Playing for Keeps

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  Someone slid in next to me, sitting so close that the wide brim of his hat grazed my head and I could feel the trembling in his thighs. He rested his right arm along the back of the bench behind me, as if we were together.

  Startled, I turned, saying, “Neil, I—”

  It wasn’t Neil sitting beside me.

  I looked into the face of a boy who seemed not much older than I. With his light golden skin, deep brown eyes, and dark hair, he was one of the best-looking guys I’d ever seen. Topping his swimming shorts was a navy blue T-shirt with the ship’s crest in gleaming white, and he wore a broad-brimmed straw hat exactly like Neil’s. He didn’t smile.

  “We have not met,” he said, a Hispanic accent softening his words, “but please, may I sit with you?”

  I nodded. He’d already made that decision.

  “We have not been introduced. I do not know your name.”

  As if I’d been hypnotized, I answered, “I’m Rose Ann Marstead.”

  I expected him to tell me his name, but instead, he smiled and murmured, “Rose. A beautiful name.”

  I wished he’d say my name again. It was like a soft sigh, like a breeze rustling leaves. But instead, his next words jolted me like an electric shock.

  “Rose, my name is Ricky Diago,” he said.

  I gave a start. This was definitely not the Ricky Diago I had met before the ship sailed. How likely would it be that there were two Ricky Diagos on the same ship? Cautiously, I said, “We met a Mr. José Diago on the ship. Is he your uncle?”

  Ricky hesitated only a moment. “Sí . . . yes,” he answered.

  Now I was really confused. Ricky’s gaze was steady, as if he were telling the truth, but I knew better. I’d had a close look at the Ricky Diago who had boarded with his uncle. He had grabbed me to keep me from falling when we’d collided on the gangway, and I had looked into his eyes. I had no trouble remembering him. This boy who called himself Ricky Diago was not the same person.

  As Neil plopped down on the bench with Julieta behind him, Ricky twisted in his seat, and I felt something jostle my ankle. I looked down to see a green sports bag. It was the same color as the one Mr. Diago had been carrying. It even bore the same logo. Was it the same bag?

  I wondered if Neil would remember the other Ricky. “Julieta . . . Neil,” I said, “this is Ricky Diago. We’ve met his uncle—José Diago.”

  Julieta dimpled and said something to Ricky about hanging out together on the ship. Neil smiled and looked at Ricky with interest.

  He doesn’t realize it’s not the same Ricky, I thought. I glanced at Julieta, who hadn’t taken her eyes off Ricky. Now was not the time to try to tell Neil what I knew.

  “Your uncle looks a lot like Martín Urbino, who used to play with the Cincinnati Reds,” Neil said.

  “Martín Urbino? I never heard of him,” Ricky said quietly, but I could feel the muscles in his thigh jump, then tighten, and I saw that he was squeezing his fists so tightly that his knuckles were white.

  The tender’s motors started up with a low roar, and the boat moved away from the pier. Under cover of the noise, I leaned close to Ricky. Using all the courage I had, I whispered, “I met Ricky Diago when we boarded. I remember his face. You are not Ricky Diago. Who are you really ?”

  Ricky didn’t answer. He stared straight ahead, as if he hadn’t heard, but a vein in his temple throbbed.

  As the tender reached the ship, Ricky turned to me. “Por favor,” he whispered. Desperately he gripped my arm and began again. “Please give me a chance. It means my life. Accept me as Ricky Diago. When it is possible I will explain to you.”

  The tender nudged the mooring station, and the few people who were aboard got to their feet, making their way to the stairway at the front of the boat.

  I took a deep breath. The Ricky Diago I had first met had disappeared. I was sure now that he had never returned to the ship after giving the excuse of looking for his jacket. And here was a substitute, claiming both the name and the uncle. Maybe I was the only one who would recognize that this Ricky was not the one who had checked in. What should I do?

  Ricky’s brown eyes pleaded with me as he whispered, “Please, Rose? Will you help me?”

  “Rosie? Aren’t you coming?” Neil called.

  I nodded to Ricky. “I won’t tell anyone . . . yet,” I said. “But you’re going to have to tell me the truth.” I pulled my I.D. card from my shirt pocket, ready to show it to the uniformed attendant at the entrance to deck one. Surprised, I saw that Ricky was holding an I.D. card too.

  With so little time left to spend on the beach, not many people were waiting to take the tender to shore. Among those were a few who were not dressed for the beach and who seemed to be simply looking over the passengers as they returned to the ship.

  At the back was Anthony Bailey, the casino owner I remembered meeting the day before. His dark glasses concealed his eyes, and he showed no recognition of me as I walked toward him. That didn’t surprise me. He’d been standing behind my chair as he talked to Mrs. Duncastle.

  Beside him a ship’s officer stood close to a man dressed in a khaki military uniform, complete with thick brass buttons on the jacket and a squared-off cap with a bill—the same kind of uniform I’d seen on Fidel Castro in pictures. The man’s large gold ring, with a raised initial C, flashed in the bright light as he handed the officer a sheet of paper. The officer scanned it before studying the passengers.

  Behind them stood Mr. Diago, almost hidden by the others. He seemed to be more intent on the conversation between the ship’s officer and the man in the uniform than on the arriving passengers.

  I nudged Ricky and said, “There’s your uncle.”

  But Ricky ducked his head, his wide hat brim covering his face. “Say nothing,” he whispered. He suddenly took my hand and stepped from the gangplank onto the deck of the ship.

  As we held out our I.D. cards so the attendant could see them, Mr. Diago burst into a loud coughing fit. Off balance, he lurched against the man in the uniform, and for a few moments, as Ricky and I passed them, the man and the officer seemed concerned only with keeping Mr. Diago from falling.

  As Ricky tugged me around a bend and onto an open elevator, I asked, “What’s the matter with you, Ricky? Your uncle needed help. Why didn’t you stop and help him?”

  “He didn’t need help,” Ricky told her. “I did. I do.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Please keep your voice down,” Ricky begged. “I will tell you when I can. I promise to explain.”

  “Hey! Hold the door open!” Julieta shouted. She and Neil squeezed through the closing doors and into the elevator.

  “Oh, sorry,” I said. I caught Neil’s puzzled glance at my right hand, which Ricky was still gripping, and pulled it away. “We were talking and thought you were right behind us.”

  Neil looked pointedly at Ricky. “We stopped to make sure your uncle was all right.”

  “I knew he was,” Ricky said. “He—he often has coughing fits. That is, they look worse than they are.”

  His excuse sounded lame to me, and probably to the others, because neither Neil nor Julieta answered. I was glad when we reached deck six and the doors opened. “My deck,” Julieta said. “Anybody else getting out?”

  When no one answered, she looked hopeful and asked, “Let’s meet on eleven in an hour. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Neil said, but he looked at me.

  I shrugged. “Fine with me,” I answered.

  As we reached deck seven, Ricky stepped out of the elevator. I said quietly to Neil, “I’ll see you in just a little while. I’ve got something weird to tell you.”

  Neil gave a quick glance in Ricky’s direction. “Call me,” he said. “You know our suite number.”

  The passageway was nearly empty as Ricky and I walked the short distance to our staterooms. I opened the door to 7278 and turned to Ricky. “Well?” I asked him. “Do you want to tell me the truth now?”

  Down the
passageway the elevator doors opened. I heard the sound but ignored it.

  Ricky didn’t. His eyes widened, and for an instant he stiffened.

  Then, to my amazement, instead of using his key to enter his uncle’s stateroom, he pushed me into my stateroom and quickly shut the door. Before I realized what was happening, he grabbed me from behind and clapped a hand over my mouth.

  “I think I am being followed,” he whispered into my ear. “Do not call for help. Do not make a sound, I beg of you.”

  Held tightly against Ricky, I could feel the rapid pounding of his heart. Or was it my own heart that was so out of control? I had never been so frightened.

  “You must not call out,” Ricky whispered. “Will you help me?”

  Agreeing with him seemed to be the only way to go, so I managed to nod assent, trembling as he released me and stepped aside.

  “Will you check the passageway?” he asked. “Tell me if someone is there.”

  Obediently, I peered through the peephole. The short section of the passageway I could see was empty, but I slowly opened the door, clinging to it for support, and glanced to both sides.

  I could run. I could scream for help, I told myself, wild thoughts zinging through my mind. But Ricky had made no move to harm me, and I could see that he was as frightened as I was. I silently shut the door and turned to Ricky, leaning against it. “The passageway is empty,” I said.

  Ricky closed his eyes, letting out a long, shuddering sigh.

  “You said that someone is following you. Why?” I asked.

  Dropping as though his legs no longer had the strength to hold him up, Ricky sat on the edge of one of the twin beds. “We hoped it would not happen,” he said. “The boatman swore he would not tell.”

  “Tell what?” I asked.

  Ricky looked at me, his eyes wide with fear. “Rose,” he said, “I have escaped from Cuba to seek political asylum in the United States. Now I am being hunted by the government. If they find me, they’ll take me back to Cuba, where I will be charged with desertion . . . a crime punishable by death.”

  5

  I WAS SHOCKED. “DESERTION? THAT DOESN’T SOUND right. How old are you?”

  “Seventeen. I’ll be eighteen in May.”

  “Then surely the judge in your trial would—”

  Ricky interrupted with a bitter laugh. “Trial? My case would come to trial only if the object would be to teach a lesson to others who try to escape the island. And it would not be the kind of trial that would take place in your country. It is more likely that I would be taken quietly to a Cuban prison. There I could be beaten and tortured, then ‘disappear.’ Only my aunt Ana would ask about me, and she would be ignored.”

  I gasped. “You’d be killed?”

  “There is an alternative—what they have done to some escapees who have been returned. My work in baseball would be discredited in the press, and I would no longer be allowed to play. I’d be assigned a low-paying, menial job.”

  “What about the people who know you—your friends, your teachers? Wouldn’t they come forward to help you?”

  Shaking his head, Ricky said, “Rose, there is a big difference between a democracy and a dictatorship. In Cuba you survive by not asking questions or offering help.”

  “What are you doing on this ship?” I asked. “Don’t most of the people who escape Cuba try to take boats directly to Miami?”

  “Yes,” Ricky said. “And with your coast guard on constant patrol, they are usually caught. By the laws your country established, those who set foot on your land may ask for political asylum. Those who are picked up at sea must be returned to Cuba. I must do all that I can to reach United States soil so that I can request asylum. I cannot, I cannot go back.”

  I didn’t answer. I patiently waited for Ricky to get a grip on his feelings.

  Finally he said, “I left Cuba, thanks to my uncle Martín. He made the plans. It was his idea for me to travel south, in the opposite direction from Miami, where air patrols would not be looking for escapees. With the help of his friends and Tía Ana’s friends, Uncle Martín hired the owner of a small fishing boat and instructed him to take me to people he knew about in Haiti. I joined some of those who were hired by the cruise line to work on Bonita Beach, where I hid until my uncle arrived. He brought me the clothes I have on and my I.D. card. He has other clothing for me in our stateroom.”

  I spoke my thoughts aloud. “He paid your passage, and he hired someone your age to board the ship in order to get an identification card for you.” I looked up. “But what about your birth certificate or a passport? If they’re under your assumed name, they must be forged.”

  Ricky shrugged. “Where Uncle Martín got the official papers needed, I do not know. That is his business, not mine.”

  “What will happen if you get to Miami?”

  Shuddering, Ricky whispered, “Not if. When I get to Miami, there will be friends of my uncle there to meet the ship. They will have a job for me with their ball club, and they will help me as I ask for political asylum.”

  “You’re a baseball player?”

  “Yes. Like my uncle Martín.” He shifted, rocking the bed. “I do not understand how the Cuban authorities suspected I would be on this ship,” he said. His voice dropped, as though he were talking to himself.

  “My grandmother might have notified the policía that I was missing, but she would have done it out of concern. She would not have wanted me to come to harm. Since her university days in the fifties, she has been a strong, unyielding supporter of Fidel Castro, but I am her grandson.”

  “Did your uncle Martín defect from Cuba?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did your grandmother do then?”

  Ricky paused, staring down at the floor before he quietly answered, “When Uncle Martín left Cuba for the freedom of the United States, Abuela Beatriz denounced her brother-in-law as a traitor. She has not spoken his name since.”

  Sighing, Ricky added, “You must not blame my grandmother for what she thinks. Our news media is controlled so that we see and hear only what government officials want us to know. Everything must be under the control of the state. The police have too much authority, and many people live in fear, but my grandmother stubbornly defends Castro and his regime. She—and many others—despised life under the dictator Fulgencio Batista and counted on Castro to better everyone’s living conditions. Instead, conditions under communism became worse. This is hard for those who favor communism to accept.”

  Ricky’s face showed his misery as he said, “I am afraid my grandmother will have the same hatred toward me for defying the cause for which she risked her life.” He threw a quick glance at me. “You may think her stubborn, but it is a cause she believes in, one for which she has taken a stand. I do not expect you to comprende. ”

  In a way I did understand. “Always stand up for what you believe in,” Mom kept telling me. That was what Ricky’s grandmother had done. But what if people changed and dreams became twisted? I shook my head, trying to shoo the questions away. They made my head hurt because I didn’t have answers.

  Ricky got to his feet and paced to the sliding glass doors that opened onto the balcony. “If Abuela Beatriz reported to the authorities that I was missing, they would be looking for me. But why would they look toward Haiti and not Miami? There is a possibility, of course, that the boatman broke his promise of secrecy. Either he was caught returning to Cuba or he volunteered information, hoping to be rewarded.”

  He thought a moment, then said, “I followed directions. What could have gone wrong? I don’t know what to do next. I can’t go to Uncle Martín’s stateroom. That is the first place they will look. Then they’ll search all the places on the ship where someone could hide.”

  I glanced at my watch. “Glory’s going to come back to our stateroom soon. The bridge players will want to dress for dinner.” I sucked in a sharp breath as an idea popped into my mind. “If they search the ship and don’t find you, then they’ll de
cide they were wrong and you can’t be aboard. Right? So we’ll hide you—as least until after the ship sails. I think I know where you’ll be safe.”

  As I reached for the telephone, Ricky moved quickly, clamping a hand over mine. His eyes had narrowed, and his breath came in shallow bursts. “Who are you calling?” he demanded.

  “I know you’re afraid, but you came to me for help, and I’m going to help you,” I told him. “You’ll have to trust me.”

  For a moment Ricky didn’t move or speak. I didn’t either. I could only wait for what he would say. Finally he pulled his hand away, his chin jutting out stubbornly. “I am not afraid,” he said. “I just don’t know whom to trust.”

  “You can trust me,” I said again. I glanced at my watch again. Don’t come yet, Glory, I thought. Give us a few more minutes. I quickly dialed Neil’s room number. As soon as he answered I said, “We’ve got a problem. I need your help right away.”

  “Where are you?” Neil asked.

  “In my stateroom.”

  “I’ll be right there,” he said.

  I hung up the phone, grateful to Neil for not wasting time asking questions.

  When he arrived a few minutes later, his hair still damp from his shower, I motioned him to the small sofa. Then I said to Ricky, “You can trust both of us. I promise. Tell Neil what you told me. He’s going to help you.”

  “I am?” Neil asked in surprise.

  “Just listen,” I said. I sat on the sofa next to him.

  “My name is Enrique Urbino,” Ricky said to Neil. “And you were right. My uncle is Martín Urbino, who was once a shortstop for the Havana Sugar Kings in Cuba. When he signed with the Cincinnati Reds in 1960, defecting to the United States, he was listed as a traitor to Cuba.”

  Neil leaned forward eagerly. “Your uncle was one of many baseball players who left Cuba to join teams in the United States. Like Bert Campanaris, Tony Perez, Francisco—”

  I put a hand on Neil’s arm. “Just listen,” I said. “We can talk baseball later.”

  But Ricky was carried away, probably glad to talk about something familiar and safe. He told Neil, “The game of baseball is Cuba’s passion. Fidel Castro has always supported the league with his presence. Children are watched for signs of talent and promise in the game, and some are chosen to be enrolled at the special baseball academies for elementary school students.”