“I fell,” she says.
“Competing?”
“Yep, right there on the track, second time in my life.”
“How?” I step toward her, but she steps back. I wait to see what comes next. For a long time she stares at the water, chewing on her lip.
“I couldn’t get my head straight for it, for my part of the meet. I was distracted. I was tense. I tried to come in from lane five and I must have—I don’t know. Honestly, it’s a blur, and I fell. I nearly took out the girl in lane three. It was bad.”
“Why couldn’t you get your head straight?”
She nods, thoughtful. “My dad came to see me run, in Orlando.”
“He came all the way here?”
“It’s not that far of a flight from North Carolina, I guess.” She shrugs and glances at me with eyes full of hurt. “He brought his new wife.”
“They got married?”
“Yep. And she thought he should come out and see me run. He follows my career online, knows all about it. He’s sorry he put so much pressure on me before. He’s glad I’m running again. He’s getting help. He’s more balanced now.”
“He told you that.”
“His wife told me that, when he went to the restroom. We went for dinner the first night I was in town.”
“Why’d you go to dinner?”
“I was so surprised to see them that when they asked, I said yes. . . .”
“It’s okay to love him.”
“I know. He’s my dad.”
“But you’re mad?”
“I’m heartbroken, I think, not mad.”
“Heartbroken?”
“That she—this new wife—gets the person that I never knew. Like, if they have kids, those kids will get the dad I never knew too.”
“You planning on not knowing him anymore?”
She looks at me, surprised. “Why would you ask that?”
“Well, you act like he’s gone, but he’s not. Maybe you lost time with him, but you’ve also got more time. You could make new memories. You guys could become something new together.” My voice dips. “That happens all the time, you know.”
“Like with you and your pop?”
“Yeah. I mean, we had to redefine who we were to each other, and that redefinition didn’t happen at once. It happened again as he recovered and then again with this last setback. I think it’s something that will happen repeatedly over our lives together. Don’t you think?”
“Kind of like us?” she asks.
And this time I don’t say anything, but she knows the answer.
“After this fall, I remembered the first time I fell. Do you remember?”
“Yeah, you came to my house.”
“At night.”
“And we talked at the park.”
“About my dad. You were the first person that I ever really told about how hard it was for me. And you made me laugh. You made me feel better.”
“I wasn’t sure about that at the time.”
“You did,” she says, sincerely. “You know, I’ve always secretly been afraid of being like him. Like one day a switch will come on, and I’ll be unpredictable and moody and unkind. That was part of it, that year that I went inside myself. But you know what I realized? I realized that if I keep people away to protect them from me, I will be like him. And I don’t want to be like him. I want to let people in. I can let people. . . .” She pauses, chews on her lips, looking at me with woeful eyes. “I can let people in. I can . . .”
“You came back here to let us in,” I point out.
“Yeah,” she says. “I did, but there’s still so much more to say that I haven’t.”
I step forward, the wet sand grainy between my toes. I touch her shoulder, and she turns her gaze to my hand. “You okay?” I ask, because she’s shaking.
“No. I’m petrified, but it’s, like, a good thing because I’m trying to get the courage to say something.”
“Okay,” I say, my body tense. Because I could tell her, too, that I’ve been trying to get my courage up for weeks, maybe even months. And right now, on this beach with her—her hair tossed up into a sloppy ponytail, the wind whipping strands of curls around her beautiful face—it’s hard not to blurt out everything I know to be true about us.
That I think about her more than I should.
That when funny things happen to me during my day, I want to tell her.
That I have conversations with her when she’s not even around.
That I’ve been doing that since the time I was, I don’t know . . . forever. That I never stopped doing that even when she was gone.
That when she’s like this—open and vulnerable and afraid—some part of me wants nothing more than to take care of her, even though I know she can take care of herself.
That when she does something as simple as hold my stare, it’s hard not to blurt out—
“I love you still,” she says. “Even more than that day at the park, last year.”
She lays her hand atop of mine, the both of us cupping her shoulder. She steps forward so we’re toe to toe and a couple inches shy of being eye to eye. She says, “I seem to love you always, Marco Suarez.”
When she steps back, I gape at her, my hand falling to my side. Maybe I say nothing for too long because she adds, “You don’t have to say it back right now . . . Or you could say it whenever you feel comfortable . . . I can wait . . . or . . .” Her hand moves to the charm on her necklace, the rose-gold mustang. “Or . . .”
“Or . . .” I step forward until my mouth is pressed against her ear. “I could tell you that I love you, too, Sally Blake.” I wrap her in my arms and hold her to me. She holds me back.
“Always?” she says.
“Always.”
• • •
An hour later we’re standing at the edge of the ocean, barely talking. My arm is around her waist, and she’s holding that same hand. With her free hand she takes my free hand so that we’re squeezed together like a pretzel. She says, “When we were little, Sookie was convinced that the ocean was God. Did you know that?”
“What?” I laugh, sneaking a sidelong glance at her. Her lips have caught that smile again. That same goofy smile she got when I said that I loved her too. I loved her always.
“I don’t know. Why not? We’re filled with water and so is the world. It’s the one thing that separates life from death. There’s a nice symmetry there. And there’s parts of it that we’ll never fully explore. No water, no life.”
“You mean, not like we know it,” I clarify.
“I guess, but I like the idea that instead of looking up for God, we could find him—”
“Or her.”
“Or neither a him or a her,” she says with a smile, “right here.” It’s Sally’s turn to give the me that sidelong stare. “How do you feel when you stand here, in front of the ocean? Tell me you don’t feel something inexplicable. . . .” She turns to me, runs her hand over my cheek. Goose bumps spread across my flesh. “Really look,” she says, and I do.
I stare at the ocean, the dark, endless water, relatively motionless at night but beneath, another world of color and sound and life. A complete mystery to me, but whenever I’m close to it, I still feel . . . “Whole.”
She nods. “Me too. Like there’s this stillness inside me . . . and that stillness makes me feel . . .”
“Like anything is possible . . .”
“Yeah,” she says, and then there’s that goofy smile again.
“What?”
She looks at the ocean, then me. “It’s how I feel when I’m with you.”
“Me too.” I bring her hand to my lips and give it a gentle kiss. Then I trace the lines of her palm, diverting from the path to follow a pale-blue vein that runs the length of her forearm—up, up, up—past her shoulder and across her neck until the path ends at her lips.
Her lips. Pink and scooting closer. The promise of softness.
And then we’re kissing, her hands in my hair,
her hips pressed to my hips. We sink lower and lower into the mystery until we’re wrapped around each other and all I can taste is the salt of the ocean and Sally.
EPILOGUE
WHEN GRENDEL’S OPENED THEIR COFFEE bar several years later, I was offered the cushy job of co-managing the kiosk every summer with none other than Alex, who had finally gotten decent at twentieth-century pop song. Unlike the larger store, the bakery-adjacent café has limited hours throughout the week—seven a.m. to seven p.m. So I can take on three twelve-hours shifts and one short Sunday shift each week and still have three days off, the days I primarily spend with Sally.
Then, when we have a lull here, which we do nearly every afternoon between eleven and two, I’m free to do research at one of the bistro tables. I’m taking such a break this very Sunday when I see Marta—yes, Marta of all those long, circuitous stories. Marta, who has kind of been the coauthor of my circuitous autobiography. She is coming down aisle nine, chatting away into a Bluetooth hooked over her ear. Her mouth opens wide, and she bursts out laughing—one hand pushing the cart, the other holding on to a cereal box.
I lean forward to read the brand name, because really, what kind of cereal does a chatterbox like Marta eat?
Cheerios. Just good old-fashioned Cheerios.
And you know what? It’s good old-fashioned Marta too. Her hair still zigzags all the way down her body until it settles somewhere at the curve of her back, and her fingernails are still long and painted a neon yellow that can be seen all the way over here. Maybe she’s an inch taller and ten pounds lighter; with the baby fat missing from her face, she looks more womanly with her curves. But even so, it’s still good old-fashioned Marta.
“Marta?” I call out in a loud whisper.
She glances around but doesn’t recognize me sitting at the bistro table about ten feet to her left, so her eyes roam past me. I stand and say again, “Hey, Marta.” This time when our eyes meet, I imagine what she sees—not the scrawny preteen she once knew or the taller, more muscular teen she never knew. But me, this adult version of me, with a full-out beard (unnecessary in south Florida, but hey, I can finally grow one!), a tiny bit of a love belly, and that ten inches of height I had gained since the last time I saw her. I am twenty-one now, soon to be a graduate of Wayne University, and if all goes as planned, I’ll join Sally at the University of Miami this fall. She’ll get her master’s in library science, and I’ll work my way toward a PhD, studying what I’ve always loved, the cosmos.
Marta steps closer, her cart pushing against the courtesy rope that separates the café from the rest of Grendel’s. “Do I know you?”
“Well, do you? I don’t know. I guess to get to the answer, let me take you back about to that time when I was seven and first saw a blowfish on a trip to the Miami Seaquarium and this little curly haired girl wouldn’t stop telling me about the first time she saw a blowfish. . . .”
And then she smiles—ear to ear, forehead to chin.
“Marco?! Wow!” She laughs. “Mami!” Her gaze dips to the right as she speaks into her phone. “You’ll never believe who I just ran into! No, no, it’s Marco. Marco Suarez! From Seagrove Elementary! Yeah, yeah. Okay, I’ll call you back.” Her Bluetooth dims, and she flicks her wrist, sending her Cheerios sailing into her cart. Then she barrels over to me, wrapping me in the biggest bear hug I’d experienced since . . . well, since the last time I saw her, at the end of sixth grade, before she moved a little north to Broward County and I stayed exactly where I’ve always stayed until I finally went off to Wayne. This time when we hug, though, I don’t leave the ground; she does. I make sure of that.
“I can’t believe it’s you,” she says.
“I can’t believe it’s you either. You look exactly the same.”
“And you look completely different. You’re . . .”
“Grown?”
“Tall.”
“Distinguished?”
“Hairy.”
“Intelligent around the eyes?”
“Okay, that I’ll give you. . . .” She laughs again. “But, man, you look like your dad, now that I think about it.” She sighs, and it’s like it always is when I see someone for the first time after my dad got hurt. There are the questions, which I’m okay with now. The thing with my dad is like my mom always says, It is what it is.
“I heard about him,” Marta continues. “About what happened with Jade’s dad and . . . I know that was a while back, but how is he? How is everyone—your whole family?”
“Pop’s better. It’s been a while, you know? Time and therapy have really helped. Now that old dude is auditing college classes at Miami Dade, like some young buck. Can you believe it? And he’s doing some writing in a journal, which he won’t let us read—a very productive retirement since he doesn’t work anymore. Twins are about to graduate, which is a miracle, and Mom’s still sewing, but she does it from home now, branched out on her own a few years ago, if you’ve got some sewing jobs that need done.”
I never miss a chance to promote Mom’s business. Her being able to work from home was the best thing that ever happened to us, and believe it or not, it was Diego’s idea. “Bro, we got like one hundred and twenty-five employees in this store, and they got families, and their families got families. We spread the word that your moms has the best hands this side of Bird Avenue and you’ll see what’s what!” Diego even set my mom up with a social media presence and her own Etsy store, where she sells her original creations. Turns out Diego has a head for business and Mr. Grendel made the right choice sending him to business school. Since Diego took over as assistant manager of the entire store last year, sales and customer satisfaction ratings are up. And this café, the café that only breaks even in sales but brings in more shoppers, was also his idea.
“Of course,” Marta says. “I have, like, ten little cousins about to have their quinceañeras. But what about you? I thought . . . Boy . . .” She laughs, the edge of her voice spinning upward. “I thought you’d be out of here.”
“Well, I am, sorta. I go to school in California.” And because I know Marta loves a good story, I say, “Actually, I was supposed to go with Erika Richards? She was my girl for a while.”
“Erika?” Marta pauses for a few seconds. “Hmm . . . Ran track, right?” Her eyes pop wide. “Oh, she’s the one who spit in Sookie’s hair. Remember that?”
Shows you how long it had been since I had seen Marta and also how good of a memory she has.
“Ha! I remember that. Pretty sure Sookie does too.”
“Where is she now?”
“Who? Erika?”
“Erika, Sookie. What about Jade?”
“Well, Erika’s at school at FSU, not spitting on anyone—at least, not the last time I talked to her. And she did apologize to Sookie,” I add as a parenthetical aside. “But she’s good. She’s studying sports management, been dating some track star for a while now. Sookie graduated from Northwestern, accelerated, and is heading to law school to become a lawyer—either civil rights or constitutional law. Jade is married to Diego—”
Marta stops me by clapping her hands. “I can’t believe that,” she says, the glee spreading across her face. “She finally snagged him, huh?”
“Believe,” I say, “but Jade would kill me if I didn’t tell you she’s still getting her school on. She’s studying to be a child psychologist. And me, I’m here every summer.”
“So tell me about you, about this.” Her hand sweep includes Grendel’s and the books by our feet.
“Well, that’s a long story.” And then I get to say the words that I’ve always wanted to say to Marta. “You got time for a long story?”
Marta rolls her eyes, and I swear that arc is so wide, she must have seen every corner of the ceiling. “Please, I got all the time in the world.”
Instinctively, I glance at her cart, no perishables.
“Okay.” I walk back to my table. Sitting, I offer her the seat opposite mine. I clear away textbooks and notebooks, setting
them at my feet. Then I lean forward and begin. “Well, for starters, I have a new love. And you’re going to like this. . . . It’s Sally Blake.”
“Sally Blake! Ooh.” She leans forward too, cozying up so that her elbows rest on the table and her chin on the bridge she forms with her hands.
“Okay, well—” Her Bluetooth lights up, vibrates urgently against her ear. But she never breaks eye contact; she tugs it swiftly from her lobe and sends it sailing toward her cart. I watch it land somewhere between the Cheerios and a loaf of Cuban bread. “Go on.” She snaps her fingers so that our eyes connect again. “It’s fine. Don’t stop.”
“Well, in order to understand that story, you’ll have to understand that it began with a kiss . . . a first kiss . . . very long, long ago.”
“Yes,” Marta says. “I like this story! Continue!”
“It wasn’t just a kiss. It was a spark really,” I say, and I know she’s hooked. I can see it in her eyes. I glance away and see that Alex, who has arrived to take over the café for the day, stops his work behind the counter and also leans over, listening. It’s a slow afternoon at Grendel’s, so why shouldn’t he listen? And well, once in a while you have to tell a story, a really long story. A story about love, about family—the ones you’re born into and the ones you make along the way. You have to tell these stories to stay connected to those you love and those who love you. And this is a story I know so well. I’ve told it so many times in my head. So I clear my throat and in my best storytelling voice, I say, “The first time I kissed Sally Blake was on a hot summer day . . . in early August. . . .”
And, well, you know the rest of the story. After all, you were there.
There are only two ways to see your life:
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.
—Albert Einstein
The Universal Laws of Marco
1. Keep moving forward because life is now. —Pop
2. People like that, they look for reasons to be angry. But you hear me, Marco: There are as many reasons to not choose your anger. You remember that. —Mom
The Universal Laws of Marco Page 28
