Winner Takes All

by Jenny Santana

  “What are you talking about? Stop being so weird. I couldn’t find my favorite hair clip this morning. That’s all. And stop calling Laz ‘the enemy’ already. I’m only talking about a little friendly competition.”

  Celia let the word “friendly” echo in her head for a few seconds before saying anything. Then it came to her: Laz’s campaign event could actually make Mari look good.

  “Wait, you’re right—that’s a great idea. You should play him. It’ll show anyone who’s there that you’re a team player and that you’re willing to work with people. And while you distract him on the court, I can talk up the spectators and tell them why they should vote for you!”

  Mari smiled. “Now, that’s a plan.”

  A car drove by in the opposite direction. Celia recognized Mrs. Nuñez at the wheel of her trademark banana yellow Cadillac. The car honked hello to the girls as it passed. Mrs. Nuñez was mom to a set of twins—Ricky and Claudia—who were both in the seventh grade at Coral Grove. Celia realized that Mrs. Nuñez had probably just dropped the twins off at the court.

  “Just don’t let Laz…distract you. On the court, I mean.” She knew Mari’s role in this new plan had her spending a whole afternoon close to Laz, but it was what had to happen if they were going to use Laz’s campaign event to their own advantage.

  “I’m distracted enough already,” Mari said. “I’ve been so stressed—this election is all I’ve been able to think about lately. And it’s seriously messing up my performance in the play.”

  Mari dragged her hand through her hair, then lingered over the ends, tugging on them. “I haven’t got a single scene down completely yet.” She let out a big yawn. After rubbing her eyes to wake herself up a bit more, Mari said, “And being up this early on a Saturday isn’t going to help me get any memorization done later today. I have to get ready for next week.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Celia said. “As far as the big debate on Friday goes, I think we can have you totally prepped and ready to roll by Thursday night for sure.”

  Mari stopped dead in her tracks, her feet suddenly cemented to the gum-stained sidewalk. “The debate? It’s on Friday? As in this coming Friday?” She grabbed at her stomach and said, “Oh, Celia, no.”

  Celia had to take six or seven steps backward to return to Mari’s side. “Of course it’s on Friday,” she said. “Friday morning, right before everybody votes. Don’t you remember from last year? The debate’s the last big thing before the voting. It’ll make or break us.”

  Mari stuck her thumbnail in between her top and bottom teeth and began to chew. From across the street and a little ways down the next block came the laughs and shouts of kids—way too many kids—from the park’s basketball courts. Between the trunks of the palm trees surrounding the park and the courts, Celia thought she saw a lot of people her own age.

  “This is bad,” Mari said. She hadn’t taken a single step forward.

  “I know, it sounds like there are a lot of people there already.”

  “No, I mean about the debate on Friday.” Mari put her hands in her hair again and started tugging at her roots, her thick hair cascading through her fingers. Mari was usually able to keep herself calm—it was normally Mari convincing Celia to chill—but it was starting to look like she was on the brink of some kind of panic attack.

  “Don’t freak out,” Celia said, placing her hand on Mari’s shoulder over the straps of the light purple tank top she wore. “Like I said, I’ll totally have you ready. I promised you, didn’t I?”

  Mari pushed her hand off—a very un-Mari-like move—and said, “No, Celia, you’re not getting it. The play—our first official run-through is a week from yesterday, meaning this Friday.”

  Celia swallowed hard, finally getting it. Two big performances on the same day, all those lines, jumping off one kind of stage, only to hop onto another; no wonder Mari was being so not herself. How could Celia put her best friend through all of this? Celia stopped thinking about the election and about her own dreams of winning and said what she was really feeling at that moment: “Okay, first off, I’m really sorry everything is happening at once. I really am.”

  Something about the sincerity in Celia’s voice made Mari come out of panic-attack mode. Her hands unclenched themselves from her hair and fell to her sides. Celia put her hand on Mari’s shoulder again, and this time, Mari put her own hand over it and gave Celia a weak smile. They heard squeaks and the repetitive thuds of a basketball bouncing against the ground. They both turned in the direction of the courts.

  “Laz or no Laz, I really don’t have time for this,” Mari said, sounding far away.

  Laz. Was it him that Mari was coming for all along? Celia was worried, but kept her hand under Mari’s.

  “We’re already here,” Celia said with a shrug.

  Mari turned and looked back at the row of houses they’d just passed. Far off they heard Poochie, Celia’s neighbor’s Chihuahua, barking his brains out. How such a little dog made that much noise, Celia could never figure out. She sensed Mari’s wavering and said, “Man, that dog is almost as annoying as Laz.”

  Mari let out a nervous giggle and said, “You’re so mean. He’s not that bad.” Celia glanced at her and saw Mari’s cheeks turning red.

  “Are you blushing?!” Celia asked, shocked.

  “No, it’s just hot out here. Let’s get to the courts already.”

  Celia bit down on her tongue to keep from betraying her own true feelings about Laz. She’d convinced Mari that she saw Laz as nothing but the competition, but if Mari liked Laz, then she knew she had no chance with him. And their potential falling for each other had been all her own fault! She pulled her hand away from Mari and faced the courts, beginning to walk, then jog, then flat-out run from where Mari stood. When Celia was far enough away that she knew Mari couldn’t see the tears welling up in her eyes, she turned back around, a huge smile bravely plastered on her face, and yelled back, “Let’s go! Game on!” By the time Mari caught up to her, Celia’s eyes were dry and ready to focus on the only thing that mattered to her now: winning the election.

  Laz looked even cuter on the court than he did in school—something about the way the asphalt brought out his dark eyes—but Celia told herself she didn’t notice. Mari, however, let out a little gasp when they first turned into the courts and saw him there, standing under the hoop with a basketball tucked under his arm. Laz waved at them both, and Mari hustled over, suddenly calm and poised. No wonder she was always getting the big parts in the school plays, Celia thought.

  Determined to keep her focus on the game as a campaign tactic (and not as an opportunity to swoon over a boy she was suddenly trying really hard not to like anymore), Celia wandered into the crowd, away from where Mari had just swooped in on Laz and the game. As the basketball thumped against the pavement once again, Celia searched the bleachers for influential seventh graders. She’d been right about the twins being there: Ricky and Claudia sat next to each other, sipping from plastic water bottles and eating plantain chips from a bag perched between them on the bench. But maybe they’d planned on coming to the park before Laz’s lunch announcement the day before. They were both sort of considered jocks in school—not at all part of the nerd clique: She only knew them because their mom was a childhood friend of her own mom.

  Celia recognized a few other seventh graders: Luz Rojas, a girl from the soccer team was there, also drinking from a water bottle and decked out in full soccer gear. Maybe she was just taking a break from her own game, possibly happening on one of the park’s other fields. Mike and Henry, two boys with popularity similar to Laz’s, sat on the very top bench, looking like they thought they ruled the crowd. Henry elbowed Mike and Mike elbowed him back. Then Henry shoved Mike away and then Mike shoved Henry back. Celia didn’t even bother trying to decipher their cool-guy communication.

  Though she didn’t know everyone by name, she recognized a lot of faces. There was no Yvette and the Six-Pack, and there was no one from drama there
either, which didn’t surprise her since they tended to be scared of sports in general. Celia couldn’t spot a single nerd—she was almost sad to realize she was the only one there. But she knew an opportunity when she saw one: These were not voters she could normally reach—and Laz’s event had put them right in her hands. As Celia surveyed the crowd, she made a mental note to sit next to each of them at some point that afternoon and talk up Mari.

  One face that Celia expected to see was missing: Raul’s. Celia scanned the bleachers three times before almost deciding he wasn’t there. But then she spotted him back by the weathered gray picnic benches underneath the park’s barbecue pavilion, just off to the side of the courts. He was standing guard by two big blue coolers, with a clipboard and pen in his hands. It was time for some real reconnaissance, she decided, so she wandered his way as casually as she could.

  “Hey, Raul,” she said with too much enthusiasm. “Whatcha doing way over here? Not a basketball fan?”

  “I like it fine,” he said as he scribbled. “I’m just busy is all.”

  She slid toward him, trying to catch a peek at the papers on the clipboard, and said, “Busy doing what?”

  He pulled the clipboard to his chest and tucked the pen he’d been writing with behind his ear. Celia noticed that he had the same kind of kinky curly hair as she did, but since he kept it shaved short, she hadn’t ever realized that they had this in common. His hair was much darker, though—almost black—and his eyes were lighter than hers, a shade of brown so clear and bright that she wanted to call it hazel, maybe even green.

  “It’s none of your business,” he said. “But seeing as you were this close to being Laz’s campaign manager, I guess I can tell you.”

  So Raul knew that Laz had asked her and that she’d said no. Interesting, Celia thought. But the fact that Raul was filling her in on what might be a campaign secret meant that he and Laz didn’t see her as part of the competition. Perhaps Laz had been more distracted by the news of Mari’s hypothetical crush than she thought. Maybe making Laz think Mari liked him (and vice versa) would end up working out, diverting attention away from Celia. So what if it meant the end of her crush? Hadn’t her mom told her a million stories about all the crushes she’d had when she was a girl, and how none of them had ever panned out? Celia’s mom didn’t even like Celia’s dad when they met—she’d thought he was stuck-up because he refused to dance with anyone at the party where she first saw him—and hadn’t they been happily married for more than a dozen years now? Celia tried to focus on Raul’s words, making herself ignore the sinking feeling around her heart.

  “I’m just keeping track of who’s here, how long they hang out for, how they seem to feel about Laz, and whether or not they take one of these.” Raul fished around in one of the coolers and brought up a nearly frozen bottle of water. Over the regular label, there was a sticker that read LAZ IS YOUR REP but the ink was smudged and the label was peeling off. In fact, most of the labels were close to being completely illegible.

  Celia must have been making a face without realizing it, because Raul whined, “Oh, come on. It doesn’t look that bad. Maybe I didn’t think it through enough, but at least you get the message.”

  “Another ten minutes in that water,” she said, pointing to the slush in the coolers, “and you won’t get any message at all.”

  Raul glared at the label, which really did look more like LOZ OS YOON ROG, and said, “Who am I kidding? You’re right. What a disaster.” He slammed the bottle back in the cooler, sloshing the water around so that it lapped over the side and onto the concrete floor of the pavilion. He flung the clipboard onto a picnic table and sat down at its bench, putting his head in his hands. He said to the floor, “You have no idea how much printer ink I wasted making those things.”

  Celia was surprised she hadn’t picked up on this before, but it all made sense to her now. Raul must be working as Laz’s campaign manager. That was why they were using his printer for the posters, that was why he was taking notes on the basketball stuff, and that was why he was so upset now. The whole event had been his idea, not Laz’s.

  She sat down next to him on the bench, measuring the right words in her head. Inside, she was glad that the labels were smearing so badly, that his really great idea had been foiled somehow. But that still didn’t change the fact that it had been a great idea in the first place. She decided it wouldn’t hurt her own campaign to admit that to him.

  “It’s a small part of the day. Look how much fun people are having. They probably won’t even notice the messed-up labels.”

  “They’ll notice,” he said, still refusing to look at her. “I debated just using a permanent marker and writing out the labels by hand, but no, I wanted to get fancy and use the computer. I’m so stupid.”

  Considering the small scale of the problem, he seemed almost too upset. Celia didn’t know what to say to make him not worry about it—she tended to be hard on herself, too. She looked out at the crowd and noticed that people had just peeled off the labels, tossing them to the ground beneath the bleachers. A lot of the faces around now she didn’t recognize; there were people from other grades and other schools hanging out. Maybe the tournament idea wouldn’t boost Laz as much as she’d worried it would—especially once she made her rounds and convinced them all, one by one, to vote for Mari. This fact made Celia want to be even nicer to Raul.

  “Check out Mari and Laz,” she said, trying to distract him from his gloom.

  On the court, Laz was trying to block Mari from throwing, and he was definitely succeeding. Both of them were sweaty and red-cheeked. As Mari went to take a shot, Laz smacked the ball out of her hands, then caught it as it bounced away from her, running it back to the net for a slam dunk. Some of the people in the stands clapped; others booed. After his shot, he dribbled the ball over to her and placed it gently in her hands. Their smiles were just a little too big, their grins just a little too sweet to be between two real competitors.

  Raul, who’d watched the whole exchange along with Celia, suddenly said, “I think he likes her. I don’t know for sure. If he does, it’s going to be a serious problem for our campaign.”

  Our campaign?—she had to stop herself from saying it out loud. Then her next thought: So it’s true. They like each other and I have no chance with Laz—not that I ever did—but now it’s totally out of the question.

  Raul turned quickly to face her and said, “Don’t say anything, okay? It’s just a feeling I have. Promise you won’t tell Mariela?”

  His brown-green eyes were pleading, and she recognized herself in them, a sense of something lost, a crush crushed. Could he like Mari, too? Why was everyone suddenly in love with her best friend? She understood him at that moment, and only because she sympathized with his frustration—the frustration of having your heart squashed—did she say, “Okay. I promise.”

  “I just thought it was better for you to quit while you were ahead,” Celia said to Mari as they walked back home. Mari had wanted to keep playing, but they’d been at the courts for more than an hour and Celia had chatted up every seventh grader there. She’d promised to find each of them on Monday and get them a VOTE FOR MARI sticker and they’d all agreed to wear it. But the bigger reason Celia wanted to get out of there was that she was tired of watching her best friend and her crush flirt with each other via basketball, and she felt even worse about it now that she knew Raul was feeling just as miserable. “Besides, I was getting a weird vibe from Raul,” Celia added as they crossed the street.

  “Really?” Mari said. “Raul? Weird?” Her cheeks were still red from the game, or maybe from blushing. She seemed way too happy for someone who had so much memorizing to do over the next few days.

  Remembering her promise, Celia quickly covered her tracks, saying, “Not weird, it’s just he confessed that the day wasn’t as big a hit as he thought it would be, and I agreed. Most people thought the basketball thing was both candidates’ idea, anyway. So no reason for us to stick around for longer
, especially when we have work to do.”

  “That’s too bad about the tournament. It was a good idea. Maybe more people will show up later.” Mari turned and looked back over her shoulder at the park. “Maybe we should go back.”

  Celia couldn’t believe what she was hearing. On the way there, she’d felt guilty for taking up Mari’s time, and now here was Mari, willing to give Laz that time without a fight. But she held it in and just kept walking, refusing to look back as Mari had.

  “He’s pretty cool,” Mari went on. “He even wished me luck on writing the speech for Monday’s announcements. I thought that was sweet, no?”

  “Really sweet,” Celia said, rolling her eyes. Too bad he didn’t wish me luck, she thought, since it’s me who’s writing the speech. That was what she’d be spending the afternoon doing, pretending to ask Mari for feedback and suggestions when really she already knew what needed to be said—she just needed the time to figure out how to say it best.

  “You know, this basketball thing, it’s really made me rethink Laz. I mean, this was a fun event that could bring a lot of people together. Don’t you think that’s the kind of idea you’d want from a grade rep?”

  Was Mari seriously betraying her like this? If Celia could overcome her crush for the sake of something bigger, why couldn’t Mari? She was so angry and walking so fast that they were almost back to her house now. Celia could already see Poochie waiting with his bark attack raring to go, and she felt like attacking, too.

  “You think Laz is so great?” Celia said. “That wasn’t even his idea! It was Raul’s. So you should just admit that Laz is a dud. He doesn’t have any ideas. He’s just a stupid guy.”

  “Oh, so when someone comes up with ideas for you, you’re stupid? Is that what you’re saying?” Mari came to a halt right in front of the neighbor’s yard. Poochie pounced over to them, shoved his muzzle though the chain-link fence, and started growling and snapping.