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.
“Hey.”
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.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“MAKE FIVE ROUTINES,” Matt tells Emery, Nicola, and Erica at Monday’s practice. “Show me the sixth.”
They nod. Nicola fastens and unfastens her grips, the leather straps that cover her palms. Velcro. Unvelcro. Peel. Unpeel. Finally satisfied, Nicola sprays her grips with water and rubs them in the chalk bucket, a garbage can with the lid flipped upside down. When Richard came to my first gymnastics meet, he asked Dad, “Why is there parmesan cheese everywhere?”
As long as there are nervous gymnasts, there will be chalk. Magnesium carbonate for the hands to help you swing on bars again and again. A thin white line on the beam to mark your feet for your dismount. A circle at the end of the runway to wipe your feet and hands before you vault. It absorbs moisture on those sweaty palms. It wastes time. It offers direction. It provides a sense of purpose.
“Savannah, let’s do tap swings, and if you’re up to it, do a few dismounts.”
Landing. On a real floor, bending my knees to absorb the impact.
I was afraid he’d say that.
IN THE FIRST rotation of Regionals, I was the first gymnast up on floor. It’s usually considered a disadvantage to be the first girl competing, as the judges seem less willing to give out high scores right away. That day, I was convinced it wouldn’t matter.