by Faith O'Shea
Instead of responding to that, she popped the trunk and all but jumped out of the car.
“Let’s get you inside. I looked for something I thought would suit you. I hope you like it.”
He’d lost his exuberance for the move, knowing that she wanted nothing to do with him, that she was being forced into living with him. He hefted their bags out and closed the trunk.
“I’m sure it will be better than where I used to live.”
She attempted to take her bag from him, but he pulled away and strode toward the exit. She wasn’t far behind when she surprised him and asked, “Camagüey? Right?”
H was suddenly back there, wistful but not regretful.
“Yes. It is beautiful. The province includes a coastline of beaches.” He smiled at her. “The city is more inland, designed to deter pirates. I think you would use the word quirky. I would have liked to show you one day, but…I doubt I will ever be able to go back.”
Even if he could, even if he wasn’t considered a traitor, he knew he never wanted to live there again. When he’d been playing for his province, he was satisfied. He’d had no perspective of what existed outside his small world. It was only after he’d become part of the national team, traveled to other places on the global stage that his eyes were opened. Upon his return, he’d noticed how bad things really were. The revolution might have given them education, health care, and sports but it had come at a cost. It had taken away breakfast, lunch, and dinner. After years of his mother’s prompting, he’d finally decided they deserved a better life. The only way he could give them that was to turn his back on his homeland. Standing beside Alicia made him realize it hadn’t been as hard as he’d thought.
They stepped into the elevator as soon as the doors swished open, and she gravitated to a corner, as if to get as far away from him as she could.
“Look, Mateo. I’m only here to make sure you assimilate. The move here for me is temporary. Just until we leave for Sanford.”
She was picking up the thread of their earlier conversation, and he hoped her conscience was prickling her.
He said thickly, “Until we leave for Sanford. Then what? I’m on my own? Does it take only three weeks for someone to become Americanized?”
Her voice was tinged with emotion. “That was the deal.” She lowered her gaze and added, “You’ll be glad once you’re there and then out on the road. There’ll be women all over you.”
He taunted, “Do you think that that didn’t happen in Cuba?”
Her eyes widened and shot up to meet his. Had she never thought of that before?
“I’m sorry. I guess I—”
“Athletes are celebrities there. National heroes. We are hounded everywhere, and there’s no shortage of sexual exploits.”
He saw her eyes twitch. Good. It bothered her. Maybe he did have a chance to burrow beneath the armor she wore.
Deciding to remind her about her own forwardness, he said, “If I remember correctly, you were flirting in Cancun. Until you lost all interest in me as a man and saw me only as a ballplayer. You were close enough I was able to inhale your scent. Your voice was rich, resonant, seductive. You had a floral sundress on that showed your curves, and when you flashed your eyes at me, they held the promise of mystery and intrigue. Maybe I should have gone for a night in your bed, rather than a lifetime of commitment. You might not want to know this, but I took those vows seriously. How could I not? Matrimony should be sacred.”
She took a breath and said, “You can still enjoy that kind of celebrity. No one knows you’re married, and no one has to. You can live your life free of any kind of restrictions. You’re young, rich, and talented. Enjoy yourself. This…arrangement should only last a…short while and then I’ll file for divorce. It will be as if it never happened.”
His irritation flared. “It happened, Alicia. There’s a reason you were there that day, that you work for a Major League Baseball team, that you assigned an agent who negotiated the deal that brought me here. Call it kismet or divine intervention. I’d be loco to spit into that kind of existential wind.”
The elevator opened to a foyer where two doors sat on opposite sides of the short hallway, and he took a step toward the one numbered 26C.
She fumbled for the key in her purse. Once she’d extricated it, she handed it over with shaky hands. She was letting him do the honors. He unlocked the door, swung it open, picked up the bags, and walked in.
His eyes traveled from one side to the other before he was drawn to the large windows that gave him an unobstructed view of the harbor. He wouldn’t have thought to ask for a water view but was grateful she’d thought of that for him. Living on an island, he was surrounded by the sea and had missed it since he left. Here, he wouldn’t.
She asked in a small voice, “Do you like it?”
The tension between them evaporated as soon as he entered. He had a broad grin on his face when he said, “This is perfect.”
“Are the furnishings to your liking? I thought they might be a bit over-the-top, but I ended up leasing it as is.”
“I’ll see only the water.”
“I looked at dozens. I wanted the right place, and this seem to fit you. I figured anyone who lived on an island would appreciate its beauty.”
She sounded defensive, as if she was trying to convince herself that he liked the place. He glanced back to look at her. “You were right.”
His eyes went back to the scene outside the window.
The setting was tranquil, not so much from the wind-swept peaks or the ice chips floating upstream or the sailboats bobbing on the surface, but for some mysterious reason, it soothed the nerves and calmed the soul. He was mesmerized by the sparkling blue water just outside his door. He opened the slider and went onto the terrace, where the wind whipped at his hair. He brushed it back, his senses alert to the clean smell, the squawk of gulls flying overhead, the feel of the harbor breeze on his face. He could also feel her presence. She was close, closer than she’d come since he got to Boston. And he reveled in it for the briefest of moments before he reluctantly left the terrace, closing the door with a soft touch.
“It will be better in the summer when I can sit out and watch the activity. There will always be boats?”
“There will be.”
“Not fishing boats like in my village.”
“Camagüey is a fishing village?”
He’d never told her much about where he was from and she thought he lived more inland than on the coast. Of course, not wanting to get to know him personally, this was the first time she’d asked.
“I was born in a small fishing village in the province of Camagüey. It’s a little over thirty kilometers away and where my ancestors earned their living. I moved to the city of the same name when I joined the team. It is how I found a trusted captain to ferry me to Mexico without incidence. Vicente was the man you wired money to once I’d signed. I had to make it worth his while to take the risk.”
She’d wired the money as promised, ten-thousand dollars, the usual amount charged by traffickers. He’d insisted and she’d done as requested but had never asked why. She hadn’t asked a lot of things.
“How did you come to play for the Alfareros?”
“I would think you should know this with all the research you did.”
“It was all a bit confusing. Could you explain it.”
“In Cuba, players are assigned to their provincial league. There are no trades, so you play for them your whole career unless you are chosen for Super Liga, which I was. From there, I went to the national team, included as one of the senior-level players who go on to compete internationally. How you play has no bearing on whether you are tenured. You can be dropped at any time, for any reason.”
“Didn’t the federation do something new, throwing away tradition? Something about dispersal drafts and two separate halves to the season?”
“Yes. We’d never switched affiliations before, then all of a sudden there are drafts, and players ar
e shuffled around, uniforms swapped at the season’s half-way point. I don’t know why they thought it would be an improvement. It wasn’t. I still felt Camagüey was home.”
“Your mother still lives in that village?”
“Yes. The house was handed down generation to generation. Up until recently, one could not sell on the market. The rules regarding real estate have been relaxed a bit over the last few years, but few of its citizens can afford to buy and sell.”
She glanced around the room. No wonder those that came here went a bit overboard.
“What does she do?”
“She doesn’t do anything, not in the sense you mean. Things are loosening up, but free enterprise is still new to us. It wasn’t very long ago that if you didn’t work for the state, you lived on a state-generated stipend. Today, many state-assigned jobs have been taken over and are now privately-owned businesses. There weren’t many jobs in the countryside, so we converted part of our house into an apartment and rented it out and then converted it to a casa particular. That would be similar to your bed-and-breakfasts. That is how we covered most expenses. It was not legal, but most found their ways around it.”
He shrugged out of his jacket, threw it on the back of a chair before going to stand by the window again.
“I think I would like to learn how to sail.”
“There are docks close by where you can store a boat.”
“I see them from here. What else do I get as…?”
He looked back at her.
“Amenities?”
“Yes, amenities.”
“Concierge service, a seaside pool, common terrace.”
“And what am I paying in rent?”
“Forty-three hundred dollars.”
CHAPTER FIVE
He shook his head, feeling as if he’d been hit by a sledgehammer. His lips had turned downward into a scowl.
“That is more than a year’s salary from where I come from. And to just hand it over to someone else? Would it not be more efficient to buy? You can do that here, can you not?”
“You can buy and sell as many times as you want, but we thought you might want to live in the city a while before doing that.”
He eyed her suspiciously. “Who is the we?”
“Me. Keith. We’re the ones handling this part of the financial piece right now.”
He pushed the offending wind-blown hair off his forehead, shifted from one foot to the other.
“As my financial…manager…you think this is a good use of my funds?”
She was biting her lip, as if in hesitation. He waited for her to say something, but when she didn’t, he bit out, “I’m asking for your opinion.”
She pursed her lips and finally said, “Not really. It is a lot of money for rent, with no real recompense. But I think you need a year to figure out what you want, where you want to live, and this seemed the best alternative for that.”
“I didn’t sign a lease.”
A look of wariness came over her face. “Keith and I signed it. You gave him power of attorney.”
He had. It was all part of the contract. His agent/attorney would be making certain decisions for him over the next couple of months, and he figured if he trusted him to negotiate for him, he’d trust him with money that came from it. But Alicia?
“Why did you?”
Her cheeks pinkened. “I was going to lease it for you until Keith reminded me that I’d be responsible for the monthly payment if you walked away. I certainly can’t afford this on my own, but by then my name was already on the application and it would have looked suspect if I asked them to remove it.”
He thrust his hands onto his hips in an aggressive stance.
“I would not walk away and leave you like that.”
She stepped back and away from him, mumbling, “I almost believe that.” She sucked her cheeks in. “I’m sorry we’re treating you…like you’re incompetent.”
He waved the apology off.
“As long as you’re sending my mother the money agreed upon, I’m fine with you handling things.”
“I’m… only trying to make sure you don’t spend to excess.”
The sound he made was part gasp.
“This isn’t excess?”
She was biting her lip as she scanned the living space, taking in every inch, from rugs to lights to drapes. Defensively, she said, “I thought it would fit your new lifestyle.”
He’d crossed his arms over his chest.
“You know what kind of lifestyle I want? A better one, yes, but to buy eggs, clothes, extra shoes. I want to be able to go on a shopping spree like I did in Rotterdam with money in my pocket rather than have to sell cigars like a monger to purchase a phone or diapers, like some of my teammates had to do. That is what I came for, not this.”
She dipped her head. “Almost every player who emigrates wants all that money can buy them. I thought…” Squaring her shoulders, she looked at him and said, “Anything in the city would have cost big bucks. I thought you said that’s where you wanted to live.”
“I…I am out of my element here. I don’t mean to be difficult, but I’m not sure I’ll ever feel at home knowing how expensive it is.”
She stammered, “I can try to get you out of the lease.”
He was facing the water again, his hands stuffed in his pockets, the water having a calming effect on his mood.
“No. I’m sorry. This isn’t your fault. I just need to get used to having money at my disposal. I am thinking this view is worth the price.”
He heard the exhale, thinking once again that she wasn’t as cool and calm as she’d let on. It was obvious now that she’d been worried about his response to her choice, and he’d added weight to that with his complaint. When the offer to play for the Greenliners had been made and Keith had presented it, the dollar amounts had staggered him. He’d read about some of his compatriots signing multi-million-dollar deals but never thought he’d be one of them. His hand had been shaking when he inked the contract. His guilt in going this route was colored by the concern that he wasn’t worth it. He’d been busting his ass trying to prove he was, more to himself than his coaches.
He swiveled his head, faced her, and asked, “What do I get for my money?”
Her fingers were twisted into pretzels, her nerves more on the surface now and readable.
“Let me give you a tour.”
They didn’t have to move far to enter the kitchen. It opened into the room they’d been standing in.
“It has a farm sink, a six-burner gas stove, with an eat-in area, quartz counters.”
Her hand was moving over the surface with something akin to envy.
“You like it.”
She snatched her hand back and flashed her eyes at him.
“I don’t need to. This is your place, not mine.”
He rested his arms over the top of one of the stools that sat at the counter and asked, “Where do you live?”
She bit her lip. Was she unsure about sharing such personal information?
“I rent a place in Malden with a couple of friends. People I work with.”
“Do you make a lot of money working for DeLorenzo?”
“Not sure that’s any of your business.”
“I would think husbands would know what their wives made.”
Her face tinged pink and she swung around toward the hall.
“Let me show you the rest of the place. There are two bedrooms, which added to the cost. I knew you wanted to bring your mother here, and this will give you what you need.”
“And it will give you a room to sleep in while you’re with me?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know that.”
The bedrooms were a good size, with lots of light and offered a view of downtown.
“You did well, Alicia. I am happy to be here.”
The tinge in her cheeks was back and she backed out of the room, moved to the kitchen.
“I had food delivered yesterday so you won’t go hu
ngry.”
“There are places that deliver?”
“Other than grocery stores? Yes, dozens. Is that what you’re planning?”
“Rique’s friend, Fiona, is good with ordering in. She told me I could get anything I wanted in the city.”
“I still can’t believe he’s been here less than a week and already has a girl friend?”
“It is not like that. Yet.” He graced her with a smile. “Although I believe he will see soon enough that she is good for him.”
“I wouldn’t count on that. His reputation precedes him.”
“It is ironic. He is planning to go to Brazil to find a wife. He thinks he needs to settle down, thinks that will put him on the straight and narrow. He’ll never find the right wife looking for her that way. Those meetings happen through coincidence. Just look at me.”
She ignored that and zeroed in on something else.
“Do Brazilian women look the other way when their significant others do the dirty with different partners?”
He wasn’t surprised by the question. He was beginning to get the impression that she had a
one-track mind.
“I don’t know the answer to that, but he is different than you might think. His family is close, and there is much love there. He will be looking for the same.”
Spending months with them in Brazil had given him an inside look into what a family could be, given the right circumstances
She chortled. “You’re kidding, right?”
“You find this hard to believe?”
“Very hard.”
“His sister is married to Reid Jackson. You have seen him do the dirty with someone other than Izabella?”
She shook her head. “No. He’s one of the good ones.”
He left her mulling that over, going to the refrigerator to see how it was stocked.
He all but gasped at the contents. It was full, the shelves and side compartments lined with all kinds of essentials. Essentials here. He would have none of this at home.
“What are all these things?”
He could feel her behind him, peering around his shoulder. “Staples. Milk, orange juice, creamer, water, beer, eggs, butter, jams and jellies.”