I FINISH MY run to find a text from Marcos. So I know it’s Sunday and you’re probably busy…
Yes, busy running for a whole fifteen minutes. Actually, I’d almost zoned out for the last couple of minutes. Runner’s high? Have I made it to that level?
There’s a cool bite to the November breeze that feels welcome against my warm skin. I balance on my right foot, satisfied when my knee doesn’t waver, and smile as I write back. Are the triangles getting you down?
Cassie attended every class this past week. She didn’t love it, that’s for sure, and I can’t say that the “fun business” was achieved. She stuck it out, though, leaning over to ask me about what she’d missed. “The doctors advised me to do my best to be present,” she’d said. “I know it sounds stupid, but it feels better coming from them, you know?”
“It’s not stupid,” I’d said immediately.
Can neither confirm nor deny, Marcos replies. I have a fried avocado taco with your name on it in the fridge. Pick you up in fifteen?
Between helping Cassie catch up after school and practicing, I haven’t had any time alone with Marcos. Sounds great!
Then again, I’d rather not ruin the good flow of this week by witnessing Marcos and Dad having their first awkward handshake. On second thought, I write back, pick me up at the corner.
When he pulls up ten minutes later, I’m at the old bus stop that Cassie and I waited at in elementary school. He honks, and I bound over to the car.
When I slide in, he pulls me to him and kisses me so hard, I forget to breathe. His lips, his hands, his breath, everything’s warm against my cold skin, and I want to press against him, gathering up more of that flame.
So I do.
“Sorry,” he says when we finally break apart, the dimples revealing that he’s not sorry at all. “You looked so happy.”
I am happy. It’s not the off-kilter euphoria of being drunk off Cassie’s hot chocolate-and-mint concoction; it feels more like nailing a beam routine with the most difficult elements. Making sure Cassie stays afloat. Improving in the gym. Carving out a future. Marcos. I just have to find a way to keep everything together, no wobbles.
“How were the kids you coached on Friday?” he asks.
“Out of control,” I call over the rumble of the engine. “Super cute, though. One clung to my knee and cried when it was time to go home. And one kicked me in the eye.”
“Sounds about right. Andreas and I used to be volunteer coaches for the elementary school soccer league.”
Is it wrong that the idea of Marcos shepherding children on the field is adorable? Must be how he learned to be so absurdly encouraging.
“Of course,” he adds, “Dre was pretty much one of the kids.”
When we drive onto Pine Needle Street, the same trio of boys on bicycles refuses to get out of the way until the last moment. “C’mon!” Marcos calls out the window in exasperation, leaning on the horn.
The effect’s less than ominous, as the horn bleats like a dying goat. The kids laugh and scrape their sneakers along the road, balancing on the bikes. There’s a woman across the road who hangs laundry despite the chilliness, dressed in pastel blues and pinks. Dreaming of warmer places, possibly. A man, perhaps her husband, sits on the cracked steps with the newspaper. He waves at Marcos when we pass.
In a house before Marcos’s, music pours out the windows. “Merengue?” I say and he confirms it, pleased that I knew, although it was a shot in the dark. Through the kitchen window, I see a woman sashaying near the counter, arms and hands twisting up to the sky and back down again. “Laura Morena,” says Marcos. “She dances all day. She makes great empanadas, though.”
We spend an hour with the pen scratching over the paper in the living room, our heads close. He’ll laugh when he makes a silly mistake, his warm breath brushing my cheek, and as he crosses out a mistake in firm black lines, his elbow knocks against mine and remains for an extra moment.
He’s the one working hard; each problem must be solved and resolved until there are no more cross-outs. “Let’s do number two again.”
“We finished it,” I say.
“I want to do it on my own this time, know what I mean?” He nudges me playfully. “No cheating.”
Victor roams around the kitchen. The cabinet doors swing open and closed, a metal lid reverberates against the counter, and the microwave begins to hum.
“You want any, Marc?” he calls.
Marcos shakes his head, causing him to smudge an acute angle. That’ll be another three-to-five minutes of him redrawing it to perfection.
“How about you?” Victor says to me, elbows up on the counter and dark eyes watching me closely. Measuring. The black ink of a tattoo slips into view from under the sleeve of his shirt.
I watch him right back. “Got any more of those chips?”
The screen door wheezes open and in an instant, my palm is stinging from an Andreas high-five. “Ladies, gentlemen, put your books down,” he announces like a horserace caller, “we’ve got the Miami Heat to watch.”
Victor groans and replies in Spanish. Andreas shoots back, switching to English to add, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do!”
Marcos has not glanced up once from his redrawn angle. I bet it would align precisely with a protractor. “Victor’s hated basketball ever since Andreas scored on him last summer,” he tells me. “It was truly David and Goliath.”
Apparently Andreas wins this round, too; he plops onto the floor at our feet and turns on the TV. “Savannah, how you doin’?” He offers me a large grin, all white teeth. “I invited all the boys. You’ll love ’em.”
“You know this isn’t your house, right?” Marcos says sternly.
Andreas waves his hand and settles in at a spot just under my knee. “Details.”
After ten seconds of microwave beeping, Victor plops down next to Marcos and the entire couch sinks. He eyes Marcos’s notebook over a steaming bowl of chili. “Looks boring,” he announces.
As the door opens, I smell the cologne. It reeks of inexperience and optimism, much like when Richard used to bathe in the stuff before heading out on a date. They arrive all at once and Andreas turns up the volume so that their greetings don’t drown out the game. Muscular guys dressed impeccably in tight T-shirts and jeans, short hair gelled into pointy tips. Are they juniors, seniors, or even from Ponquogue at all? I don’t know. Marcos stands up, embracing them with the weird manly half hug. Then they see me.
“This is Savannah,” Marcos says, dimples on display as he grins, and it makes my ears redden but not in a good way. Because there’s the suspension, the lull before one of them says, “How’s it going?” and gives Marcos a wink. The others nod at me and then look at each other, their heads moving together as they settle on the floor near Andreas. They mumble to each other, a steady thrum that goes beneath the cheering onscreen and Andreas’s enthusiastic shouts as he tries to remotely coach the players.
I’m used to being judged. Gymnastics will do that for you. You’re never good enough, and even in the rare times that you are, there’s no guarantee that you will be again. Couple that with Dad teaching at school, and I’ve accepted that the occasional side-eye and dropped voice is part of my life.
Tiny girl out of her comfort zone.
My fingers fumble for my phone to text Cassie. I’ll invite her here, ask for a ride home, anything. We’ll take the awkwardness side by side and she’ll charm them or whisk me away. Preferably both.
You wouldn’t be able to handle it.
Victor’s watching me out of the corner of his eye as he spoons bites of chili. Is this all a test to prove that I don’t belong here?
My phone chirps with an e-mail notification. Coach Jeffrey Barry.
Savannah!! Great to meet you!! Just wanted to confirm you received the links to all of the great academic opportunities Owego State has to offer!!
I’ll give it to the man; he’s got great timing. I spend an inordinate amount of time typing out my response– “I did, thanks!”–and hope that by the time I look up, something will have changed.
Nope. Marcos leans against the counter, in earnest conversation with one of the guys. When he switches to Spanish, his voice turns deeper, smoother, gliding up and down the syllables instead of skipping through them.
I’m about to text Cassie. Instead, I do something completely different. It might be the testosterone flowing as the boys make drumroll sounds on the floor when the player onscreen goes for the layup. Perhaps the mere thought of texting Cassie brings out the more spontaneous side of me. Either way, I open up a new draft.
To: englehardtmichael@athletics.osu.edu
Subject: Savannah Gregory–Return to Competition
Dear Coach Englehardt,
It was great meeting with you last season. I’ve recovered from ACL surgery and will be competing next month at the Golden Leaf Classic as an event specialist. If possible, I would love to speak with you about opportunities for next year on the Buccaneers gymnastics team.
Sincerely,
Savannah Gregory
Before I can talk myself out of it, I hit Send and it whooshes off into oblivion.
My heart pounds like I’ve performed a floor routine for Coach Englehardt instead of sending him a peppy e-mail. Instead of waiting for a score, all I have to look forward to is when he inevitably writes back with, “We’ve filled our roster. Sorry.”
“Oh, come on!” a guy next to Andreas yells as the Heat’s center tumbles to the floor and the whistle blows. “What is this bullshit? The refs are fixing this.”
“I don’t know, he plowed right into that guy,” I say. “Looks like a flagrant foul to me.”
The quick hush again. Victor’s spoon dangles between his chili and his mouth. The guys on the floor stare at me, bewildered, but now I’m not sure if it’s Who brought this girl? or She’s talking basketball?
Andreas recovers first. “Damn right that was flagrant!” There’s no hesitation in his eyes as he squirms around to high-five me. I could hug the kid right now.
Luckily, someone else takes the spotlight. “Andreas Alvarez, what in the holy hell are you doing with your sneakers on the floor?”
Andreas hastily tugs off a shoe. “Sorry,” he mutters.
I didn’t even hear the door open.
Rena Garcia takes the open seat next to me, shaking her auburn curls vigorously. “You better be.” A curl whacks me in the face. “So sorry,” she says, her eyes crinkling as she smiles at me. “Oh, Savannah, hi! I love your dad. He’s the best teacher I’ve ever had.” From livid to buddies, just like that. It’s downright unnerving. “He’s so funny, too.”
She’s got the wrong guy.
“Andreas’s girlfriend,” Marcos whispers as he bends down behind the couch, and my mind starts replaying that kiss in the car and calculates how soon we can repeat it. “She’s a junior.”
“He hits on anything that moves,” I say.
His shoulders brush mine as he laughs quietly. “He says it ‘keeps his game fresh and zesty.’”
Rena keeps up a steady stream of chatter: the players’ uniforms (unflattering), Andreas’s hygiene (TMI), the smell of Victor’s chili (“like a sewer, just not as good”). Marcos perches himself on the arm of the couch, and when Rena says something particularly ridiculous, our eyes meet and he’s holding back laughter as much as I am.
On my way out, she hugs me. “So good to see you, girl,” she says genuinely, like we’re friends, and I can’t deny that the warmth makes me feel good. Wanted.
I LEAN AGAINST the chain-link fence while Marcos ducks inside for his wallet, watching the leaves spiral down over the driveway.
Well, I did it. I survived a whole gathering of strangers without Cassie and lived to tell the tale, and I didn’t need to be drunk to do it.
Down the road, an engine sputters as tires grind on gravel. The sunlight has already started to fade, which will mean driving to gymnastics at dusk and leaving in the black of night. No hope of sunset, not like the summer days at South Cross, but it’s an exchange I’ll have to make.
There she stands. La reina, Juliana, poking her head out of the window that happens to belong to the apartment attached to Marcos’s. Her black hair, long and wet, streams over her neon green Pav’s Place shirt. You know, no big deal that she’s probably in the bedroom adjacent to his and heard my entire boring life story (not to mention gymnastics jumps) through the inch-wide walls. Or that she can slip through the screen door and cross the house in an instant to Marcos’s bedroom if she wants. I bet she has–
“What are you doing here?” she says.
“Just, you know, stuff. Things.”
“Right.” She looks at me full on, which she rarely does. She takes in the jeans that I’ve worn since ninth grade and the old green hoodie that Cassie donated to me a while back and the spiky dark-blonde hair that won’t stay in a ponytail, no matter how much I fight it.
“Juliana!” a voice whines inside. “He won’t let me play!”
“Liar!” another voice declares. “He broke my crayons!”
With a sigh, she closes the window. Not angrily. Just naturally. Maybe that’s the true Juliana. The girl who works brunch at Pav’s on Saturday morning while her classmates wake up with hangovers. The girl with purple bags under her eyes, helping to raise her kid brothers. I’m the one contemplating sunsets while she has things to do, real things. I can leave. She must stay.
“You ready?” Marcos appears at my side.
“Just chatting with your neighbor.”
“You didn’t know she lived next door?” He grins. “She chewed off my ear about all of the gymnastics.”
The ride home is quiet, yet it feels comfortable. Marcos catches me as I’m about to leave the car. I turn to him for an instant, and his callused hand slides up the back of my neck. Those soft lips are on mine. They’re warm, slightly chapped. I can smell coconut and hear the kids across the street crashing in the leaves, and dimly I hope that they don’t notice us.
He rests his forehead against mine. “I’ve been waiting to do that again all day.”
“Me, too,” I say with a voice way too breathy to be mine.
He pecks my nose. “Flagrant fouls. So what else don’t I know about you?”
That I can’t think about flagrant fouls at a time like this? I unbuckle my seatbelt, slide as close as the center console allows, and kiss him again.
When his tongue slips into my mouth, gentle but not shy, I follow its languid path. I lift a tentative hand to his shoulder and he presses closer to me, his thumb whispering against my neck. We touch and move away and touch again. We dance in slow circles until the garage door rumbles open.
My father. His bicycle. Two words: yellow Spandex.
“I should go start my homework.” In the rearview mirror, my eyes are half-crazed and my ears are on fire.
“Okay.” His calm gaze meets mine in the mirror.
“Thanks for the ride home. I’ll catch you later,” I say in a way that I hope is cool and awesome and nonchalant.
He laughs and kisses me on the cheek. My ears are sending up smoke signals. I bet they’re visible across the Atlantic. “See you tomorrow, Savannah.”