Manny Ruiz is 62, makes his living restoring antique typewriters out of the converted garage of his 1950s bungalow in New Braunfels, Texas, and hasn’t asked a woman out for coffee since his wife Linda died of ovarian cancer eight years prior. His biggest flaw, the one his adult kids nag him about every holiday, is that he’s convinced any flicker of interest in another person is a betrayal of the 34 years he spent with Linda, even though she told him the week before she died to go find things that make him laugh when she was gone. He’d driven out to the town’s annual summer craft beer festival only because his next door neighbor, a retired high school football coach, had banged on his door at 2 PM holding two pre-paid entry wristbands and complaining his wife had bailed to go to a quilt show, and Manny hadn’t had the heart to say no.
He was leaning against a wooden support post by the honey brown ale tent, half-empty cold cup in one hand, sweating through the armpits of his faded Willie Nelson tee, when a woman stepped backward hard to avoid a group of rowdy 20-somethings tottering past with neon jello shots, slamming right into his side. Her seltzer can dribbled a splash of citrus-flavored liquid down his left forearm, and she yelped an apology, immediately leaning in to dab at the wet spot with a crumpled napkin she pulled from her crossbody bag. The tip of her elbow brushed his ribs as she moved, and he caught a whiff of lavender hand lotion mixed with the faint, sweet smell of peaches from the cobbler stand 10 feet away, so distinct it made his chest feel tight for half a second. When she looked up to make sure she hadn’t soaked his shirt, her hazel eyes held his for a beat longer than polite courtesy required, crinkling at the corners when he grunted that it was fine, he’d spilled worse on himself while prying rusted typewriter keys loose.
He agreed to sit with her before he could talk himself out of it, and for the next hour they traded stories: she’d lost her husband to a sudden heart attack six years prior, had spent the first two years after his death only leaving the house to restock books and buy groceries, had only come to the festival because her niece had practically dragged her. He told her about Linda’s last week, how she’d made him promise not to turn their house into a museum of their marriage, how he’d broken that promise a hundred times over by not letting anyone new in. When he finished talking, she reached across the splintered picnic table, rested her hand on top of his – calloused, scarred at the knuckle from a typewriter spring that snapped back on him last winter – and didn’t pull away when he didn’t flinch. The sun dipped low below the oak branches, painting the sky streaks of tangerine and pale pink, and the band switched to slower, softer country deep cuts, the hum of the crowd fading into background noise.
When her text pinged that her niece was ready to leave, Manny offered to stop by her bookstore the next afternoon to look at her Royal, no charge for the first evaluation, and she grinned, digging a crumpled grocery receipt out of her bag and scribbling her cell number on the back in blue ballpoint. She slipped it into the front pocket of his worn denim work shirt, her fingers brushing the faded fabric over his chest for a split second, and told him to text her when he was on his way, she’d have cold iced tea waiting. He walked her to her beat-up Subaru, watched her pull out of the parking lot waving out the window, then stuck his hand in his pocket to crumple the receipt tight in his fist, the paper warm against his palm. He walked back to his own truck without stopping to say goodbye to his neighbor, already mentally running through the list of Royal parts he had in his garage, the tight knot in his chest he’d carried for eight years finally loosened enough to breathe.
