Page 69 of Unwritten Rules
And they lie there together for a long time, Zach watching the streetlights reflect off his parents’ ketubah, its calligraphy spelling out all their promises to one another.
Zach wakes the next morning to the sound of the vacuum cleaner in the hallway outside his room, door open, and his sister Aviva vacuuming with one hand while texting with the other.
“Morning, lazy,” she says. “Go find out what you’re supposed to be doing.”
What Zach’s supposed to be doing is bringing up an unimaginable amount of stuff out of the chest freezer in his parents’ basement, going to get ice, going to pick up flowers, and going back to the store to return the ice he got and get different ice.
Back at the house, Zach’s mom conscripts Eugenio into a conversation about the merits of reheating techniques, as Zach wavers between monitoring their interaction and needing a break, before he decides on the latter.
He finds Aviva in the backyard. It’s a warm day, the sun evaporating the late-morning rain off their lawn, the stand-up basketball hoop casting a shadow over the small concrete patio. When he comes out, she reaches down by the leg of one of the lawn chairs to move something, then picks it up when she sees it’s him. A bottle of beer, and another unopened one beside it that she offers him, twisting off the cap.
“Is it always like this and did I just forget?” he asks.
“I mean, you didn’t have to cook.” She picks up a basketball, dribbling it, then sinking it into the hoop. “And all you have to do tonight is stand there and look famous with your famous friends, and not make sure some council member has wine.”
“I would have paid for catering. Why didn’t you just ask?”
“Zach, you know how it is. Mom’s just being Mom.” She waves her hand; something flashes at her wrist.
“Did you get a tattoo?”
“Shit, the stupid coverup makeup must have come off while I was scrubbing something.”
“Let me see,” he says. She extends her arm. The tattoo sits right above her wrist, a honeycombed series of hexagons and a pentagon, a few lines radiating from it. “What is that?”
“An estrogen molecule. Don’t tell them, okay? I’ll get no end of grief.”
And he considers how Eugenio slept with him for some of the night, kissing him and then going back to the other room, how his presence feels at once comforting and terrifying. “You know I won’t say anything.”
She sets her beer down on the patio edge and nods to where he’s holding his. “Did you wanna play?”
“I’m not actually allowed to play in case I get injured.”
“Sounds like some quitter talk to me.” She’s half a foot shorter than he is, though her hair tries to compensate for that, puffing in the Maryland humidity, as she dribbles and spins and shoots around where he’s standing. She also elbows him in the low ribs, more than once, hard, bruising pokes.
“Please don’t make me have to see the team medical staff because of a pickup game,” he says, “especially one where I’m not actually playing.”
“You’re just mad that I’m whooping your ass.” She shoots over where he’s standing, ball rolling on the rim before settling into the basket. She raises her arms in victory. “I thought baseball players were supposed to be athletes.”
“It’s a common misconception.” But he swats the ball out from where she’s dribbling again, then turns and deliberately misses, shooting a foot wide of the hoop. The ball spins into the backyard grass, coming to rest in the tangled roots of their big oak tree.
Eugenio comes out then, and he looks tired, either from having gotten up in the middle of the night or from being kept busy with the preparations.
“You wanna play?” Aviva asks. He declines but offers to play HORSE instead, and they take turns shooting: Aviva, then Zach, then Eugenio.
Which is how Zach discovers Eugenio is very, very bad at basketball. “Aren’t you from Indiana?” Zach says, when he misses another easy shot. “I thought you all could do free throws.”
“How many base runners have you caught this season?” Though Eugenio’s laughing at himself. “Come show me what I’m supposed to be doing.”
And it’s nothing, for them to jostle against one another in the middle of a training session or in the middle of a game, in the dugout or in the batting cages. But they’re in his parents’ backyard, under Aviva’s supervision.
Eugenio is sweating a little in the July heat, spots at his temples and a sheen on his neck, an atmosphere coming off his skin when Zach steps close to him.
“You want me to show you?” Zach says.
Eugenio dribbles a few times, and then lets Zach reposition how he’s shooting. It’s different from their framing practice months ago. Eugenio doesn’t resist the adjustment, loose and happy and pausing to take occasional sips from a beer, letting Zach touch him. And he tosses again, missing wide, Zach throwing his hands up in mock frustration.
“I’m gonna go see if Mom needs anything,” Aviva says.
