1:58 AM @BalletBelleIsa: But I’ve been thinking. Maybe we should take a break? Things are just going really fast. And you have your travel ball coming up. And I’m starting full time at the Academy.
1:59 AM @BalletBelleIsa: And I hate that I’m making you worry.
•••
6:49 AM @ARos0133: WHAT??? Are you serious? You can’t be serious.
6:50 AM @ARos0133: Call me when you wake up so we can talk.
8:32 AM @BalletBelleIsa: I’m heading out and I’m leaving my phone at home. Please don’t call. I just need some space right now. It’s nothing you did. It has nothing to do with you. It’s me. I need to slow down. I need a break. I’m sorry. I hope you can understand.
8:35 AM @ARos0133: No, I don’t understand. We can slow down. We can dial it back. I’d be happy just to sit next to you on the train. And don’t blame this on baseball and ballet. We can find a way to make it work over the summer.
8:37 AM @ARos0133: Unless what you’re saying is you don’t want to be with me anymore.
MONDAY, JUNE 12
7:12 AM @ARos0133: I guess you not answering is my answer.
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 9
ALEX
“Julissa’s not coming. She kicked Bryan out again.” Kiara rolls her eyes as she says this. She told me last week not to count Julissa when I gave Papi the final numbers for the barbecue. But we were just at the diner, the four of us, celebrating the end of the summer. It might as well only have been the two of us. Bryan and Julissa’s lips hardly ever came apart.
The train comes out of the tunnel, onto the elevated tracks of the 125th St. Station. I face the river. Habit from all those mornings heading down to the Institute. The sun peeking between those East Side buildings blinds you. The days we weren’t traveling or playing ball, I was working there. Turns out, I had more time than I thought I would this summer.
I glance at Kiara. “What’d he do this time?” Poor Bryan. They made it through the whole summer together too.
“You tell me, he’s your friend.” Kiara slides the cross pendant along her necklace back and forth.
“Yeah, but there’s so many things he could’ve done. Question is, which one of ’em made her angry? She’s your friend.” I nudge her arm.
She rolls her eyes again, but she’s still smiling. “That boy, he don’t know how to act. All that talk about the females on the road who wanted a piece of him? He should know better than to bring that up in front of her.”
Yeah, Bryan has that problem. He thinks it makes him look important to say that stuff.
“You should teach him a thing or two,” she tells me.
“’Cause I’m the expert?”
“You better than he is. Much better.”
I squint, trying for a view of the Hudson. Sometimes, you get a glimpse of it between that old brick building and that new metal one the university put up. We stop and I can hear the hum of Kiara’s pendant rubbing against the links of her chain. The doors slap open. Car brakes squealing and truck doors slamming streams in. And then there’re the people, arguing, laughing, kids crying.
“So there’ll be thirty-eight of us,” I say. Final numbers don’t matter much anyway. Yaritza’s sure to have made enough for a hundred. Papi even lined up a band. Yaritza was teasing him that she wanted mariachis. Papi told her we’re going bachata and merengue all the way. I’m looking forward to the party, the eating and relaxing part at least. Not so much the dancing.
“You think Bryan’s gonna come? He won’t be nursing his poor broken heart?” Kiara keeps yanking at that cross. But it’s like someone pressed Mute ’cause I can’t hear it anymore.
“He better. Else he’ll have to answer to Papi.” I shake my head. If Bryan doesn’t show, I’m gonna have to trek back to the Heights to get him. The entire travel ball team is going to be there.
The train ducks back underground. The tunnel muffles the grinding of wheels against track.
“What about Danny?” Kiara grips the pole with both hands.
“I hope he comes.” Even though he didn’t travel with us this summer, I still think of him as part of the team. Ever since summer started, he’s been MIA. I’ve been afraid to look for him. I don’t want to see that red bandana on his arm.
The doors open at 116th. A guy wearing a navy shirt with a white C and a crown gets on the train. He’s holding a clipboard. Another guy and two girls crowd around him. They’re all asking questions at once. Where do we start? What’s the first clue? Where do we get off? More college students load on through the other doors. They’ve got clipboards and shirts with C’s and crowns on them too.
“I’m worried about Danny.” My shoulder knocks the rail as the train starts to move. A couple of the students lose their footing. They bump into each other and laugh. Their shouts of “Sorry!” bounce through the car.
“Why you worried? Looks to me he’s doing fine. He’s got some new chévere shoes each time I see him.”
“Yeah.” Danny traded his blue-and-yellow ones for some crazy emerald-green high tops. “But that’s what I mean,” I tell her. “Where you think he’s getting the money for that?”
“Maybe he’s not buying them?”
I hadn’t thought about that. If he’s stealing them off some poor other kid that would be worse. I can’t picture Danny doing that.
Kiara lets out a sharp laugh. One of the college guys almost smacked one of the girls in the face when the train braked. The girl in the cap scowls at Kiara. Kiara puts fists on her hips and glares till the girl looks away.
I pull Kiara closer. I tug her fists down. “You think he’s stealing?”
She shakes her head. “Maybe they’re gifts? From Pinchón.”
Coño. She’s right. They probably are.
I should have gone to his apartment this morning, got him out of bed, got him dressed, and made him come to celebrate with the team. Doesn’t matter if he thinks he’s not one of us anymore. I could show him he is. I take off my hat, punch it out, and put it back on. “He’s going to end up like his brother, isn’t he?”
“Nah,” Kiara says. “Pinchón and his boys, they look after one another. That’s the whole point of ’em. They know Danny’s brother’s in jail. They gonna work hard not to let Danny fall in jail too.”
That’s the whole point of our team. To look after one another. We’re better when we’re together. Stronger. Papi said when one teammate is letting the others down, not making practice, blowing off games, sometimes you gotta make a cut. But what if I hadn’t listened to him? What if I’d gone and dragged Danny with me to all those practices and games? He’d have listened to me. He’d have come. Just like he would have come with me today to this party.
I reach for the brim of my cap, but Kiara grabs my hand. She pulls me down to her. I’m a little surprised. She doesn’t like to make out on the subway. At school, yes. At the diner, yes. At the field, after a game, hell yes. In fact, the more balls I hit, the more runs I drive home, the more players I strike out, the more she wants me. But she thinks the subway’s dirty. She doesn’t like it when I touch her when we’re riding. But instead of slapping my hand, she presses it onto the back of her jeans. I slide it up to her waist. She pushes it back down.