The sidewalk cracks until it’s hidden by high grass. These houses were summer beach bungalows once. When people rich enough to buy mansions up on the hill left them behind, their exterior paint cracked, bleached by sunlight for too many years. Gone are the small grassy yards with swing sets and trampolines from the Ponquogue I know. Freshly painted porches, sturdy plastic mailboxes, the sound of a lawnmower and the hiss of a sprinkler–my normal.
From one of the windows, thick drumbeats flow out. Salsa music, maybe? I don’t know. Then the click-click-click of bicycle chains, not smooth and oiled like my father’s trail bike, but worn and choppy, skipping beats and catching others. Three kids with spiky black hair circle in and out of the road in figure eights. They don’t react to the car until the last instant, swerving out of the way.
We pull onto a gravel driveway that slithers between two sagging chain link fences. To the left: a small white bungalow, chipped paint, shades pulled low. To the right: a small white bungalow, chipped paint, upside-down wheelbarrow in the yard.
“Here we are.” Marcos shuts off the engine and the car exhales. He wipes his hands down the front of his jeans and attempts a smile.
I’m already halfway out of the car.
You wouldn’t be able to handle it.
There’s nothing to handle. I’m standing here while people all around are living their lives. I’m trying to figure out my own.
“Do you have snacks?” A dog barks from down the street, followed by the sound of a chain yanking against a fence.
“Excuse me?”
“Small morsels of food, preferably eaten between meals?”
Now his smile is real. “Since you asked so nicely, yes.”
We step through a gaping hole in the fence toward the house on the left. He opens the screen door, stained with rust, and beckons for me to go first.
The walls are yellowed and the floors tired, curving under my sneakers. The kitchen and den blend into one, hosting a sturdy couch and a small TV. No photographs, knick-knacks, useless contraptions anywhere. Not like our house, dedicated to photos of Richard in uniforms: Ponquogue soccer, Notre Dame soccer, and US Army. I’d hidden all of my gymnastics pictures, leaving only a series of school portraits. Boring and safe.
A man in the kitchen looks up. He has Marcos’s eyes and arms twice the size of my head.
“You must be Victor.” I extend my hand. “I’m Savannah.”
Victor sizes me up. He does not seem impressed. Suspicious, a little confused–yeah, I’d give him both of those. Has he heard anything about me? Well, I’m here now and I’m not going anywhere until Marcos says so.
“My charming brother doesn’t function well before four o’clock,” Marcos says.
That earns a smirk from Victor. He wipes his hand slowly on his jeans and then extends it. “What brings you to our neighborhood?”
“Helping your brother get a scholarship.”
Our hands meet, his shake firm. “Good luck.” While Victor’s voice isn’t exactly friendly, it’s not sending me out the door. He’s evaluating me with eyes like his brother’s, except flecked with amber. “He needs all the help he can get.”
“What would you like?” Marcos opens the refrigerator, causing Victor to fall into the counter. “We have cheese, bread, ketchup–”
“Cheese is expired.” Victor propels himself onto the ledge.
“I had it for lunch. It was fine.” “I’m not driving you to the hospital for food poisoning,” Victor says.
Marcos takes a deep breath. I bite back a smile as he fights to keep his composure. “Okay. Revised. We have bread and ketchup–”
Victor opens up a cabinet and hurls a bag of potato chips at me. I catch it with one hand. “They might be expired, too. Great date, pendejo. Way to plan ahead.”
Marcos’s face matches his red shirt quite magnificently.
“It’s cool,” I say. “I love ranch-flavored barbeque chips.”
Victor’s eyes widen with surprise. “No way. Have you ever tried–”
“Bye, Vic.” Marcos nudges me toward a doorway.
His bedroom. My heart thumps as we sit down on the pale-blue bed. It’s pressed against three walls, with one slim window overlooking it.
I take a breath. It smells like fresh laundry, and the cottony scent immediately calms the sudden onslaught of nerves. “Behave yourselves in there, children,” Victor calls.
“God, Victor!” Marcos shuts the door in exasperation. “You are not allowed to speak anymore.”
Through the wall behind us, an alarm goes off. It’s loud enough to feel like it’s in his room, urgent and angry. I jump.
“The neighbors.” Marcos nods to the wall. “In the next apartment.”
So this tiny place is split down the middle. “Where does Victor, you know, sleep? Do you share this room?” Meanwhile, Marcos is lucky he isn’t any taller, because his feet would probably hang out the door when he lies down.
“Victor has slept on the couch for the past six months,” Marcos says. “He thinks it will toughen him up for the military life.”
“Correction. I am tough,” calls Victor. The screen door wheezes open and closed. No privacy whatsoever.
“You know, my brother’s an officer in the army,” I say.
“The soccer player and Lord of the Rings fan?” Marcos picks crumbs off of the bed. Larger ones first, then infinitesimal ones. If he ever encountered my leotard drawer in its heyday, he’d be dabbing at chalk particles for days. “That’s what Vic wants to do when he graduates from college. If he graduates. He’s not one for going to class.”
He pulls out a textbook and then turns to me. His gaze is piercing, commanding. “Can I be honest with you, Savannah Gregory?”
Everything feels magnified in this pale-blue room. Sound. My heart rate. The way his dark eyes probe mine for an answer, although I don’t know what he wants to be honest about or why.
“Yes?” I squeak.
“I don’t waste my time.”
I ball my sweating palms into fists. “Uh-huh.”
“I’m not like the assholes you read about in the papers getting DWIs and stealing shit. I’m no Roberto selling weed in the bathroom, although I have to admit that his business skills are impressive.” Where is he going with this? I nod anyway. “I’m going to get this scholarship, and I feel like you’re the best person to help me.”