Rooting for Rafael Rosales Read online

  “We should feed him then,” she said. “Bring those boys here next week.”

  “What if Papa has his machines all over the table?” Rafael asked.

  “It’ll be on time. I’ll talk to your father.”

  So Hugo and Juan ate at Rafael’s house, amid the stack of broken appliances leaking loose wires. Papa had cleared off the table in plenty of time, as promised.

  Mama and Papa ate without talking, but Juan asked a steady of stream of questions to fill the silence: How do you fix that? What did you put in the stew? His parents answered in two- and three-word sentences. Juan was on to the next question before they were finished anyway.

  “Do you still like pirates?” he asked Iván.

  “No,” he said. “I learned in school that pirates are really bad people.”

  “Except for the Pittsburgh Pirates,” Hugo joked.

  The sancocho had pork sausage because there was company. Rafael fished more pieces out of the pot in the middle of the table before he finished the peas and rice on his plate. His mother saw him and scowled. He dropped the ladle. He felt suddenly like everything in his house was wrong. There was too much clutter and his parents didn’t smile and there weren’t enough people to create a clamor of conversation and there wasn’t enough meat in the stew. He couldn’t wait to finish and get out of there.

  “Your friend Juan seems interested in my business,” Papa said later, the dining room table once again sprawling with his repair work. “If he wants to learn, he can stay and watch. He can assist me when Iván isn’t home.”

  “I’ll ask him,” said Rafael, knowing that he wouldn’t, and that if he did, Juan wouldn’t do it. Juan was no more interested in becoming a repairman than he was in becoming a housewife or the kind of pirate that did not play for Pittsburgh.

  One day, Rafael hit a home run, his first ever at the campo, off a fourteen-year-old pitcher named Bernardo. He usually swung for contact, to put the ball in play, to simply have a chance to make it to base. This time he swung the bat perfectly, and the ball seemed to fly and fly. Rafael was so stunned that he sat and watched it sail over the fence before trotting around the bases. The outfielder had to scramble over the fence to fetch it.

  “Nice hitting,” said a man behind the fence. “You have a good approach at the plate. Patient and disciplined.” It wasn’t uncommon for pedestrians to stop and watch for a few minutes, but this man had been lingering for a while and watching with more than casual interest. He was athletic and had nice clothes. He might be a former player turned scout. Rafael’s heart beat a little faster.

  “Thank you!” he said. “I’m Rafael Rosales.”

  “Carlos Domingo.” The man offered a hand, remembered the fence was between them, and settled for a wave. His hands looked strong, the kind that could crush yours if he wanted them to. “Pleased to meet you, Rafael. It’s good to see young players who use their head. How old are you? Thirteen?”

  “Twelve,” said Rafael, rounding up.

  “Really? You carry yourself like an older player.”

  “Are you with a team?” Rafael asked.

  “No team,” he said. “I’m a private coach.”

  So he was a buscone, a street agent. Rafael took a step backward. These men would help you train, maybe get you into an academy, but they would take a huge chunk of your future signing bonus.

  “I’m not sure I want a private coach,” he said.

  “I’m not offering,” said the man bluntly. “I’ve seen you hit one ball. That’s not enough to go on. But I’ll keep an eye on you. I am looking for a couple of boys with promise.” He nodded toward the outfield. “I think they need you out there.”

  Rafael ran out to left field, hoping that the other boys thought Carlos was a scout. They might say, “Big league teams are already talking to him,” the way they did about Hugo.

  His moment of glory didn’t last long. The second batter hit the ball hard past the shortstop, straight toward him. Rafael stopped to let the ball come to him, the way he’d seen other boys do it, but the ball died before it rolled to him. Desperate to make up for his mistake, he lunged at the ball and booted it back toward the shortstop. He saw the pitcher smother his face with his battered glove as the player made it safely to third base.

  Rafael scanned the smattering of people behind the fence, hoping Carlos Domingo was no longer watching. He sighed. The buscone was still there.

  ***

  On the way home, Rafael waited for Juan to ask about the man he’d been talking to. He didn’t, so Rafael had to explain ahead of the question.

  “He was a buscone,” he said. “Not a scout.”

  “Who was?”

  “The man I was talking to.”

  “I didn’t notice,” said Juan. “But it’s not a bad way to go.”

  “No?”

  “My papa says ten years ago boys would try out for teams right off the street, but now they all come from the academies. And most of them have private coaches before that.”

  “Por supuesto,” said Rafael, though he had truly never considered it. “Why don’t you have a private coach? Or Hugo?” He felt a pang of guilt as he said Hugo’s name. He still hadn’t forgiven himself for mentioning Hugo’s nagging injury in front of the scout they’d met.

  “Maybe we will eventually,” said Juan. “But Papa knows a lot, and he works with us both. See you tomorrow.”

  Of course. Rafael once again felt cheated by his papa, who didn’t know anything about baseball and didn’t seem to care if his son ever played in the big leagues.

  ***

  “I met a private coach today,” Rafael told his father that evening. It was that rare time in the day when neither of his parents was busy. Papa had pushed aside his repair jobs for the day and was relaxing in his favorite chair, chatting with Mama about a trip they had taken before Rafael was born. They both stopped when Rafael mentioned the coach. They looked at him blankly.

  “He said I had patience and discipline,” said Rafael. “He thought I was thirteen because of how I carried myself.” His parents still didn’t seem to understand. “Of all the boys there, he only talked to me.”

  Papa raised his eyebrows. “What was this man trying to sell you, and how much does he charge?”

  “He’s trying to sell me his coaching, and usually they charge part of your bonus, if and when you sign with a team. Otherwise they get nothing.” Rafael wanted that to sink in. Somebody believed in him. Somebody had an eye on him anyway. “He said I have promise,” he said, now stretching the truth.

  “And if you fail, you become one of the manganzones who hang about the plazas, drinking beer and playing dominoes?” A manganzón was an adult that acted like a child. The word stung.

  “No,” said Rafael. “I would find a job.”

  “Doing what?”

  For that, Rafael had no answer.

  “Or worse,” said his father. “Maybe you’ll be like the boys who go to the United States and never return. They get cut by their teams and disappear.”

  “I would never do that,” Rafael promised.

  Mama looked back and forth from Rafael to Papa. She looked like she might speak up, but didn’t.

  “This island has always been plundered by pirates,” his father grumbled. “First they took the gold, then they took the sugar, then they took the beaches. Now they take our young men. They take and they take”—he shook his head—“and they throw things away when they’re barely used.”

  ***

  “What’ll you do if you don’t ever get signed?” Rafael asked Juan the next day, as they walked home after school. He was still bristling from his father calling him a manganzón.

  Juan laughed. “Live off Hugo!”

  Rafael laughed too and wished he had a backup plan like that.

  “It’s him.” Juan stopped, a hundred feet from his house. The sandy-haired American man they’d seen at the campo was at the house. He finished a brusque phone call, tucked the cell into his breast pocket, and
tapped on the door. He was let in immediately.

  “Isn’t he a scout?” Rafael said in a whisper.

  “No. I thought he was too, but he’s an agent from an American company,” said Juan. “His name is Peter White.” He sat down on the curb. “He spent a long time talking to Papa and Hugo last night. He knows about Hugo’s arm and still wants to sign him.”

  “I’m sorry I told him Hugo was hurt,” said Rafael.

  “He would know by now anyway,” said Juan. “He brought a doctor over. They did a full exam. They’re not going to sign a guy without an exam.”

  “Claro.” Rafael had been brooding about it for days and now forgave himself.

  Juan crept to the door, cracked it open, and listened for a moment. He shook his head, closed the door, and sat back down on the curb. “Susurro, susurro, susurro,” he said, mimicking the fervent whispers inside. “I can’t hear a thing.” Rafael sat next to him. There would be no baseball this afternoon, not with exciting things going on.

  “Do you think Mr. White will want to sign you too?”

  “No. I’m not Hugo,” Juan said. “The US agents want the million-dollar contracts. I’ll be lucky to sign for any amount of money.”

  “If you go to the United States and get cut from a minor league team, will you disappear?” Rafael asked.

  “You remember my Yankees cap? From when we were little?”

  “Of course.”

  “My uncle Miguel sent that to me. My father’s little brother. That’s what happened to him. He made it as far as Jupiter, Florida, but the Marlins cut him from their Class A-advanced team.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “He must have gone to New York, because he sent that cap.”

  “And that’s where you would go?”

  Juan pinched his lip as he thought it over.

  “What would I do here? There’s nothing.” He shook his head. “I would find my uncle and live with him. What about you?”

  “I don’t have an uncle in New York,” said Rafael. He would have to come home to face the shame of failure and his father’s headshaking. And what would happen then?

  “Maya, wake up.” Grace nudged her gently.

  Maya peered at her sister through eyes gummy with sleep.

  “It’s summer vacation,” she remembered. “Leave me alone.” One thing she liked about her life these days was that she could sleep a lot. She turned over, but Grace shook her again.

  “We have to go now,” said Grace. “Get dressed.”

  “Go where?”

  “You’ll find out when we get there.” Grace pulled the covers off Maya. “Bring your babysitting money. I’m broke.”

  Maya was more awake now. She sat up.

  “What’s going on?”

  “It’s a surprise. Meet me downstairs.”

  Grace was being annoying, but this was more exciting than another long day with nothing to do. Maya got dressed in her shorts and a T-shirt with an owl on it, dug her stack of twenties from her sock drawer—one for every time she babysat—and tiptoed downstairs carrying her sandals. Grace was waiting by the door.

  “Can’t we have breakfast first?” she asked.

  “I don’t want to wake Mom and Dad.”

  “Do they know we’re leaving?”

  “Don’t worry. I left a note.”

  “Do you have dad’s permission to use his car?”

  “He’s carpooling, and it’s not his day to drive. It’s Wednesday.”

  “But do you have permission?”

  “I left a note!”

  Moments later they were rolling quietly away in the Sonata, which Grace had left in the driveway the night before. She drove slowly, double- and triple-checking her blind spots for every turn and lane change. They ended up going south on Interstate 35. It was weird having Grace drive, but she seemed to know what she was doing. She’d gotten her license six days ago.

  “Are we going to the Mall of America?” Maya asked.

  “Nope.”

  “The big zoo?”

  “How early do you think those things are open?”

  “I don’t know.” Maya was already out of ideas. She watched the skyscrapers of Minneapolis get smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror. They were in far-flung suburbs before Grace took an exit, pulling into the parking lot of a McDonald’s. It was probably the worst place on earth for the environment, but Maya was too hungry to care.

  “I want to know where we’re going,” Maya said once they were in the booth.

  “If you must know,” said Grace around a mouthful of egg sandwich, “we’re going to see the rabbits.”

  “What rabbits?” Maya asked.

  Grace finished eating before she answered.

  “See the rabbits. Come on, you can finish your sandwich in the car.”

  “There are rabbits in our own yard,” Maya said as they crossed the parking lot.

  Grace kept driving south. As they got farther from home, it felt more and more like they were fugitives. Maya half expected police to pull them over and tell them to go home. Maybe Grace would get arrested for stealing Dad’s car.

  “We should call Mom and Dad,” Maya said. “Tell them where we are.”

  “I told you I left a note,” said Grace.

  “But they’re probably worried about us.”

  “Well, I can’t call because I’m on a provisional license,” said Grace. “If I get caught using a cell while driving, I’d be in big trouble.”

  “I can call!”

  “My phone is dead,” said Grace. “I thought Dad’s charging cable was in the car, but it’s not.”

  “They have phones at rest stops,” said Maya. “We could pull over.”

  “Maybe later,” said Grace.

  Maya dozed off, dreaming of bees and purple flowers. When she woke up, Grace was taking an exit into a small town.

  “We need gas,” she said. “You’re paying.” She turned into the lot of Casey’s General Store and pulled up to a pump.

  “Yay for me,” Maya said flatly.

  “It says to prepay inside.” Grace got out and grabbed a nozzle.

  Maya walked into the store and gave the clerk one of her twenty-dollar bills. She noticed a sign about not selling tobacco to minors, which told her she was in Iowa.

  “Is there a rabbit show around here?” she asked the clerk.

  “Not that I know of.”

  Maya felt ridiculous. “OK. Bye.” She hurried out the door. Grace was done pumping gas and waiting in the driver’s seat. Maya got in.

  “We’re in Iowa.”

  “I know.” Grace pulled out of the parking lot and back onto the interstate.

  “I still haven’t seen any rabbits,” said Maya.

  “You will.”

  Grace took an exit and drove east past silos and red barns. Every time they passed a pasture of cows, they both called “Moooo!” because they’d done that since they were little. But there were more cornfields than cows. The corn was probably genetically modified and had neonicotinoids.

  Maya was about to ask for lunch when they passed a sign for Cedar Rapids. She had a realization: around a mouthful of food, “We’re going to Cedar Rapids” sounded like “We’re going to see the rabbits.”

  “Why did you let me think we’re going to see rabbits?”

  “Because it was funny.”

  “What’s in Cedar Rapids?”

  “Stuff.”

  Five minutes later, Grace was parking in the lot of Perfect Game Field at Veterans Memorial Stadium, according to the sign.

  “Baseball,” said Maya. They’d driven half a day to see a game when there was a major league ballpark three miles from their house. “Why here?”

  “Because minor league baseball is the best,” said Grace.

  “We could have seen the Saint Paul Saints,” Maya said as they waited in line for tickets.

  “Not the same thing,” said Grace. “The Saints are not minor league; they’re independent.”

  �
�Of course.”

  “It’s worth the trip. You’ll see.”

  Maya paid for hot dogs and sodas, and the girls found their seats behind third base. It was a pleasant day, sunny and not too hot, and Maya felt lazy and happy sitting in the bleachers and eating her hot dog. The announcer reeled off the names of the visiting Lansing Lugnuts. Then he started on the Cedar Rapids Kernels. Maya looked down at the row of players and felt her chest tighten.

  “He’s here?” she asked, turning to Grace. “Is that him?” She’d stopped paying attention to Rafael during her spell of hopelessness.

  “He’s here,” Grace confirmed. “Your minor-league compassion object was called up.”

  Rafael’s first at bat came in the second inning. Maya thought he looked more confident than he had during spring training at Fort Myers, staring down the pitcher instead of scuffling around and looking over his shoulder. Maya stood up to cheer and Grace joined her.

  “Down in front!” said a voice behind them.

  “It’s his first at bat as a Kernel!” Grace shouted back. “We need to make him feel welcome!”

  Rafael bounced a base hit down the first-base line. He zipped all the way to third base before the right fielder ran down the ball and chucked it back into the infield. Now everybody stood and cheered.

  “Triples are hot,” said Grace.

  At the end of the inning, a frizzy-haired woman with a camera came up the steps to their row.

  “Hi, I’m Monica with the Gazette. I got a great picture of you two and want to use it in the paper, if you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind,” said Grace. “Are you a sports photographer? How cool.”

  “I’m actually a reporter,” she said. “I have to take a photo here and there too. It’s a small paper.”

  “Oh. My. God.” Grace got wide-eyed.

  “She wants to be a sports reporter when she grows up,” said Maya.

  “And it’s so cool to see a woman doing it,” Grace added.

  “It’s pretty cool to be a woman doing it,” said Monica. “Anyway, I’ll need your names…”

  After writing them down, she handed a card to Maya. “Email if you want a copy. And seriously, Grace, if you want to ask me anything about becoming a reporter, shoot me an email.”