“Something classic?”
“Yep.”
“Funny?”
“Yep . . . How about this?” She pointed to a Goonies poster the size of a thumbnail.
“Yeah,” I said. “That one. That one exactly.”
• • •
At some point we held each other.
We held each other until every part of me melded to her and I wasn’t sure that my arms were awake.
We had learned that word in English class last week. And I told her that was what holding her felt like.
“You think we’re melded?” she said, her head resting in the crook of my neck. I felt her mouth move upward into a smile.
“Yeah. Kind of. Right?”
She laughed, eyelashes brushing my skin as she closed her eyes to recall the vocabulary sheet Mrs. Bartell had handed out. “Melded. Noun. A thing formed by blending. Oxford English Dictionary.”
“We are a thing formed,” I said.
She looked up at me, her eyes shiny. “Together we form something new.”
I smiled and then shook my head, suddenly sad.
“What?”
“You’re leaving.”
“I know,” she said.
“I know too.”
“I don’t want to go.”
“I don’t want you to go.”
She smiled and lifted her head defiantly. “Then I won’t.”
I squeezed her tighter. “Then you won’t.”
She fell back into me and sighed. Her sigh said, We can stay here forever, right?
I tried to respond with my heartbeat: Beat. Yes. Beat. Forever.
But she must not have understood the language of heartbeats, because she didn’t sigh again. Instead she asked, “Did you hear that?”
“What?” I kissed her ear this time, another first.
“That,” she murmured, but then we got lost in my kissing her ear and then her neck and—
“Marco?”
The light flicked on, and we pulled apart, trying to make order of ourselves.
“What are you doing here?” It was Gabe, Pop’s supervisor.
“I . . . um . . . I don’t know.” It was all I could come up with.
“You don’t know?” he repeated.
“I don’t.” But what I really meant was that I couldn’t explain, not in a language any adult might understand.
• • •
Gabe called Pop, who came right away.
Pop tried to call Sally’s parents, but there was no answer.
“They’re not in town. They’re too busy moving things to North Carolina.” The bitterness in her voice was clear.
I squeezed her hand. My parents had made such a big deal about my first dance, starting with a special breakfast and ending with a photo session that made me pretty uncomfortable. “Like, how many times is your mom gonna say ‘smile’?” Jade had said at one point. But here was Sally, alone on one of the last big nights of her eighth-grade life.
It didn’t seem right.
“When are you leaving?” Pop asked gently.
Sally lowered her eyes. “A week from tomorrow.”
I dropped her hand. “Next Sunday? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I . . .” Sally fidgeted with the seam on her dress. Then she finally said, “I didn’t want to ruin tonight.” When she looked at me, her eyes were apologetic. “I just wanted to have one more good night.”
Pop sighed, putting his hands on our backs as he guided us out of the custodian’s office.
When we got to the cafeteria, he checked his watch. “The dance will be over soon. Why don’t you finish it out? I’ll wait in the Cadillac for all of you to come back out.”
I looked up at Pop. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m pretty disappointed in you. And we’ll talk about this more at home.”
I shifted my eyes to the floor. “I know, Pop. I’m sorry.”
“Are you? Look at me.”
I lifted my eyes and nodded, but Pop shook his head like he didn’t believe me. Like he knew that I wasn’t sorry about what I’d done with Sally. I was sorry that he’d found out.
“Be careful, Marco,” he warned.
“I will be,” I promised.
But, of course, I wasn’t.
• • •
The last song of the night was “End of the Road” by Boyz II Men. If you don’t know the song, look it up. It’s old-school, definitely twentieth-century-pop-song material. Diego slipped the DJ “a whole ten!” to get him to play it.
“Man, but it’ll be worth it,” Diego had said right before the song played, “because that’s the song I’m gonna tell my kids about when they ask me how I fell in love with their moms.”
In love.
After ten slow songs and five Care Bear violations, Diego had fallen fast and hard for Jade, only five years after Jade had fallen fast and hard for Diego.
Meanwhile, Sally and I snuck around to the makeshift stage at the back of the cafeteria, left up from the end-of-the-year play. We slipped behind the curtain and pulled each other as close as we could, swaying slowly to lyrics about the “end of the road” and not “letting go.” About it being “so natural” and one person “belonging” to the other.
And I have to say, with every second that passed, I felt my heart being ripped out of my body because all I could think about was in seven days, me and Sally would have to let go.
At one point Sally said, “I’m really sad.”
“Me too,” I said, and pulled her so close that our faces were buried in each other’s necks. All I could smell was her. All she could smell was me. All I could feel was her. All she could feel was me. There was nothing else but this wanting.
Wanting more summer breaks, lockers next to each other in high school, and crappy first jobs. Wanting all the things that Pop got to have with Mom—all those firsts. I wanted them all with Sally.
We were both lost in that wanting when the music ended.
When Principal Johnson ushered everyone out.
When our phones buzzed in our pockets.
When the teachers sweeping the cafeteria moved outside, called by the sound of sirens.
When the noise of the students reached an apex from the excitement of a drunk man coming at a friendly custodian.
When someone in my class must have whispered, “Isn’t that Marco’s dad? The custodian?”
And someone else must have said, “Isn’t that Jade’s dad? Is he drunk?”
When Jade’s dad lunged for Pop because he wouldn’t let him drive Jade home. When he swung and hit, one lucky shot to the temple, and Pop fell, slamming his head against the bumper of that shiny Cadillac he had borrowed to take me to the dance.
When there was blood.
When Jade started crying.
When Sookie used her purse to control the bleeding to Pop’s head.
We didn’t hear any of it.
We were lost in wanting what we couldn’t have—Sally’s leaving, a shroud that shut out the rest of the world.
Senior Year
29. HOW. YOU. LIKE. ME. NOW.
LATER THAT NIGHT I STAND in front of Grendel’s employee information board, staring at the list of names for the final MIT interviews. The list is short, just three names: me, Diego, and Amanda from produce.
For what it’s worth, I really did love you. . . . I’m pretty sure I still do.
Once again I push Sally’s voice out of my head and turn toward the heavy breathing behind me. Syed from the bakery stands a foot away, staring at the list of names.
“I didn’t even know you interviewed for it,” Syed says, rubbing his gray beard. Syed’s a Grendel’s lifer, been here for about twenty years, ever since he had his first kid. I know he wanted this job badly because on the day of his interview, he showed up in a three-piece suit.
“Diego never mentioned your trying for it, and aren’t you going off to that big-time school in California?”
I drop my eyes to the floor.
When the Grendel’s bulletin came out with the announcement of my scholarship, Syed shook my hand. “Not surprised,” he said, leaving me with a swollen head. And now I was on the list and he wasn’t.
When I raise my eyes, Syed’s gone and Brenda’s fast approaching, money bag in hand. She pauses to stare at the board. “Saw Diego looking at this late last night, too. You got a minute?”
Upstairs, Brenda closes the office door behind us. “I know I recommended you, but I was honestly surprised that you accepted the interview. And I know—I know—it’s just an interview, but . . .” She smiles encouragingly. “If you do your best today, show Mr. G that you’re truly invested in Grendel’s, only good things can come your way.”
“Wait,” I say, stuck on one word. “Did you say today?”
“Yep, today.” She glances at my outfit—plain Grendel’s shirt and usual khakis, a little stained around the cuffs. “You didn’t know?”
“No.” Truth is, a lot of that talk with Mr. Grendel was hazy.
“You’ll be fine.” She studies my face. “But you’re worried about Diego, I’m guessing?”
It’s a good minute before I say, “Diego is kinda done with me right now.”
Now. Forever?
Brenda steps closer, gives my shoulder a motherly squeeze. “You have a right to take care of yourself, Marco. You have a right to take care of your family.”
I look around the room. At the clock above the window overlooking the main floor. At an empty cash register balanced on a stack of ledgers. Over there, a calculator. There, a pencil and a pad. An empty money bag. Security cameras. People walking around on the security cameras. Six different boxes intersecting. One body pushing into the next square and so on. All those lives happening simultaneously, connecting in ways we barely see.
For what it’s worth, I really did love you. . . . I’m pretty sure I still do.
I look back at Brenda; her statement rings false. Taking this interview isn’t about taking care of my family.
Because Diego is family too.
• • •
About an hour into my shift of restocking shelves and breaking down boxes, Diego arrives in the back room wearing a sharp suit. He appears in good spirits now that his interview is done, whistling nineties pop songs like a themed satellite radio station. He ignores me and heads straight to the men’s locker room. He emerges in his new but now usual uniform: fitted khaki pants and a starched Grendel’s shirt that is every shade of clean. He runs a hand over that freshly shorn hair, the way you might stick your tongue into the groove of a missing tooth.
“How’d it go?” Alex asks when he settles into his stack of boxes.
“Better than good,” Diego replies.
“Yeah?” I offer, trying.
Diego glances at me, mouths, Judas.
“That’s great,” Alex says, tugging on his mustache—wiry and new. He turns to me. “You’re up next. Better be prepared!”
“Mind your business.”
“Just trying to be encouraging.”
I give Alex and his stupid mustache a dead stare.
“What?” He checks to see if his fly is open. Then he looks at his shoulder like he’s got a spider on it. Twists his head to the far right to see if somebody’s standing behind him, but nobody’s there. This isn’t a “Gotcha!” “What?”
“That thing on your face.”
“Sweet, right?” Alex rubs the intermittent fur.
“It’s like caterpillars are congregating on your face.”
Normally, Diego would hop in with a ha, but I’m a Judas now. So he continues to ignore us until Alex steps to me. So close I smell his Fritos breath. “Your ma-ma,” he says slowly.
Diego laughs.
Encouraged, Alex exclaims, “Yeah, your mama!”
“My what?”
“Yo-u-r ma-ma?” he stutters.
“Say what?” I step forward; Alex steps back.
“Wor-d-d to yo-ur moth-ther?”
Diego’s cracking up now, but when I look at him, his face grows serious. Judas, he mouths. This is Diego’s Catholic upbringing coming for me.
“Dude,” I say to Alex, “just be a farm boy from Oklahoma. ’Kay?”
Alex sighs, shoving his hands into his pocket. “I moved here from Pennsylvania. I’ve never lived on a farm.”
“Then just be cool about yourself. It’s better that way. Trust me.”
“ ’Cause that’s the way, uh-huh, you like it?” Alex sings off-key, bustin’ a move that can only be described as a spin-hop, a spop. There’s no grace in the execution, but he tries to stick the landing by ending in a classic Beastie Boys lean back. “How you like me now?” he quips, but it doesn’t really sound right. It sounds like, “How. You. Like. Me. Now.”
“Did you go through some kind of messed-up urban boot camp?” Diego finally asks.
“I’m just trying to go with the flow,” Alex whines.
“Well, flow your way right to your break, man,” Diego says. “You’re past due.”
Alex checks his watch. “Fine, but when I come back, we’re going to talk about letting me in on twentieth-century pop songs. Okay?”
Diego chuckles. “Maybe, if you promise to exterminate those caterpillars from your face.”
“It’s a mustache.”
“It’s a colony,” I say.
“Whatevs,” Alex says, and, simultaneously, Diego and I slow clap.
“What now?” Alex asks.
“That’s the first time you’ve used whatevs right,” I say.
Alex smiles, encouraged. “See?”
“Uh-huh,” Diego says. “We see.”
After Alex leaves, I glance at Diego. This feels like a bridge, an Alex bridge, into a conversation, the next apology conversation, but Diego catches my eye and says, “Don’t even. This is work, so I’m keeping it profesh.”
I deflate. “So that’s how it is?”
“Yep.” He gets back to breaking down boxes and stacking new product on a cart.
“Come on, just hear me out,” I plead, but he presses play on his phone. Music blasts—the clear intro of some old-school Nas. With his back to me, he loads up a cart with cereal boxes. And I return to what is possible for tonight—a room full of emptied boxes.
• • •
The Speaker God calls my name at ten p.m. I ignore Alex’s attempt at a high-five. I ignore Diego’s final mumblings of Judas this and Judas that. I take my sweaty self and head to Grendel’s office.
The interview starts with a painfully long accounting of my general history at Grendel’s as told by Brenda. A list of accolades from my file as told by Mr. Grendel.
And while I’m listening, I have a realization: Mr. Grendel said I had to take this interview because he wanted me to see that I had options. And the truth is, if I took this job, the increase in pay would be enough to help my family not only get out of debt but stay out of debt. I could go to school part-time while I worked here too. In a lot of ways, this job could save us.
But where would that leave Diego? Not just today, but tomorrow? Diego needed this job. More than that, Diego wanted this job. Even more than that, Diego would be better at this job. And me, I would figure it out.
Which brings me back to that realization: I have to be here, but I don’t have to talk about myself.
“So, the first question we have for you, Marco, is where do you see yourself in five years? What’s your plan?”
I clear my throat. “Sorry, what?”
Brenda smiles kindly. “How do you see the next five years going? You don’t have to stick to the plan, of course, but if you imagined your life in five years, what would it look like?”
“Take your time,” Mr. Grendel says encouragingly. “We understand it’s a loaded question.”
But it’s not a hard question. I made a five-year plan long before Pop got sick, and even earlier this year, when he was starting to return more to his old self, we talked about what I would do in college, the first four years and then
after—master’s degree versus PhD.
“You could be a doctor,” Pop had said with a laugh of Isn’t that fantastic? My son . . . a doctor!
“I’m not trying to be on Grey’s Anatomy.”
“No, a PhD doctor . . . a doctor in the philosophy of astrophysics . . . I can’t think of anything cooler than explaining how a star is born.”
“Wouldn’t that take forever?”
“You’re young; you’ve got forever.”
Pop said I could teach somewhere and do research. Research is the cool stuff It’s like being paid to play.
“That’s very ambitious,” Brenda says when I lay out the plan. “But, then, you’re very ambitious. Aren’t you second in your class?”
“Yeah,” I say.
Mr. Grendel whistles. “Impressive.”
“Thanks.” I bolster up because I see my way in. “You know what else is impressive?”
Mr. Grendel looks up from his notes “What?”
“Working four years straight, including every Saturday, without taking a break. That’s pretty impressive.”
Brenda nods politely, but she doesn’t seem to follow. “And you know what else is impressive?” I continue.
Silence.
“Cutting off all your hair, wearing pants that fit, in, like, an uncomfortable way, and changing the way you speak because a job—no, an opportunity—means so much to you, especially when you go around telling everyone that this is the opportunity of a lifetime.”
Brenda glances at my hair, which is its usual length. She exchanges a confused look with Mr. Grendel. “Did you cut your hair, Marco?”
“Me?” I laugh. “No. I’m also wearing baggy pants with stains around the ankles.” I point to the food stains on the cuff. “And I’ve always talked like this. And I missed two Saturdays last year because I got sick.”
“So . . . ?” Mr. Grendel says, an eyebrow inching higher. “Who’s this impressive?”
“Diego. He’s worked here just as long as me, just as hard as me. He’s never missed a day. Why”—I look at Brenda—“didn’t you recommend him?”
Her mouth falls open.
I continue. “He’s the one who came up with the idea to make those prepackaged recipe kits—you know the ones that go with those recipe cards we have in the meat department. You guys do know that?”
“Is that true?” Mr. Grendel asks Brenda.
The Universal Laws of Marco Page 23