right temple. âPlease. I canât get distracted. I have nothing but exams for the next two weeks.â
âUncle Ramon told me I might not get picked to be a Nacional, because of Papi.â
I suppose there was sympathy inside of Lola somewhere. But she didnât seem interested in showing me any. Maybe it was the stifling heat or tension over her tests that put a charge into her voice.
âThatâs exactly why Iâm going to a university one day, to become a teacher,â she said, burying her head inside a book. âIâm going to make my own history, not be stuck with his. You need to do the same.â
âThatâs good for
you
. But Iâm not a student. I play baseball,â I snapped, heading toward the shower. âTheyâre always going to compare me and him.â
âThen jump in the ocean and swim for Miami! Follow Papi!â Lola shouted after me, a second before I slammed the bathroom door shut.
Turning the faucets up high, I caught a glimpse of my anger in the mirror. It made my eyebrows look even sharper, as they arched at an angle, and my thin lips pulled back at the corners. Only I didnât want to face it. So I yanked the plastic curtain closed. Then I stood in the shower with my head down and the water rushing off the bridge of my nose, like it was a spout. The temperature changed from hot to cold a couple of times without warning. Lola had always said there were ghosts in the shower. But I knew it was just other tenants in our building running water at the same time.
When I finished, I dried myself and wrapped a towel around my waist. The mirror had fogged over with steam. But Iâd seen enough of myself and didnât even consider wiping it clear.
Stepping outside into the hall, I saw that Lola had walked away from her textbooks. She was standing by an open window, brushing her straight black hair.
I guess we could both feel a little bit of breeze now.
âDone with your swim?â she asked, behind a half smile.
âFor now,â I answered. âIâll probably take another one after the game tomorrow in Cárdenas.â
âWell, make sure you donât drown,â she said. âIâd miss you. Youâre my only big brother.â
âThanks, I wonât,â I said, letting her words sink in as I grabbed a fresh towel from the closet and began to dry my wet head.
â â â
I put on a white shirt, black pants, and a pair of Papiâs old leather shoes. Then I headed back down the stairs and walked the five blocks to the restaurant where I bussed tables. Itâs part of the hotel where Mama cleans. Itâs called El PuenteââThe Bridge.â Thatâs because Matanzas is the City of Bridges, with seventeen of them crossing the three rivers surrounding us.
My shift ran from five p.m. to midnight. I got there just a few minutes before it started. Itâs my job to take away the dirty dishes from the tables, make sure all of the water glasses are kept full, and deliver any part of the meal the customer wants to take home wrapped in tinfoil. The pay by the hour isnât good. But the waiters and waitresses give me and the other two busboys a small percentage of their tips every night. That adds up. The only problem I ever had was with a waiter named Horatio, who constantly hides his biggest tips by burying them in a different pocket. He gets away with it because heâs the nephew of the restaurantâs manager. Otherwise Iâd grab him by his black bow tie, turn him upside down, and then shake him until it rained money.
The customers are mostly tourists. Lots of them are from the US, even though thereâs a travel ban from the States to Cuba. They go someplace like Canada first and then fly here. The US ban is because weâre not a democracy and donât have any real human rights, just the ones our
presidente
and his soldiers decide to give us.
Living in a country