose. He doesn’t overthink it, doesn’t talk himself out of it like he has every other small, good thing that’s come his way in eight years. He kisses her, and she kisses him back, tastes like cherry limeade and mint gum, her hand coming up to rest on the back of his neck, her fingers cold from the rain.
The rain stops 10 minutes later, leaving the street glistening, the air smelling like cut grass and wet asphalt. They’re both damp, the hem of Manny’s polo soaked through, Lena’s curls sticking to her forehead, and they’re both grinning like idiots, like they just pulled off a heist no one else knows about. She grabs the Larkin card from her bag, scribbles her cell number on the back in blue Sharpie, hands it back to him. “Bring those tomato starts over to my place Saturday around 6,” she says, wiping a smudge of rain off his cheek with her thumb. “I’ll teach you how to plant them, and I got burgers in the freezer that are way better than the fair ones.”
He tucks the card into the inner pocket of his worn leather wallet, right next to the photo of Elaina he’s carried there since they got married in 1989. He watches her load her tomato starts into the back of her beat-up Subaru, waving when she drives off, and he doesn’t even mind that a stack of 1988 Topps commons got a little damp around the edges. His niece walks up a minute later, holding two cherry limeades, and raises her eyebrows when she sees the goofy smile on his face. He doesn’t say anything, just takes the limeade, and takes a long sip, sweet and cold on his tongue.
