Manny Ruiz, 52, makes his living sanding dents out of 1970s campers and painting sunflowers on cedar signs out of his workshop on the edge of Silverton, Oregon. He’s a lifelong people-pleaser, the guy who’ll fix your trailer hitch for free if you bring him a six pack of Modelo, who’s avoided dating for seven straight years ever since his ex-wife left him for a ranch hand in Texas, claiming he “cared more about rusted aluminum than her.” He tells friends he’s too busy for anything more than beer and baseball on the weekends, and half the time he even believes it.
It’s 92 degrees at the August farmers market, the air thick with the smell of roasted elote and fresh peach pie from the stand two booths down. Sweat sticks the collar of his faded flannel to his neck, and he’s wiping grime off a stack of custom camper mug holders when Clara Hale stops in front of his table. He recognizes her immediately—she’s the mayor’s wife, 48, works the front desk at the town library, always shows up to town hall meetings in crisp linen dresses, perched silent next to her 62-year-old husband while he rants about zoning laws. He’s never seen her alone before, and he’s never seen her without her thick diamond wedding band on her left hand.
She runs a finger along the edge of a “Wander Slow” sign painted sunflower yellow, and her laugh when he says he painted it at 2 a.m. last night after a bad thunderstorm knocked out power to his shop is low, warm, nothing like the tight, polite smile he’s seen her flash at town events. They stand close enough that he can smell lavender perfume and sweet iced tea on her, and when he reaches past her to grab a smaller version of the same sign to show her the tiny hand-carved sunflower he stamps on the back of every piece, his forearm brushes the soft fabric of her dress. She tenses for half a second, then leans in a fraction, doesn’t step back.
Manny’s first instinct is to put space between them. Everyone in this town knows everyone’s business, and if anyone sees him lingering this close to the mayor’s wife, the gossip will spread faster than wildfire through the dry Willamette Valley grass. He tries to step back once, but she asks him about the half-restored 1972 Airstream he parks in front of his shop, says she drives past it every morning on her way to the library just to see what new paint he’s added to the side. He finds himself talking for 20 minutes straight, telling her about the client from Seattle who’s paying him to turn it into a mobile bookshop, about how he learned to work on campers from his dad when he was a kid growing up in El Paso, hauling their beat-up 1968 Scotty down to the Gulf Coast every summer. Her brown eyes stay locked on his the whole time he’s talking, no polite darting away, no glancing over his shoulder to see if someone she knows is walking by.
She buys the “Wander Slow” sign, and he offers to carry it to her car, parked under a gnarled oak tree at the far edge of the market lot, far from the crowds. The shade is cool enough to make goosebumps pop up on his sweat-slick arms, and when he hands her the sign, her fingers brush his, hold for three full beats before she pulls away. She admits she’s been wanting to stop and talk to him for months, but her husband hates the farmers market, calls the vendors “unregulated grifters” and refuses to step foot near the place. She says they’ve been sleeping in separate bedrooms for a year, staying married only until his first term is halfway over, to avoid the bad press.
Manny’s spent seven years running from anything that could cause even a hint of conflict, anything that might make people look at him sideways, but for the first time he can remember, he doesn’t care what anyone says. He doesn’t flinch when she leans in, her shoulder pressing firm against his, and pulls a crumpled library receipt out of her purse, scribbling her cell number on the back in blue ballpoint pen. She shoves it in the breast pocket of his flannel, her knuckles brushing his chest through the thin fabric, and tells him to text her when he’s free, she wants to see the inside of that Airstream, bring him a batch of her abuela’s empanadas she baked last night.
She gets in her silver Subaru, waves as she pulls out of the parking spot, and Manny stands there for five full minutes, the receipt crinkling under his fingers, watching her taillights disappear down the two-lane road leading into town. He walks back to his booth, and when his friend Javi, who sells raw honey three spots over, yells across the lot asking him who the pretty lady was, he just shrugs, tucks his hand into his pocket to make sure the receipt is still there, and pulls out his phone to type her a text. He fumbles the device once, his palms still a little slick with sweat, before he hits send on the message asking if she takes her iced coffee with cream and sugar, if she’s free the next afternoon when he’s got the shop all to himself. Her reply pops up 10 seconds later, a sunflower emoji and a yes to both questions, and he shoves the phone back in his pocket, grinning so wide his cheeks hurt.
