Playing for Keeps (13 page)

IT HAD BEEN
two months now, but Carmen still couldn't believe that she and Domingo were done. And the worst part was, she had been the one to initiate it.

Domingo had been a
chambelán
—sort of like a knight, without the shining armor—at Carmen's
quinceañera
, a Lati-Jew-na affair that Amigas Inc. had planned to reflect all the different elements of her background. Domingo had also been the first boy that she'd kissed, the first boy that she'd ever taken home to meet her parents, and the first boy who had motivated her parents to call out, “Leave the door open,” whenever the couple went upstairs to her room.

Then Domingo had gotten into his dream school: Savannah College of Art and Design. In Georgia. A full 485 miles away. He planned to study interactive media and video-game design. Although he hadn't chosen it because of her, it was also a school with an excellent program in fashion, and Carmen was a gifted designer. She sewed all of her own clothes, and everything she wore looked as though it had come straight from some major couture house. If in two years, when Carmen was ready for college, they were still together, it might be nice if they were to go to the same school. That was what they told each other:
It might be nice.
No pressure. No heavy-duty plans. Just an open door that beckoned with possibility.

At the beginning of the summer, before Domingo left for college, they had sat side by side on Carmen's bed, cell phones in hand, open to their calendars. They had mapped out trips that would lessen the amount of time they'd be separated from one another. He would come back to Miami for a weekend at the end of September, so they'd never spend more than twenty-one days apart. Carmen's mother, under the impression that they'd be starting college visits early, had agreed to take Carmen to Savannah for a weekend in late October or early November. Domingo would be back for Thanksgiving, and after that it was a short sixteen-day sprint until he was home for Christmas break. It was going to be so simple, really. They'd concentrate on work when they were apart. They would focus only on each other when they were together. And thank God for Skype and free rollover cell-phone minutes. They would make it. They had to…Things were so good between them.

Together, they could spend hours, working side by side, speaking in a kind of abbreviated sign language. Domingo would tap away at his computer. Carmen would jump from her sketchbook to her sewing machine. Every once in a while, they stopped to show each other something. One or the other would nod, offer a suggestion, walk over, and plant a kiss on their beloved's lips. But mostly, there was this beautiful silence. The hum of two people who needed few words to communicate what was in their hearts.

Which was why, a few weeks before Domingo was scheduled to head to Georgia, Carmen started to have a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach. She'd begun to feel that, as much as she loved Domingo, they were Alicia and Gaz in reverse. Alicia and Gaz had first spent years as best friends, with a frisson of tension underneath the surface, but never enough to spark anything real—until finally, they got it together and started dating. Carmen feared that she and Domingo were the exact opposite: all sparks at the start, but, with the increased distance between them, bound to fall into the just-friends category, until there was nothing but the memory of romance.

Because she'd sensed it, because she'd spent so many quiet hours with Domingo, she wasn't surprised when he rang the doorbell unexpectedly one hot August afternoon. It was as though she had willed him to come over. And the look on his face didn't surprise her, either. It mirrored her own—a desire to be together forever, mingled with the realization that they needed to break up.

“Go on a boat ride with me?” Domingo asked. He handed her a hastily wrapped bouquet of wildflowers that looked as though he might have picked them himself. They were her favorite kind.

“Of course,” she answered as she took the flowers into the kitchen and looked for just the right unfussy vase to put them in. Settling on a butter yellow ceramic pitcher, she put the flowers into water and grabbed her keys as she walked out the door.

In the boat, Domingo rowed, as he usually did. She liked to watch him, marveling at how his light brown arms moved with such graceful precision. On especially hot days, like this one, she could see his sunglasses begin to steam up. She wanted to be patient, to let him be the one to raise the topic of separating, of them each beginning school with a completely fresh start. But she couldn't help herself. In the Ramirez-Ruben household, you spoke early if you wanted to be heard.

“I don't want to break up, but I think we should break up,” she whispered, staring down at the bottom of the boat.

“But I don't want to date other people,” Domingo mumbled, looking away from her.

“Me, neither,” Carmen added. “But I don't think this is about other people. I want this to end when we're still happy with one another. Instead of waiting until you feel like it is a burden to come see me, or that it takes you away from the life you should be leading with all your heart and soul, almost five hundred miles away.”

“
Mi amor
, let's not say the words,” Domingo implored her. “Let's not use the words
break up
or
ending
or
done
or
finished
. Not now. Not yet.”

Carmen leaned across the little turquoise rowboat and put both of her hands on his. “Is
I will always love you
okay?”

Domingo nodded and kissed her.

Carmen pulled away and looked at him now, not afraid anymore, not wanting to look anywhere else.

“Is
I'll miss you
okay?” she asked.

“I think it is,” Domingo replied. But this time when he kissed her, she could feel his tears wet her cheek, taste them salty against his skin.

Then he did something unexpected. He laughed. “We're too mature,” Domingo said, quickly wiping the tears from his face. “I mean, look at us. We're sitting here being all cool. Why aren't you screaming?”

“I know what you mean,” she agreed. “We should drag this out. Have a big nasty fight around Thanksgiving…”

“We could make up around December twelfth, after I take my last final,” Domingo continued, playfully.

Carmen laughed then, too. “But the thing to do would be to totally ruin Christmas. We'd have to break up again. And out of decency, we'd both have to spend the entire Christmas and New Year's in mourning. Which would suck.”

Domingo began to row the little boat back to the Ramirez-Ruben family dock. “If we break up now,” he wondered aloud, “would I be over you by Christmas?”

Carmen raised an eyebrow. “Possibly. But remember, we weren't going to use the words
break up
.”

“So what do you suggest?” Domingo asked, as he tied the rowboat to the little dock and helped Carmen onto the shore.

Carmen smiled, held his hand, then kissed him with all the wild abandon of a
telenovela
star. “We've got six days before you leave for college. Let's see how many different ways we can come up with to say, ‘I love you.'”

Domingo placed his hands over his heart, then pointed at Carmen and smiled.

“What's that?” Carmen asked curiously.

“It's sign language for
I love you
,” Domingo replied, slinging an arm around Carmen's shoulder as they walked back into the Ramirez-Ruben home. “There's a busboy at Bongos who's hearing-impaired. He's been teaching a bunch of us at the restaurant how to sign.”

“Let me see that again,” Carmen asked coyly, as they stood at her front door.

Domingo repeated the gesture.

Carmen shook her head. “I don't think that means
I love you
.”

“Really?” Domingo asked, his eyes widening. “I didn't know you signed. What does it mean?”

“It means
please don't put so much starch in my shirt
” Carmen said, before collapsing in giggles.

Domingo smiled. “Very funny,
loca
. How will I ever find anyone who makes me laugh the way you do?”

To be continued…