The Universal Laws of Marco

by Carmen Rodrigues

  I moved a few feet over until I was leaning on her dresser. Then I slid down, into a seated position on the floor, near the foot of her bed. “I’m good here.”

  “Okay.” She kicked off her shoes and flipped onto her belly. She stretched her legs out behind her. One toe absently traced the etchings. We were close again, her head a few feet from my tented knees. She rested her chin on her hands and stared at me.

  I shifted my eyes to the lavender area rug, picking at the shag fabric nervously.

  Because it had occurred to me that something had changed since the last time I was in Sally’s house.

  Sally was my girlfriend now.

  And I was her boyfriend.

  I was her boyfriend, and I was in her room.

  Her bedroom.

  All thoughts of her moving disappeared, and my nervousness grew. My mouth became dry. I picked at the carpet some more, and when I finally lifted my eyes, Sally was still staring at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “What?” I repeated.

  “It’s just not turning out the way I thought it would.”

  “How did you think it would?”

  She sat up and hugged her legs to her body; she looked pretzel-like and small. “I thought we’d go to high school together next year. I thought we’d graduate together. I thought we’d always be together.”

  For a second I thought she meant only the two of us, and I could see our lives continuing on as they had always been: adjacent lockers and pushing our way, shoulder to shoulder, through the crowded halls of high school; our blue and silver gowns at high school graduation; the first jobs that we hated over that summer; and then the same college, probably University of Miami, because that’s where Sally’s father wanted her to go; and then we could travel. Maybe we’d see all fifty states or maybe we’d backpack across Europe or maybe we’d spend a year teaching English in a place like China or South Korea. Who knew, but we’d be together, just like we promised. For always. I looked at Sally, and she seemed to be daydreaming too. She sighed and said, “Yeah, all of us,” and the dream expanded to include Sookie, Diego, and Jade. The bubble deflated a little.

  “I thought,” Sally continued, and then she paused.

  “What?”

  “I thought we’d have more dances.”

  The bubble inflated again. I leaned forward.

  “Why wouldn’t we?” I asked. “You can come back for all my dances. I can save up money to come to yours. North Carolina isn’t that far away. I could take the train, or maybe it’s not so much to fly. I could do all my summer jobs again and save up enough so that I could come to your homecoming.”

  Her eyes lit up. She held my stare. It was familiar Sally, there with me. A smile curved her lips.

  “You would do that? For me?” she asked.

  I pulled myself closer, into a squat so that my shins pressed against the edge of her bed. She did the same, folding herself onto her knees and scooting forward until our noses nearly touched. Our eyes seemed impossibly close. All I could see were her eyelashes and irises, but I felt her lips just a kiss away.

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “Of course.”

  “Because always?” she whispered.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Because. Always.”

  We closed the gap, a kiss that seemed to end only when we both ran out of breath.

  Afterward, my confidence told me things—that we were meant to be. That no matter the distance, no matter the obstacle, our bond was unbreakable.

  If Marta were here, she’d tell you some long story that ended with, Love makes you think the impossible is possible. But sometimes the impossible is a mountain that love can’t climb or burrow through. She’d say that life is complicated. She’d point out how rare it is to know someone completely. To know yourself completely. She’d ask, Anyway, what does a fourteen-year-old know about love?

  And to that, the older version of me would say, Not much. Not much at all.

  Senior Year

  21. A BREAK IS FOR THE BROKEN

  ON THE RIDE HOME FROM South Beach, Sally is silent. Her head is pressed against the passenger window, her hair falling across her face. I can’t see her eyes, but I imagine she sees what I see: the cruise ships docked outside of South Beach; the lit runways of Miami International Airport; and, as we curve south along the highway, rows and rows of concrete-built suburban housing. When we get closer to our ’hood, she turns to me and says, “That’s not what I expected, but it was good. Right?”

  “Yeah,” I agree. “Tuck and his friends are nice.”

  “He’s always been my favorite cousin. Now you know why.”

  I nod, remembering that when we were young, she talked about Tuck more than any other cousin, about how he was “so himself.” That’s a quality that’s easy to admire. For a moment I wonder what that would be like to just be myself, messiness and all.

  “So, maybe we can hang and talk?” she asks when we reach her block. “About . . .” She hesitates. “About . . . what I wanted to talk about earlier?”

  “Now?” I ask, and she nods.

  To be honest, some part of me doesn’t want this night to end. Because sitting next to Sally, I remember the way our pinkies linked in the Middle, how I’d felt so high after our first and second and third kisses, how if I turned our history into a highway, the concrete would stretch from Seagrove to the ocean.

  And I think about what Becks said, ex malo bonum—from bad comes good—and see that he’s right: Why wait for Erika to figure out what she wants? Why not figure out what I want? Figure out why I can’t stop thinking about yesterday, about Sally’s hand on my chest. Figure out why it’s so hard to hate her. And so easy to be around her.

  In all of this, though, I’ve come to realize that I don’t blame Sally for leaving. Where parents go, we must follow. It’s what she did after she left, the way she completely disappeared from our lives. I took that to mean that she was done. That we were done. And I moved on. But clearly Sally isn’t done. Because you can’t be done and stand on someone’s curb. You can’t be done and return.

  “So, can we? Talk?” she asks again.

  “It’s late,” I say, because I still need space from this conversation. I’m just not ready yet.

  At her house, I idle in the driveway, watching as she fumbles with her keys in the dark. I flash on my brights and see her tug on the door, knock, tug, knock. No answer. She disappears around the house, comes back a minute later. She pounds on the door. Still no answer. She starts back toward the truck, shielding her eyes from the lights. I cut the engine and hop out.

  “I have no way inside,” she says, her voice clipped by frustration.

  “The key doesn’t work?”

  “No, it works, but there’s a third lock at the very top. It’s a dead bolt and you can only unlock it from inside. We don’t really use it until everyone’s home.”

  “So who locked it?

  “My mom, I guess. She’s not always the most reliable when she’s been . . .” Sally mimes drinking. “And she was pretty much a bottle in when I left. I tried knocking on her window, but she isn’t answering.” She looks at her phone. “Let me try calling.” She touches a few buttons and presses the phone to her ear. A few seconds later she hangs up. “She’s not picking up her phone either. Great.” She sighs. “You know what? I’ll text Tuck and tell him that I’m heading back.” Her fingers fly across the screen.

  I wait, noticing her droopy eyes, her tilted shoulders. When she yawns, I say, “You’re tired,” and then I yawn myself.

  She smirks. “We’re both tired. It’s late.”

  “It’ll take you another twenty or thirty minutes to drive back. I’ll drop you off, or . . . get you an Uber.”

  “I can’t afford that,” she says. “You?”

  I shake my head no.

  “And if you drive me, then you’ll be even more tired on the way back, and I’ll be fine.” Her voice softens. “Promise.” She tucks her arms
around her waist and hugs herself tight, looking down at her phone, waiting for Tuck’s reply.

  “You know, they say it’s as bad to drive tired as it is to drive drunk.”

  “Marco . . .”

  “But it’s true. Studies show that—”

  “I’ll stop at a gas station to buy coffee or something. I’ll drive in the slow lane.”

  “No. Don’t do that. If someone enters on the exit ramp, because they’re drunk—and that does happen—you’ll be the first thing they hit.”

  “So the speed lane?”

  “If someone’s racing this late at night, you’ll be the first thing they hit too.”

  “You worry about everything, huh?”

  “I don’t, just what could happen.”

  “But hasn’t happened.”

  “But could.”

  She stares at me like she’s finally figured something out. Her phone buzzes, the light illuminating her face. “Tuck says I can crash on his floor.” She jiggles her keys. “I should go.”

  “It’s too late. I’ll drive you,” I say again.

  She sighs. “No.”

  “But?”

  “No, no, no,” she sings.

  “Sa—”

  “And Erika?” she asks suddenly.

  “What about Erika?” I’m almost surprised that it’s taken so long for her to get to this question.

  Her chest rises and falls. “Are you guys gonna stay on a break? Do you want to?”

  I’m silent for a while because . . . because the truth is, I don’t know. “Why is that important?” I finally ask.

  She steps closer until our toes touch, until we are almost eye to eye. Then she rests her head on my shoulder. And she smells so good. Even after that drunken party and the salty air, she still smells like coconut.

  She slips her hands into mine. “Because I’ve missed this,” she whispers. “I’ve missed you.”

  • • •

  “I’ve missed you too? Bro, are you outta your mind?” Diego says the next day.

  We sit outside of Grendel’s at a picnic table on the green. We linger like the old men who wear pastel guayaberas and play dominoes on 8th Street. Our shifts are done, our polos untucked, and there’s even a little daylight left. Maybe that’s why it’s easy to savor the café con leche and Cuban sandwiches. Diego straight-up prays before we eat this meal, thanking God for the “crispy bread, the perfect ratio of butter, melted cheese, and salty pork.” Then he does the sign of the cross because that’s “what good Catholics do.”

  But even this Cuban sandwich can’t keep us from talking about last night. About the party. About what happened after the party. About the holding.

  “Erika will kill you and Sally if she finds out.” He snaps his fingers together.

  “But nothing happened,” I protest. “You know, besides that—besides what I told you.”

  “Y’all gonna make me act a fool, up in here, up in here . . . ,” he sings with a shake of his head. “And prom is this weekend, so you had to go and mess that up. And, man, Jade has been planning this out for months.”

  “Jade?” I lift an eyebrow. Diego’s the one who sent out group texts like, “Which Escalade should we rent?” and “What colors is everyone wearing?” and “Who has the best camera phone?” On and on and on.

  “Bro, keep to your side of the fence. I’m just thinkin’ ahead.”

  We pause, considering how this can all play out.

  “What if I tell her? Tell Erika and then, you know, we could move on.”

  “Right.” Diego smiles big. “So be like, ‘Hey, Erika, check it. I hung out with Sally on Saturday for four hours and we held hands, super cas’, and . . . Oh, yeah . . . I told her I miss her. NBD. So, like, what’s up with prom? What time you want me to get you?’ ” He cracks up. “Something like that?”

  “Or, how about, you put us on a break, and shit happens.”

  “Oh, yeah, go that way. I think that’s a great opening sentence to the story about how you got kicked in the nuts.”

  I stare at my empty plate, the afterburn of that Cuban sandwich, and my guilt, coming at me. “This thing with Sally—it’s . . . it’s not gonna happen again.”

  Except, even as I say it, I don’t know if it’s true. What would have happened if Sally’s mother hadn’t flung open the door and called out, “Sally Pearl? Sally, are you still out here?”

  Maybe things would have gone further.

  Maybe we would have gone further.

  Because, honestly, I wanted to go further.

  “What you need to understand is why you went on a break in the first place.”

  “Um, to figure things out.”

  “Nah, dude. You can’t figure things out if you’re not talking. That’s like relationship 101: communicate. If you’re gonna survive a relationship, you need to earn your PhD in talking. Jade and I talk all the time.” He sighs. “Like constantly. But you . . . You didn’t go that way. Huh? You took ‘a break.’ ” He shakes his head and gives me his classic I’m-about-to-drop-some-knowledge bug-eyed look. “Bro, you go on a break because you’re broken.”

  Middle School

  22. YOU’RE NOT OKAY. ARE YOU?

  THE MORNING AFTER I WENT to Sally’s house and saw that For Rent sign, I showed up to school late.

  Diego bounced over to my locker with a big old grin and said, “Dude, you finally made it. We were taking bets on whether or not you and Sally were kidnapped by aliens or something.”

  “Nah. I just overslept.” The truth was I overslept because I had hardly slept. I got home from Sally’s house and hopped into bed, eager to get to tomorrow because tomorrow would bring school, and school would bring Sally, and somewhere in all my fantasizing, the terror set in.

  Sally was leaving.

  In a week or a month, she could be gone.

  It didn’t seem fair. I was finally getting to be with her, and she was leaving. My mind went into a different kind of overdrive, plotting out how to earn money over the summer so that I could visit her in the fall. How I’d get my parents to let me take a plane to North Carolina on my own when I had flown only once before! The list went on and on until it was four a.m. That’s when I heard the ruckus outside.

  It wasn’t too loud, but at four a.m., any noise counts as a ruckus. I told myself to be a good citizen, to investigate. See something, say something and all that nonsense that you stop caring about when your eyelids are heavy, but I forced myself onto my knees and pressed my ear to the window. I could hardly make it out: Maybe there were voices? Maybe there was the sound of a girl crying? Maybe I slid down the wall and fell asleep.

  No, not maybe. Definitely. A few hours later Pop shook me awake before going about his usual business—grabbing coffee, packing his lunch, and dropping a book in his backpack, something to read on his lunch break. About fifteen minutes later, he knocked on my door and said, “Up?”

  “Yep,” I replied before rolling over and going right back to sleep. I didn’t even hear Mom as she hustled the boys out the door. By the time I got myself together and asked my neighbor Mrs. Hernandez to drop me off at school, I had missed first period.

  Diego slapped my back. “You look dead. What’d you get into last—”

  “He looks fine.” Sookie slid into the space between us. She took hold of my chin and studied the bags beneath my eyes. “Eh, okay, not your best. You feeling all right?” Her hand twitched, like she wanted to pull out the thermometer from her medical kit.

  “I’m fine,” I said with a blink, blink and a yawn, yawn. I looked at Diego. “Your face,” I said.

  “Your face.”

  “Your mama’s face,” I said, some alertness kicking in.

  “Your mama and all her mamas before her,” Diego clapped back.

  “All your mamas. No,” Sookie said. “Why not all the papas? Why not the mamas and the papas?”

  Diego shook his head. “Because not everybody has a papa. Everybody’s got a mama.”

  A tinge
of hurt crossed her face, and Diego tried to correct with, “You got a mama and a papa, though.”

  “I know,” she said pointedly.

  “I just mean—”

  “Anyway,” she changed the subject. “Why were you late?”

  “I was tired.”

  “Tired with love,” Sookie teased as we began to walk to our classrooms. “Sally told me you were at her house last night.”

  “And I’m gonna bounce now,” Diego said, rolling his eyes and heading in the opposite direction, even though his classroom was two doors over from ours.

  “He’s just jealous,” Sookie said. “He thought he’d be taking Sally to that dance.”

  “I know,” I said, my voice filled with pride. “But that’d be weird, him taking my girlfriend to the dance.”

  Sookie laughed. “How long you been waiting to say that word?”

  I sighed. I felt like I had waited forever to say that word, and with Sally leaving, I wanted to say it as much as possible. I wanted to say it so much that there was no question about it, not even with eight hundred miles between us. “That girl Sally is my girlfriend,” I said.

  Sookie smiled. “It’s cute, but don’t play it up too much.” She paused, studying my face. I wondered if she knew about the For Rent sign, if Sally had told her this morning. “You and Sally make sense, you know.”

  “We do?” A current of hope ran through me.

  Sookie shrugged, but her eyes were playful. “As much as anything else.”

  • • •

  “But I’ve decided that the glass is half full,” Sally announced midway through lunch, after letting the tribe know the big news: She was moving.

  There had been questions and protests along the way.

  “Coño,” was what Diego kept saying—basically, damn.

  “I can’t believe it,” is what Sookie said.

  Jade just looked at the table and muttered, “Today sucks.”

  I stayed quiet. I knew this was coming. Sally had told me before lunch that she was going to break the news like that. “Pull the Band-Aid off quickly! That’s what I’ve got to do.”