The Seduction of Dylan Acosta

by Nia Forrester

  “He didn’t say so in as many words but I can’t even describe the look on his face when he first saw me. And then he says something like, ‘Now you look just like Cindy Hernandez’.”

  “Well.”

  “Yeah,” Dylan agreed. “There’s nothing to say to that, is there?”

  As it turned out, a lot of the wives were on their own that evening. Groups of them were in the hotel lobby, dressed as though for dinner and Ava and Dylan ran into Stephanie Alfieri in the hotel bar, drinking a fruity-looking drink all alone.

  “They don’t taste quite right when you’re not having them on the beach,” she said as they joined her. She had obviously taken considerable care with her appearance and looked fabulous, but sounded a little tipsy.

  “Is Tim with you?” Dylan asked, looking about the bar.

  “No. Tim has something to prove. So he’s back with the rest of the team.”

  “Well then we’re in the same boat,” Dylan said cheerfully. She patted Stephanie’s arm. “Mark dropped by for about an hour and I haven’t heard from him since.”

  Stephanie looked at her. “It’s pretty standard for them to do that—go off to get their game faces— so I hope you’re not feeling badly about Mark.”

  Dylan smiled at her, remembering once again why she liked Stephanie as much as she did.

  “I’ve read about these pre-game rituals,” Ava said. “Some of them are pretty out there.”

  “You’re telling me,” Stephanie said, signaling for the bartender. “I know one wife, who shall remain nameless, who gets her ass kicked before every big game. She shows up in sunglasses or long sleeves to hide the bruises.”

  “Ohmigod. Are you serious?”

  “You have to understand,” Stephanie said. “For some of these women, being a baseball wife is like a religion and their husbands are their gods. And like all gods, they’re infallible to those who worship them.”

  Ava leaned in, clearly fascinated. “Like a cult.”

  “Worse,” Stephanie said.

  The bartender showed up and they each ordered a drink. Dylan asked for the menu, thinking of the wine she’d had in the suite. Getting something else on her stomach was probably a good idea.

  “At least in a cult you all observe the same screwed-up rules. With baseball wives there’s only the illusion that we’re all in the same boat,” Stephanie continued. “But really in every baseball marriage, the rules are very different—some wives accept cheating, or beating, or . . . other things. Our own private, lonely dysfunctions.”

  Dylan thought about the rumors of Tim Alfieri and steroids. Was that what Stephanie accepted?

  “Let’s get a table and have a real meal,” Stephanie suggested her tone more lighthearted. “I heard the seafood here is amazing.”

  They had a four-course seafood feast and two bottles of wine that amounted to a six-hundred dollar tab that Dylan decided not to flinch at. She grabbed for the check before Stephanie could and pulled out her Amex card, handing it to the waiter.

  “Thanks for treating,” Stephanie said. “And for the great company.” She raised her glass to Ava and Dylan.

  “What are we toasting?”

  They all looked up at the sound of the familiar voice. Cindy Hernandez was standing there with an impassive look on her face. It was only then that Dylan remembered that hours earlier she’d canceled dinner plans with the Hernandezes.

  “Cindy. Hi!” Her voice, too shrill, only made her sound guilty.

  “Where’s Mark?” Cindy asked.

  Standing a few feet away, talking on his cell phone was Ray Hernandez. He was partially turned away from them and looked to be very engrossed in his conversation. His tan was a perfect bronze and Dylan was struck anew by his model good looks. Even from a distance and under these innocuous circumstances, he looked like a superstar.

  “He had to leave,” Dylan said. “So this dinner was kind of a last minute thing.”

  Cindy smiled but it did not reach her eyes. “Anyway. You ladies have a wonderful evening.” She turned on her heel and walked away.

  “She’s annoyed because her husband’s probably talking to his mistress with her standing ten feet away.”

  “His what?”

  “Ray Hernandez has a nineteen-year-old girlfriend. One of many girlfriends I might add, in Queens,” Stephanie said. “Open secret.”

  “Nineteen?” Ava said. “Jesus.”

  “Well she is stunning, so I’ll give him that. She’s an intern in the front office. Apparently he’s paying her way through school, pays her family’s mortgage, bought her little brother some ridiculous over-the-top sixteenth birthday party . . . it was all everyone could talk about for weeks.”

  “Somehow Cindy doesn’t seem like the type to put up with that,” Dylan said.

  “You’d be surprised.” Stephanie emptied her glass of the remainder of her wine. “He is what you would call chronically unfaithful. I think she accepts it as part of the deal.”

  Although she was supposed to be enjoying the gossip, Dylan felt her heart sink with each new detail. She actually liked Cindy. Under the patina of perfection, there was something there, a vulnerability that Dylan could relate to.

  “Is there anything else worth doing around here?” she asked brightly. “The night is young!”

  “Funny you should ask,” Stephanie said. “There is this one place . . .”

  “Hold that thought while I go to the ladies’ room,” Dylan said. She was a little tipsy but somehow managed to find her way. Washing her hands in the sink, she glanced up and was momentarily startled at what she saw, feeling for a moment what Mark must have felt when he opened that door. She looked almost completely different with her hair straight and had already begun to adopt the attendant mannerisms, flipping it back when it cascaded down the side of her face.

  Good god, what the hell had she done?

  French-Canadians sure knew how to party. The club Stephanie suggested looked from all outward appearances like a tame, lounge-style establishment where you might enjoy a bottle of wine and quiet conversation. In fact, it was the scene of weekend bacchanals, where ski bums, socialites and celebrities mixed with regular folks, dancing to loud, pounding house and techno music. Within minutes of getting there, Stephanie, Dylan and Ava were drinking with a trio of tow-headed Scandinavians who barely spoke a word of English and between dances, downing shots of Stoli.

  Several hours in, Ava was making out with one of the Frenchmen and Stephanie was swaying to the beat with another. The third and most reserved of the three, an architect named Hans, was sitting next to Dylan, occasionally leaning in to make conversation.

  “You’re American,” he said. “Is that so?”

  “Yes. American.”

  “I can tell,” Hans said watching as Ava and his friend kissed on the dance floor. “So fearless.”

  Dylan smiled at him. Fearless. If only that were true.

  “What’s this all about?”

  Mark dropped a newspaper onto the table between them and Dylan blinked, trying to get the sleep out of her eyes. She was barely awake, having spent the evening after the game at a dinner that seemed to go on forever, with three other players and their spouses. At least Mark had stayed the night with her in the suite though he had been up at the crack of dawn for a workout.

  “What’s what?” Dylan reached for the orange juice carafe, brushing the newspaper out of the way.

  She had crawled out of bed only to answer the door when their room service breakfast had arrived. “This.”

  Mark held the paper up in front of her. It was folded over to a page that depicted what appeared

  to be society events all around the city, where people dressed to the nines sipped champagne and looked fabulous doing it. There, in the cluster of photos was one clear picture of her, Stephanie Alfieri and Ava standing outside the nightclub with the three guys they’d met. Ava’s arm was about her Scandinavian who had a hand raised as though hailing a cab. Dylan was standing just sli
ghtly apart from the group, looking distractedly at something out of the frame and Stephanie was captured in the middle of what appeared to be animated chatter with the other two guys. The headline was in French, so Dylan did not understand it, but one word was perfectly comprehensible: Mets.

  Dylan took the paper from him and studied the picture more closely, finally looking up. How would anyone even have known who they were? But she supposed that was the job of the paparazzi; to stake out hot-spots and later figure out who was who. By now Mark had taken a seat across from her and was spreading his napkin on his lap. He wasn’t speaking, so she knew he was pissed.

  “Stephanie and Ava and I had dinner and then we went to this . . .”

  “Craig King gave it to me in the gym this morning,” Mark interrupted her. “You know what his wife was doing the same night you were out getting drunk in the club? He was more than happy to share it with me.”

  Dylan shook her head mutely.

  “She was at a benefit dinner for a burn unit.” Mark lifted his eyes to hers, waiting.

  “We weren’t drunk . . .”

  “Why were you even in a club, Dylan? You know how that makes me look? You know how that makes you look?”

  She swallowed. “I didn’t know anyone was looking.”

  “¡Como no! Who would be looking?” he said, sarcastic.

  “You’re the one people are looking for,” Dylan said carefully. “If I want to go let off some steam . . .”

  “What steam, Dylan? I had the most important game of my life the next day. And you need to let off some steam!” He had never raised his voice to her before.

  “Yes. Because maybe this is a little much for me as well! Maybe I didn’t count on it being like this, you being so far away. Maybe Stephanie Alfieri understands what it’s like to . . .”

  “Stephanie Alfieri is notorious. She understands nothing. She has two DUIs, she shows up at events drunk. Is that the kind of person you want to associate with?”

  Dylan looked at him evenly. “I like her. She’s genuine, which is a lot more than I can say for some of the other women. And if I remember correctly, you didn’t like that I was turning into Cindy Hernandez.”

  “At least she knows how to represent her husband.”

  “Represent her husband.”

  “¡Si!”

  Dylan fell silent and they stared at each other. Mark finally looked away, reaching over to help himself to some eggs and bacon, pouring himself a large glass of juice. Dylan felt tears rising to her eyes and wiped them away quickly.

  “You know why I’m good at what I do?” Mark said, not looking at her. “Discipline. People like to think its talent, but it’s not. Talent is maybe ten percent of it.”

  Still she said nothing, trying to swallow back the lump in her throat.

  “If you want to see raw talent, Matt has that—he was always a much better natural athlete. But y’know what he doesn’t have? He doesn’t have focus and he doesn’t have discipline. Always distracted, always sidetracked by the next shiny, new thing. That’s the difference between us.”

  Mark finally looked at her again and she nodded, this time not bothering to wipe the tears away as they rolled down her cheeks. He was comparing her to Matt. She was the unfocused, undisciplined one. And she supposed Cindy Hernandez, the perfect baseball wife, was the opposite.

  “Whatever happened to law school? To these plans you had to take Miri to see some colleges?”

  “I’ve been . . .”

  “Busy. I heard. I got a call from Wade.”

  Wade was their business manager; someone Mark had hired to help manage their finances.

  “He said you spent seventeen thousand dollars in Bergdorf’s?”

  Dylan blanched. She had been meaning to tell him about that. It was a shopping trip that had gotten a little out of control because she’d gone with Cindy. And because Cindy didn’t look at prices, neither had she. It was only when she got to the register and heard the total that she realized the damage. And of course, by then it was far too late. It wasn’t as though she could put everything back; that would have been too embarrassing. And why had Wade called Mark about this?

  “It won’t happen again,” Dylan said, reaching out to touch Mark’s hand.

  “I don’t care about the money,” he said, pulling away impatiently. “I care about where you seem to be spending your time these days. Shopping. And on this . . .” He lifted a handful of her straightened hair and let it drop again.

  Mark seemed not to notice her tears, or not to care. He was that mad.

  “So what happened with these guys?” he asked inclining his head toward the newspaper photo.

  “You really have to ask me that?” Dylan said.

  Mark started on his breakfast, eating with gusto, as though he hadn’t just intimated that she may have committed adultery. Dylan’s mouth felt as dry as paper and she had no appetite whatsoever. After a moment she left him at the table and went in to take a shower.

  When she got out, Mark was on the phone making plans to rejoin the team. He looked up as she entered and beckoned her over. Without missing a beat in his conversation, he pulled her towel from about her and dropped it on the floor so she was standing naked in front of him. He didn’t touch but just stared, as though trying to find what was elemental about her. She waited until he was done with his phone call.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, not moving to cover herself. “I want to represent you well. I don’t want you to . . . it won’t happen again. The nightclub was a bad idea. I know how important the game was, and I should have thought . . .”

  “Dylan . . .” Mark looked up at her and his eyes were almost pleading, almost sad. “Even in the minors, there were people . . . groupies, hangers-on, and there were players and family members who got caught up.

  “They got swallowed up by stuff. And in the majors, it’s a hundred times worse. Pedro warned me. Wilfredo warned me. People get swallowed up, and when they get spit back out, they’re completely different. I just want you to be careful. You understand?”

  She wasn’t completely sure she did, but she nodded anyway, wanting to assuage whatever his worry might be.

  Mark kissed her on her belly-button and her stomach fluttered as though inside her a million tiny butterflies had taken flight. He opened his palms on her hips, squeezing her, pulling her closer, running his tongue across her, just above her hip bone. Dylan crouched so she could kiss him, and Mark put his hands on either side of her face, kissing her back almost desperately, as though he thought she might slip away.

  11

  Mrs. Acosta was stirring something in the huge pot on the stove and swatted Matt away with a kitchen towel when he tried to look inside. Dylan was sitting at the kitchen table with Miri, desultorily chopping onions and bell peppers. She’d awoken early that morning with the urge to go for a run but Mark had asked her not to go running in the park on her own unless it was the middle of the afternoon and she’d agreed that was probably wise. And besides, it was still a little cold out most mornings. So she’d gone to the gym instead and afterwards, too hyped up to sit around in the condo, had decided to go uptown to her in-laws’.

  Her father-in-law had opened the front door and pulled her into a bear hug as though he hadn’t seen her in ages though it had only been a week. He was a tall man with a complexion the color of molasses and the warmest eyes Dylan had ever seen, surrounded by wrinkles she had no doubt were from smiling rather than aging. He called her mi amor and kissed her on both cheeks as he let her in but by the way he looked at her, Dylan could tell he knew something was wrong. Mrs. Acosta was already cooking when Dylan went in to greet her.

  “Here,” she’d said. “Sit. Have something to eat.”

  Although she’d already started on the Sunday dinner, she made Dylan eggs and fried plantains, setting it on the table in front of her with a large mug of strong Dominican coffee. Mrs. Acosta was not one to talk much as she cooked but her presence was a comfort as she moved about the
kitchen, getting her spices together, cutting and cleaning pieces of chicken, peeling vegetables. At different times, Matt or Peter would wander in to get something out of the fridge and eventually Miri came in and sat at the kitchen table reading a book and drinking her own mug of coffee. No one remarked on the fact that Dylan had appeared unannounced. In fact, they seemed to expect it and she wondered whether all this time they’d been curious that she didn’t come over more often.

  So now she was helping with chopping vegetables and was happy that no one asked her questions or tried to engage her in conversation, they just slid her more onions and peppers when she was done.

  After she’d done all she could in the kitchen, she wandered upstairs to the room that Mrs. Acosta still called Mark’s room. It was at the end of the hall, one door over from the room Matt and Peter used to share when they were kids, two doors from Miri’s room and at the opposite end of the hall from the master bedroom. Peter had the basement as an apartment now with Xiomara and the baby. Even though Mark had offered, no one seemed in a hurry to move out of the neighborhood or into a bigger place. The closeness seemed to suit them and more and more it suited Dylan as well.

  In Mark’s room, all his trophies lined the walls on shelves that Mr. Acosta had put up. There were more than twenty trophies and pictures of Mark from the local paper and papers that covered his time in the minors. Over his bed was an almanac with pictures of famous Dominican baseball players and their stats. The bed was covered with a New York Yankees comforter and pillows. One pillow was covered with a Yankees shirt instead of a pillowcase. The first time he’d taken her to this room Dylan had noted all the Yankee paraphernalia and turned to look at Mark with raised eyebrows, her head cocked to one side.

  If you tell anyone about this, I’ll say you made the whole thing up, he said with a grin on his face.

  Dylan lay across the bed and stared up at the ceiling. The breakfast, the sound of Mark’s family, her family moving about the house downstairs, the warmth of the room all made her feel sleepy all of a sudden, so she closed her eyes.

  Dinner was the usual raucous affair with Mrs. Acosta presiding over a table of at least ten people—her own family and at least one stray person from the neighborhood. This time it was Wilfredo, Mark’s childhood baseball coach who had stopped by. Dylan had woken up late in the afternoon when Miri had come knocking on the door. She stretched and went to wash her face before the meal. It felt like she had just eaten but she knew that would not fly as an excuse for not joining the rest of the family.