The Seduction of Dylan Acosta

by Nia Forrester

  Dylan said nothing. Was it possible that other players on the team had sat complacently by while Ray Hernandez hit on their wives? And they did nothing?

  “Ray is that team. His good favor means a lot with the management. They want to keep him happy,” Cindy said. “And if two consenting adults want to engage in a little extracurricular activity, and no one complains . . .”

  Their food came and Cindy began to eat but Dylan felt sick. It sounded almost as though Cindy was saying that some of the players chose the game over their marriages, that they ignored things that they should not have ignored as men, for the sake of playing professional baseball. But Mark had refused to go along with it and been suspended.

  Dylan felt her eyes begin to fill with tears. When he kept telling her to stay away from Ray, and seemed so irrational about it, she thought he was being ridiculous. She hadn’t trusted him enough to just do as he asked.

  “How’s Mark doing?” Cindy asked, pulling her back to the present.

  Dylan shrugged. “He’s working out. Just waiting for the time to pass, I guess.”

  “And absolutely livid with you, I would imagine,” Cindy said sympathetically.

  Dylan nodded, the tears spilling out onto her cheeks. She reached up and quickly wiped them away.

  “I could call him if you want,” Cindy offered quietly.

  Dylan shook her head. “Thank you for the offer, but honestly, he would hate that. Mark is so . . . private.”

  “You should guard what you have with him Dylan,” Cindy said. “I remember when Ray signed. We were so excited. And such different people then . . .” She stopped and took another sip of her drink, smiling at a memory. “He . . . worshipped me. And I certainly worshipped him.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Dylan saw someone taking a picture with a cell phone. She wondered what story would be written about this lunch. Probably something that involved Cindy lambasting her for sleeping with her husband; or Dylan confronting Cindy with the news that Ray was in love with her. All of a sudden, she couldn’t wait to get back home to Westchester and to Mark.

  “It doesn’t get better, y’know?” Cindy said. “The scrutiny. The rumors and the lies. For a really long time, every single bad thing people said about Ray, I assumed was a lie. I think he probably started cheating on me well before I started to believe it.”

  Dylan didn’t know what to say. She and Cindy had always been cordial, but their relationship had never progressed to a level of closeness that would explain why she chose now to be so forthcoming about her private life. And if she expected Dylan to reciprocate, she was going to be disappointed.

  “I think there was a point where I became more like one of his ‘handlers’ than his wife.”

  Cindy seemed to be almost speaking to herself now, and was no longer looking at Dylan at all. She reached for her fork and continued eating her salad. Dylan followed suit, wishing now for the meal to be over as quickly as possible. She didn’t understand these people, this world. And more and more, she was sorry that she and Mark were a part of it.

  “Well, anyway, I think I owe you a heads up,” Cindy said finally. “One of the reasons I asked you here today is that I’m about to file for divorce from Ray.”

  Dylan, who had been holding her own fork with the intent to finally begin eating, dropped it so that it clattered on the edge of her plate.

  “Cindy, if it’s because . . .”

  “Because of you? No,” Cindy said. “Although honestly this latest little episode didn’t help much.” “I feel responsible though. If I had just . . .”

  Cindy looked at her and for the first time her expression was not completely friendly. “Well you should have immediately walked away from him, there’s no doubt about that. I’m sure Mark feels the same way.”

  “He does,” Dylan said.

  She owed Cindy that much—the reassurance that her expectations of Ray’s conduct had not been unreasonable, because Dylan’s husband had the same ones.

  “But still, you’re not responsible,” Cindy said, her voice light again. “I just can’t anymore.” She shrugged.

  “I’m sorry to hear it. But I don’t know why you think you owe me a head’s up. It’s . . .”

  Cindy gave a short laugh. “Dylan, don’t you get it yet? How this works?” she asked. “It doesn’t matter whether I hold you responsible or not. You’re going to be blamed in the court of public opinion. Ray is a hero and you’re about to become the most hated woman in New York.”

  18

  The chorus of boo’ing that greeted Mark as he walked out onto the field was hard enough to take, but harder still was the look on his parents’ faces. They tried to remain stoic, but by now Dylan knew them well enough to know that they were proud people, weakened only by their love for their children. And seeing Mark received in this way was difficult for them. As luck would have it, his first game back after the suspension was a home game, so all of the Acostas had come out to support him, as had his old coach Wilfredo. But the fans were not quite as supportive.

  Just two days prior, the news hit that Cindy Hernandez had filed for divorce and Ray had given a tearful statement about how much he loved his family, and regretted anything he may have done to hurt them. Cindy was right—the reaction had been swift to condemn not Ray but Dylan for being a temptress and a floozy, and Mark for fracturing the team by attacking Ray Hernandez rather than holding responsible his lying, cheating gold-digging wife.

  Much was made of the fact that Mark and Dylan had been spotted in their Westchester County neighborhood grocery shopping and making doctor’s appointments, daring to live their lives while the Mets fell apart. So Mark’s less than positive reception was not altogether a surprise.

  Sitting in the family section, Dylan struggled to keep her head up, braving the stares and the dirty looks of fans sitting nearby, pretending she didn’t notice them. Down at the plate, Mark was rounding his neck, loosening up. Dylan kept her eyes on him, channeling only good thoughts and positive vibrations in his direction, praying that he played well.

  “Acosta, your wife’s a whore!”

  The yell from the crowd, sudden and unexpected caused a ripple of gasps and a few nervous twitters. On the field, Mark looked up and his face was like stone. Dylan felt her heart begin to palpitate. The fan who had yelled was close to the field, closer even than the families. He was still shouting something, and Dylan could just make him out from behind, a chubby thirty-something man holding a cup of beer, wearing Mets colors.

  Mark’s eyes narrowed and he turned, making a motion as though to charge toward the stands when security emerged from below and went to subdue the boisterous fan. Dylan heaved a sigh of relief when Mark, seeing that the situation was being handled, pointedly turned away and tried to refocus on the game.

  But the damage had been done. He went on to play the worst game he had played since he’d been in the majors.

  On the way out of the ballpark, everyone was quiet. Even Miri who could almost always be counted on to cut the tension had very little to say. They were all going to the Bronx for dinner, and Mark would meet them there, which was the only reason Dylan decided to go. It had been excruciating sitting there, watching Mark drop the ball time after time, being slow to react. And the worse it got, the more hostile the fans became. By the time he was pulled out, the hissing and boos were deafening.

  One rowdy fan wasn’t the reason for his slump; since Cindy’s announcement, the press had been relentless. The stories just seemed to keep on coming. For such a casual, non-relationship with a man Dylan had only laid eyes on a handful of times, it was incredible how much material they were able to manufacture. Now they were saying that she had thrown herself at him, and that in a fit of weakness and despair over marital problems, Ray had succumbed to the charms of this former law student turned gold-digger.

  It was surprising how little she cared about what they said about her. Dylan could think only about how differently Mark was being portrayed from the man
he was—as a violent, reckless, selfish individual who was blinded by his irrational love for a deceitful woman who was going to ruin both him and the Mets organization.

  As they rode back to the Bronx in the van they’d chartered for the game, Dylan felt her cell phone vibrating and reached for it. It was Corey. Dylan answered right away, her heart racing, hoping that Mark hadn’t done something to cause himself even more trouble.

  “Corey?” she said, her voice urgent.

  In the seat in front of her, Matt and Peter turned sharply, probably fearing as she had that something else had happened.

  “Yes. Dylan, you and I need to talk,” Corey said, his voice clipped.

  “Sure, is everything okay?”

  “No. Everything is not okay. Your husband’s career is going up in smoke as we speak. And I think it’s about time you stepped into the ring and helped me do something about it.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Anything you . . .”

  “Meet me for lunch tomorrow. Can you do twelve-thirty at Anabelle’s? You know where that is?”

  “Yes. But is Mark . . ?”

  “He’s fine for the moment. He’ll be on his way to you shortly. Just . . . don’t mention this to him, alright?”

  Dylan wrinkled her brow. Not mentioning something to Mark did not sit well with her. Especially now. They were already so fragile. Corey seemed to sense her reluctance.

  “Look,” he sighed. “I’m not going to lie to you. He would go nuclear if he knew I was calling you. But this is for him. You can hear me out and if you decide to tell him afterward, that’s your decision. But for now, I’d rather you not say anything.”

  “Okay,” Dylan said after a moment. “For now.”

  “Oh, and Dylan? Don’t go blabbing to anyone else either. This is very sensitive stuff.” And then he hung up.

  Dylan held the phone for a moment, feeling chastened. Corey clearly did not care for her too much and she couldn’t say she blamed him. Until she came on the scene, managing Mark had to have been in walk in the park. His client who had been a media darling, an even-tempered and uncomplicated guy from the Bronx who just wanted to play good baseball had turned into a lightning rod for controversy and the season’s favorite whipping boy for the sports media nationwide.

  “Is everything okay?” Matt asked.

  “Yes. He said Mark will be on his way to us shortly,” Dylan mumbled. As she looked away, her eyes met Miri’s and she knew her sister-in-law was aware that that was not quite the whole story.

  At the house, everyone went their separate ways, Mr. Acosta upstairs, Miri to her room and Peter and Matt to the rear of the house where they’d set up a grill for the chicken that had been marinating since that morning. Dylan followed her mother-in-law to the kitchen where she helped her by making a tossed salad and pulling out the dishes to set the table. Since the scandal had broken, they hadn’t talked as much as Dylan would have liked. She both wanted, and was afraid to have, a private conversation with Mrs. Acosta. But she had no idea how to start talking or what to start talking about.

  “Should I start putting everything out?” she asked.

  “No. Let’s wait for Mark. He may take awhile, no?”

  “Probably,” Dylan said quietly.

  She imagined that the reporters had descended on Mark like locusts after the game, wanting to get his reaction to the fans hostile welcome. He was probably in the locker-room being grilled, goaded into a response that would make the eleven o’clock news.

  Suddenly there was a hand on her shoulder and Dylan turned. She had been standing, staring into space and her mother-in-law had come to revive her.

  “Dylan, are you alright?”

  She nodded, looking into her mother-in-law’s kind eyes, wondering what lay behind them. How could she not be disappointed that her son had married this girl—not even Dominican—who had brought him all this trouble?

  “Oh, I know you must wish for your mother . . .”

  Mrs. Acosta pulled her into a hug and Dylan relaxed, relieved to be held, feeling her tension begin to dissipate.

  But her mother-in-law was wrong. She didn’t wish for her mother, and had been avoiding her, not wanting to hear in her voice all the judgment and resignation that was sure to be there. She’d doubted Dylan’s motives for marrying Mark and now was bound to be even more skeptical, just like the entire state of New York was skeptical.

  For the next hour, everyone sat around and the house was uncharacteristically quiet while they waited for Mark to get there. Dylan waited in Mark’s old room, wishing she had access to a bottle of wine, or some other intoxicant. She had just begun to drift off into a light sleep when she heard voices outside. Relieved, she stood at the window, looking down to the front of the house. Maybe they would stay the night, but she was really hoping that Mark would want to go to the condo so they could be alone.

  At the front gate she could make out Wilfredo’s shock of white hair, and Mark with a sports bag over his shoulder. And Patricia was there as well, talking to him with a hand on his arm. Dylan could just make out her face, which was soft, and her expression almost tender. Dylan’s reaction was strong and immediate. She felt like leaping out of the window and wrenching Mark away. But instead she watched, paying attention to the lean of Patricia’s head as she spoke, the nods of assent Mark gave to whatever she was saying, and Wilfredo’s grim face.

  There was something intimate about the scene—people who knew each other extremely well and for a long time, commiserating. After a moment, Mr. Acosta emerged from the house, and putting a hand on Mark’s shoulder, seemed to be urging him to come inside. Mark nodded and Patricia got on her toes, kissing him on both cheeks before turning and leaving with her father.

  Mark, as though sensing he was being watched, looked up directly at the window where Dylan stood. She didn’t bother moving away before he spotted her.

  After dinner it was too late to go anywhere, so they retired for the evening in Mark’s old room, lying with their backs to each other on the small bed, not speaking and somehow managing not to touch either. Mark had already been in bed when she’d gotten out of her long shower, so she changed in the darkness, reaching blindly into his old dresser and pulling out a shirt that she shrugged over her head, not caring enough to feel for the tag to make sure she had it oriented correctly. Then she crawled under the sheets and grabbed a pillow, snuggling into it. They lay there for what seemed like a long time, and Dylan could not sleep, no matter how she tried, no matter how tired she was.

  Though she knew that it was ill-timed and extremely ill-advised, she couldn’t help herself. “What did Patricia want?” she asked, speaking into the dark.

  Next to her Mark stirred. She could feel him turning over onto his back.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “It didn’t look like nothing,” Dylan said. “It looked like something. It looked pretty intense.” Mark took a deep breath and spoke quietly. “She was telling me she was sorry for our trouble.

  That I shouldn’t worry about the game.”

  “Sorry for our trouble, or sorry for your trouble?” Dylan said.

  “What’s the difference?” Mark asked, sounding exasperated.

  “The difference is that some people say that your trouble is me,” Dylan said.

  Mark exhaled sharply. “Dylan, I don’t feel like getting into some pointless debate about Patricia

  right now . . .”

  “It’s not pointless!” she snapped.

  Mark leaned over her and the room was suddenly flooded with light as he flipped on the bedside

  lamp. He sat up and leaned back against the headboard.

  “So what is the point? Get it out of your system,” he said. “Say whatever it is you want to say and

  then let’s go to sleep.”

  Dylan sat up as well. She turned and crossed her legs Indian-style, staring at him, arms folded

  across her chest. Mark didn’t look at her, instead staring across the room at the close
d door. “You have to know I feel awful about this whole thing with Ray and the team and the terrible

  publicity. And I want more than anything for you to play well . . .”

  Mark blinked impassively, as though simply enduring the sound of her voice, waiting for her to

  finish.

  “. . . but as awful as I feel, I want to make one thing absolutely, crystal clear. I am not going to

  stand by and let you fall into some other woman’s arms. Not for comfort, not because you’re old

  friends, not because you’re mad at me. Not for any reason. I don’t feel so damn guilty that I’m willing

  to let her just . . . have you.”

  She hadn’t even been entirely sure what she was about to say when she began speaking but once

  the words came out, they felt strangely right. Like she was standing up for something, for herself. For

  them. For a change.

  Mark turned and looked at her, and she thought she saw something in his eyes and around his

  mouth. Like he was surprised, and maybe even a little proud of her.

  “Are you done?” he asked, his voice betraying no emotion whatsoever.

  “Yes,” Dylan said. “I’m done.”

  Mark leaned over her and turned out the light and once again they were enveloped by darkness.

  But this time, when they lay back, he put his arms about her and pulled her back against him.

  Corey was waiting for her at Anabelle’s when she got there, and was in the middle of a conversation that he seemed in no hurry to end, even when Dylan sat opposite him and spread her napkin on her lap. Dylan took that time to study her husband’s agent, taking in the crisp, impeccablytailored grey suit, the starched white shirt and expertly knotted tie. Corey was blonde and handsome, not as tall as Mark, but tall and trim. Dylan supposed there were women who might find him attractive.

  She might have found him attractive herself under different circumstances, but over the past month he had become somewhat of a nemesis, barely concealing his irritation with her, which he managed to mask extremely well when Mark was around. There was an unspoken understanding that he perceived her as the worst thing to happen to Mark’s career, and possibly his life.