The Universal Laws of Marco

by Carmen Rodrigues

  “Well.” Erika shifted her feet. “We need one more.”

  “One more what?”

  “For tug-of-war. Can you play? You look really . . . red.” She drew a circle around her face with one finger.

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to slow down my breathing. “I’m good. I can play.”

  To be honest, I hadn’t really played much tug-of-war. But with me, we were an even ten on each side. Erika led me to the middle of our team, the blue team, and indicated that I should get behind her. I was still on the small side, exhausted, and overall not a good tugger, I assumed, but I followed along with whatever she said to do. I adjusted my grip on the rope a few times until my grasp felt “snug.” I dug my bare heels into the sand until I felt “no give.” And then I leaned back as far as I could so that the weight of my body seemed to “pull the group back” an inch. We were close enough to touch, her long brown hair hanging over my abdomen. When she grunted, I grunted too.

  A crowd watched as we set up. Sookie and Jade waved. Diego smirked. And Sally smiled, even though her eyes held on to that worry.

  “On the count of three,” shouted Principal Johnson. Everyone took a deep breath, then released a synchronized groan. “One-two-three!”

  Erika shouted, “Go! Harder! Harder! Harder!” and I crouched to get more resistance from my legs. My abdomen tightened until every rib was visible. I grunted again and again, and that bought a few steps backward. Erika stepped backward too, and so did the person in front of her. Blue moved so quickly that our line became a compressed accordion.

  And then red was over the line.

  Over!

  “Blue team,” Principal Johnson shouted, “is the WINNER!”

  We all fell like dominoes, a tangle of bodies. I landed on the sand. Erika landed on top of me, flipping over seconds later, so that her stomach was against mine, her hair falling into my eyes. “You were so good! You grunted like wild,” she said, laughing. I started laughing too, because it was a high. This winning thing. And maybe that high led to what happened next.

  Erika kissed me.

  Senior Year

  11. SURPRISE!

  PRINCIPAL JOHNSON IS SURPRISED TO see Sally Blake outside his office. At least, that’s what he says when he calls out to us. “Sally Blake, is that you? What a surprise!”

  I am surprised he recognizes her, with the whole taller, not a blonde any longer thing, and missing the wry smile, but I guess beyond that, she’s pretty much the same.

  “Hi,” she says, waving shyly.

  “Come in. Come in.” Principal Johnson meets us at the door. He gives me the normal shoulder clasp and Sally an enthusiastic hand pump.

  “I haven’t seen you in years. How . . . ?” He shakes his head, like he’s shifting gears. “No, where have you been?”

  “North Carolina,” she states matter-of-factly.

  “North Carolina?” He whistles, his brown lips puckering into a small O. “How’s high school up in North Carolina?”

  “Same?” Sally says.

  “And the running?”

  “Um . . .”

  “Bet Coach Nia, over at Seagrove High, was crying when you didn’t end up on her team!”

  Sally’s shoulders slump; she mumbles something.

  Principal Johnson and I exchange looks. He asks, “Can you say that again?”

  She squares her shoulders and in a loud, practiced voice repeats, “I quit running.”

  “Quit running?” Principal Johnson steps back, a look of wonder on his face. “Were you too busy your junior year? That can happen, but you can get back in again. Didn’t your coach talk to you? Help you come up with a plan?”

  “Actually”—Sally’s voice rises—“I haven’t run on a team in years.”

  “Years?” says Principal Johnson.

  “Years,” Sally confirms, her eyes drifting to the floor.

  It’s uncomfortable—this exchange—about as uncomfortable as my brothers, who sit opposite the admin’s desk, heads also slung low.

  I glance at my watch and say pointedly, “Principal Johnson?”

  He nods, giving Sally a shoulder pat. “Remember, it’s never too late to start again. Sometimes a stop can also be seen as an extended pause. You just have to hit the unpause button.”

  “I’ll remember.” She glances at me like, What do you think? Can a stop be an extended pause? But that silent question is even more uncomfortable than the exchange, so I head into the office with an, “It shouldn’t be long.” But, of course, like most things today, I’m wrong.

  • • •

  My brothers’ fight continues all the way to the library.

  LIL’ JAY

  He started the fight.

  DOMINGO

  I started it? I was helping you not get your as—

  ME

  Whoa. When did you start cursing?

  LIL’ JAY

  See? He’s the one getting me in trouble.

  DOMINGO

  I’m the one saving you from getting your butt kicked.

  SALLY

  (bumping into me when I take a fast turn)

  Sorry.

  ME

  It’s okay.

  (to the boys)

  Just shut up, okay? Seriously. Shut it.

  DOMINGO

  But—

  ME

  Shut up. Or I am going to pull over and show you some of Diego’s justice.

  Silence.

  Finally.

  So, two things here: Diego’s justice is pretty much whatever I threaten the boys with when they get out of hand. It’s based on a story that Diego told the boys about how in the Dominican Republic, if you get too mouthy your Pop might get you with a switch. “You know,” he said, “it could be a branch of a tree. Thin, though. Hurts like hell.”

  DOMINGO

  You’re lying.

  DIEGO

  Nah, kid. I’ve got the marks to prove it.

  (pulls up his pant leg to reveal a scar about an inch long)

  LIL’ JAY

  That’s abuse!

  DIEGO

  Not in DR. That’s justice.

  ME

  (laughing)

  Diego’s justice?

  DIEGO

  When my kids get out of line like these punks? Yeah.

  Okay, side note so you don’t freak out because that would seriously be abuse: The scar is actually from a motorbike accident. Diego got burned by the muffler. But I keep this story alive because the fear keeps them in line.

  Second thing: The seating in the truck is either ideal or not ideal, depending on how you look at it.

  First, the seats are really one long bench. So we’re squished four to the bench: me in the driver’s spot; Sally on the hump, and the twins on the passenger seat. Every time I hit a bump or take a turn too fast, Sally practically falls into my lap.

  This arrangement wasn’t my idea. The twins refused to sit on the hump, and after a few minutes of fighting, Sally said quietly, “I’ll sit there.”

  And now we’re four bumps in, and you’d think I’d slow down. But for some reason I’m taking the turns faster today.

  And there are a lot of turns.

  By the time we arrive at the library, we’re battered from smashing into one another and sweaty because Old Ancient has no AC and we’re four bodies deep. Sweat drips down my back; my palms are wet, and yet for a second after I put the car in park, I wait in that heat, feeling the pressure of her shoulder against mine for one more moment. Then, feeling guilty, I get out.

  On the pavement, Domingo raises his hand to speak, still afraid of Diego’s justice.

  “Go ahead,” I say benevolently, fanning my shirt away from my skin.

  “What are we doing here?”

  “Dropping off Sally and picking up some books for a project.”

  Lil’ Jay raises his hand next.

  “Yes?”

  “Can we go to the graphic novel section?”

  I nod, and they take off running.
>
  Sally waits, her eyes low, around my hips, watching me pull my shirt up and down. When our eyes finally meet, she turns pink a little. “Your . . . ,” she mutters.

  “What?” I say, shaking my head.

  She clears her throat, runs a hand through her hair, her face inching toward red. “Sweaty,” she finally says, and I do my best not to laugh. Because I know what that’s about.

  And damn.

  I try to change the subject. “I can ask somebody about the car. He can probably take a look tomorrow if you can leave it there overnight.”

  “Yeah?” She looks surprised. “You’d do that for me? Help me more?” Again she clears her throat. “I mean, you’ve already helped me a lot today. . . . I don’t know why.”

  I tell myself what I tell her. “My mom raised me to help, so . . .” I hold out a sweaty palm, and Sally takes it like she’s trying to shake it. But my hand doesn’t move, and all I can think is, once again, we’re holding hands in a parking lot.

  “Keys?” I say slowly, letting our hands slide apart.

  “Oh. Yeah.” Her face is neon. She fumbles with her key ring before handing over the key. “Thank your mom for me,” she says, making a big show of glancing at her watch. “I’m late. I should . . .” And then she sprints off across the parking lot.

  Inside, I make my way over to Old Mrs. B, at the reference desk.

  “I’ve got your books,” she says, eyebrows raised. She nods toward Sally, who clocks in nearby. “You two came here together?”

  “Her car broke down. She needed a ride.”

  Old Mrs. B chuckles, like, Is that all?

  “I couldn’t leave her stranded.”

  “No, you couldn’t,” she says, chuckling again.

  “What?”

  “You know, for an old bird, I have near-perfect vision.”

  “And?”

  “And?” Old Mrs. B chuckles again. “And I have a perfect view of the parking lot.”

  “I didn’t hold on,” I mumble.

  Old Mrs. B smiles innocently. “To what?”

  • • •

  On Saturday night the tribe hangs out at Sookie’s house. Unlike the yards in my part of the ’hood, her backyard is full on green. Her patio is even more legit, laid out with large slabs of tile and comfy white couches. Twinkle lights are strung from tree to tree.

  Tonight, even though it’s hot, we sit beneath those lights, roasting marshmallows over a cast-iron fire pit.

  “How many more nights do we have left like this?” Sookie asks, and Jade sighs. “Not enough.”

  “Man, speak for yourself,” Diego says. “I already worked it out with your moms. Even after you’re gone, me and Jade are still gonna be here on Friday nights. I got the adoption papers in my backpack.”

  Sookie laughs. “Ha! They’ve always wanted to adopt more. But I assure you that nothing compares to moi!”

  Jade kneels beside the fire, holding four sticks to the flames. The marshmallows start to glow orange, the slow creep of a crackle, the eventual blackening of crust along the edges.

  “Your hair,” Jade says for the third time that night, and Diego swipes a hand over his almost-bare scalp and says, “Gotta look the part, right?”

  I glance down at the paper in my hand—it’s a drawing of the Venn diagram from Tuesday. Earlier in the night, Sookie tried to get the tribe on board for “a mature exploration about what happened when Sally disappeared.”

  At least, that’s how she’d put it.

  The “mature” part was lifted from a conversation with her parents because Sookie is the type to be like, “Hmm . . . let me talk to my mom about that problem.” And her mom was all like, “You can’t know what Sally was thinking unless you ask her.” And even Old Mrs. B agreed, because to be honest, after that whole “to what?” nonsense, I had a little chat with Mrs. B about how I had a girlfriend and I couldn’t be tingling for other girls because I’m pretty sure girlfriends don’t like it when you tingle for someone else.

  That’s when Old Mrs. B launched into “Life can be confusing, especially when something you think is settled turns out not to be settled at all.”

  “Like Sally?”

  “Yes.”

  “But I’m not confused.”

  “Well, if you were, that would be perfectly normal.”

  “But I’m not, because, again, girlfriend.”

  “All I’m saying is that it’s more grown-up to walk toward the things that scare us than to run away from them.”

  “I don’t run away from the things that scare me.”

  “Well, you do.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Like the Pinterest board . . .”

  To that I said, “. . .” Because, I know.

  Anyway, now Jade is asking how Sookie knows that Sally is back at her old house.

  “Because I looked at her file.”

  “Because it was just hanging around?”

  “No, not exactly.”

  “So you stole her contact info?”

  “Not exactly.”

  Jade gasps, and Diego lets out this high-pitched whistle. “Sooks, that’s straight-up mafioso.”

  “No, it’s not,” Sookie says with a slick little smile, because Diego is saying she’s a badass, and Sookie’s never been a badass at anything but tests and quizzes.

  Jade shakes her head in disbelief. “What do you think, Marco?”

  “Um . . .” I think that I haven’t told them about that car ride to the library. “I think . . .” That I haven’t told them about how I bartered a fix for Sally’s car earlier today. “That . . .”

  “Dude. What?” Diego snaps.

  “That it makes the most sense for us to just ask her.”

  “Ask a ghost?”

  “She’s not a ghost,” Sookie says. “She’s real. She was our friend.”

  “And so what? We forgive her?” Jade asks.

  “Or realize that all she did was lose touch. That happens all the time when someone moves,” Sookie argues. “We at least remember how it used to be. Doesn’t anyone miss her?”

  No one answers.

  Jade pulls the marshmallows out of the fire, edges burnt, the centers soft and vulnerable. She nods at Diego, who presses them between graham crackers and squares of chocolate. We eat quietly, lost in our own thoughts.

  “I’d never shut you guys out,” Sookie says after a while.

  “You think we’re shutting her out?” Jade asks.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But I’m also saying that just because I’m leaving and Marco’s leaving doesn’t mean things have to change. There’s video and group chats and e-mail. Right?”

  “Absolutely,” Jade says.

  We’re quiet again because we see an unintended parallel between Sally’s leaving in the past and our leaving in the future. Would we move on? Maybe not at first, but eventually? I think about my parents, who have zero friendships left over from childhood. Then I look at my tribe, the faces I know so well. Will I know them a year from now? Two?

  “Would we even be having this conversation if we didn’t miss her?” Jade asks, and for once Diego doesn’t argue.

  • • •

  Mrs. Blake answers the front door wearing a birthday hat and holding a wineglass. “Wow. You guys! Everyone grew up!” She peers past us at the street. “Where did you park?”

  Sookie looks confused, but still points to her beat-up Dodge across the street.

  “The van?”

  Sookie nods.

  “Okay, good thinking,” Mrs. Blake says, ushering us inside. “I’m so glad you’re here. I know it’s a late invite, but I’m glad that Boone got it to you. When Marco came over earlier today to drop off Sally’s keys, I was so excited to find out that you all were friends again and I said to Boone, we really should invite them all over. And he promised me he would, but sometimes he forgets or doesn’t listen. . . .” She interrupted her rambling to laugh. “But oh, never mind! You’re all here, and that’s all that matters.�
�� She paused to look at each of us, thirty seconds on every face. “You all have really grown up—especially you, Marco! You’re a giant now.”

  I smile down at her, recalling how tired she’d looked earlier today when she’d answered the door. But maybe she wasn’t tired. Maybe she was hungover.

  “Okay, let’s find some places to hide in the kitchen. They’ll be back soon. Enough time to—” She grabs birthday hats from the living room and quickly snaps a cone onto each of our heads, except for Diego, who bobs and weaves himself away. Then she scoots us into the kitchen.

  “Keys?” Diego hisses in my ear.

  “Her car didn’t work,” I whisper. “And . . . I wanted to help.”

  “And so that’s why you needed that dude’s number from my church?” Diego mutters.

  “I said I needed car repairs. I just didn’t say for who. Besides, it’s my barter.” And it wasn’t cheap. I’d agreed to spend ten hours tutoring the mechanic’s son this summer.

  “Later,” Sookie hisses, nodding at Mrs. Blake, who is going on and on about the birthday surprise.

  “But it’s not her birthday, right?” Jade whispers, eyes drifting off as she calculates dates. “I thought it was April . . .”

  “April 29,” I say, no hesitation. Today is May 12.

  “So her mom’s completely confused?” Jade mimes drinking a big glass of wine. Lush? she mouths.

  Maybe? I mouth back.

  Probably.

  “Well, we can’t stay here,” Jade whispers. “Does Sookie think we’re gonna stay here?”

  Nearby, Sookie compliments Mrs. Blake’s birthday decorations, pointing out the yellow and white streamers, the gold balloons.

  “I just have to get one more thing,” Mrs. Blake says, heading toward the bedrooms. “Don’t move.”

  We look around. The house is crammed roof to tile with partially unpacked boxes and yet-to-be placed knickknacks.

  “This is a sad party, even for a ghost,” Diego says.

  Jade steps closer to the dining room table and peers down at a sheet cake. “Is that a baby pic of Sally?”

  We move in and see baby Sally—wispy hair, hazel eyes, pink lips.

  “Oh,” Sookie says. “She had those chubby legs, you know the kind that . . .” She makes this chipmunk face, and her voice elevates. “Like you want to bite them and squeeze them all at once.”

  Diego whips his head around. “Sooks, that’s some Hannibal shiz right there.”