Strike Zone

by Mike Lupica

  “Yeah, but she doesn’t know about my family, and I can’t bring myself to tell her,” Nick said. “Her dad’s a New York City cop. If Marisol ever let slip anything about my dad, what’s to stop Officer Pérez from showing up at our door and arresting him?”

  In the very next moment, from behind them, a voice said, “You really think I would do that?”

  Nick didn’t have to turn around to know who the voice belonged to.

  When he finally did turn to face her, Nick saw the hurt in Marisol’s eyes. She stood behind the fence, and Nick saw her shove something quickly into her back pocket.

  “You trust me that little?” she said, on the verge of tears. “Or maybe you don’t trust me at all.”

  Nick stood up.

  “That’s not what I meant,” he said.

  “That’s what it sounded like to me.”

  “Let me explain,” Nick said, looking for the nearest opening in the fence so he could get to her before she walked away.

  “You’ve already said more than enough,” she said, taking a step back.

  Then, as Nick ran toward the gate to his left, Marisol ran the other way, toward Yankee Stadium.

  28

  Nick knew she was fast, having watched her on the tennis courts. He just didn’t know how fast.

  Marisol ran at full speed, not once looking back even as Nick shouted at her to stop. But she finally had to when she missed the light at 161st Street, which Nick knew from experience was a long one. It was a wide, busy street where traffic seemed to be coming from all directions.

  “Marisol,” Nick said when he caught up to her. “At least hear me out.”

  “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say to me,” she said, turning her back to him.

  “I didn’t know you were listening,” Nick reasoned.

  “Obviously.”

  Now the light changed.

  “Please don’t make me chase you,” he said. “I might pull a muscle.”

  He grinned at her sheepishly.

  “Go try to be funny with your friends,” she said.

  That burned. “You’re my friend.”

  “Not anymore,” she spat.

  Another punch in the gut. The second big blow of the week.

  “You don’t mean that,” he said.

  “I told you how I felt about you keeping secrets from me,” she said.

  “But what you heard—that’s a secret from just about everybody outside my family,” Nick said, desperate for her to understand.

  “Not Ben and Diego,” she said, arms crossed.

  “But they’re like family to me,” Nick said. As soon as it was out of his mouth, he knew it was the wrong response.

  “And I’m not,” Marisol said. It wasn’t a question.

  She was right. She didn’t feel like family to him. But how could he explain that to her without making a fool of himself all over again? Ben and Diego were like brothers. But he would never think of Marisol as a sister. His feelings for her, even though he didn’t always understand them, were different. A lot.

  Nick wrapped a hand around his neck. “My dad wasn’t happy when I told Ben and Diego,” he said. “But that was before immigration policies starting changing. It’s not safe anymore, and now I’m not allowed to tell anybody else. Not even you.”

  He hoped she would understand the circumstances. Understand why he couldn’t tell her. “Please don’t go,” he said, reaching for her hand.

  She didn’t take it, but agreed to listen to his side. They walked over to some steps leading out of the parking garage behind them. Nick sat down and Marisol, almost reluctantly, dropped down beside him.

  At least she was still here. For now that felt like a lot.

  “It’s nothing against you,” Nick said. “My dad says the more people who know, the more dangerous it could become for us.”

  “So this is all on your dad?” she said.

  “You don’t do what your dad tells you to?” Nick said.

  “He’s a police officer,” she said.

  “And what, my dad’s a criminal?”

  The words were out of his mouth before he could force them back in.

  “That’s not fair,” Marisol said, clearly insulted.

  “You’re right,” Nick said. “I’m sorry.”

  “And I’m sorry you didn’t think you could trust me,” she said, “no matter what your dad says.”

  “It’s not like that,” Nick said. “I’m just so terrified of the police and what they could do.”

  “But you’re not your parents and I’m not mine,” Marisol said. She seemed to have calmed down a bit. “You know me. And if you know me, you have to know that I would never tell your secret to anyone, certainly not my dad.”

  Nick might have stopped running a few minutes ago, but his heart thudded in his chest as if he’d just completed a marathon.

  “Listen. I wasn’t keeping secrets from you to hurt you. You have to know that,” he said.

  “I just can’t believe you thought I’d go running to my dad.”

  Nick simply said, “You don’t know what it’s like to be afraid all the time.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “I don’t.”

  “It’s not that I thought you’d try to get my family in trouble,” he said. “I’m just not sure how any of this works. If your dad would have to report my dad or something.”

  Neither of them said anything for a beat. Then Nick said, “Can I ask you something?”

  She shrugged, as if not caring whether he did or didn’t.

  “Why were you even at the field today?”

  “Because I wanted to surprise you,” she said, “with these.”

  She reached into her back pocket and came out with a pair of tickets.

  Yankee tickets.

  “These are for Michael Arroyo’s next start,” she said. “Against the Red Sox next week. My dad wanted us to go to the game together.”

  Nick looked at the tickets in her hand, then back to her, speechless.

  “Section one fourteen,” she said. “Behind the Yankee dugout.”

  Nick felt like one of those cartoon characters with their eyes bugging out of their head.

  “How did your dad get such good tickets?” Nick asked.

  “That was supposed to be part of the surprise,” she said. “He got them from Michael Arroyo.”

  If Nick was stunned by the tickets, he was absolutely floored by this piece of news.

  “Wait . . .” Nick said, taking a second to wrap his head around what he’d just heard. “Your dad knows Michael?”

  “From when he does overtime work at Yankee Stadium,” she said.

  “You never told me that.”

  “I guess that was my secret.” She wasn’t smiling or laughing, and Nick knew their relationship had suffered a big, terrible blow. He just hoped that, like his shoulder, it could be repaired. It wouldn’t be painless, but he couldn’t afford to lose her.

  She handed Nick the tickets, got up off the steps, and walked away. This time, she caught the light on 161st Street and crossed without looking back. Almost as if she didn’t notice Yankee Stadium right there in front of her. As if it wasn’t there at all.

  29

  Nick tried calling Marisol when he got home, to say that if she didn’t want to go to the game with him, he’d return the tickets so she could take someone else.

  It was the right thing to do.

  But his call went straight to voice mail, and he wasn’t about to leave a long message that she might not listen to anyway, so all he said was, “It’s me. Please call.”

  Later, he went over their argument in his head, and came to the conclusion that it wasn’t all his fault. Marisol had no right to sneak up on him and basically eavesdrop on a private conversation he was havin
g with Ben and Diego. But even Nick knew how lame that sounded. Regardless of how it happened, he’d said what he said and Marisol had heard him. Now Nick had to accept it, and figure out a way to make things right. If he ever got the chance. But she would have to accept his side, too. After all, he had his reasons—good ones—for not telling Marisol about his family. She’d have to understand Nick’s decision if they were going to continue being friends.

  Nick briefly considered writing her an email. He was better in writing, more thoughtful. And he’d be able to choose his words more carefully.

  More than anything, Nick wanted Marisol to know that he’d never meant to hurt her.

  At dinner that night, Nick didn’t bring up what happened between him and Marisol. It would only upset his parents, and Nick couldn’t stomach anyone else being angry with him right now.

  If he could just hand the tickets back to Marisol in person, at least he’d have an excuse to see her again. Even if it meant he wouldn’t get to see Michael Arroyo pitch against the Red Sox.

  “How was your day?” Nick’s dad asked at one point.

  “Same old, same old,” Nick said. “Ben and Diego and I played some ball at the field.”

  “When I was your age,” Victor García said, “my parents would pack me a lunch and I would go off in the morning to play baseball and not come back home until dinnertime.” He smiled. “We didn’t know how good we had it.”

  Amelia, Nick noticed, wasn’t eating very much tonight. She was pushing food around on her plate, but rarely putting any in her mouth. He thought she looked unusually tired. Even the simple act of eating dinner was exhausting her. This wasn’t totally out of the ordinary, but it concerned Nick nonetheless.

  “You okay, sis?” Nick asked.

  “Just felt a little drained all day,” she said. “Was gonna go out for a walk, but my legs were sore.”

  This was more information than she usually gave out, to Nick or their parents. She pushed her chair back, said she wasn’t hungry, and excused herself.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll feel better in the morning,” she said before dragging herself over to the couch and clicking on the TV.

  When Nick finished clearing the dishes, he went to his room, sat down at his desk, and opened his laptop to a new document. He started writing a letter to Marisol, wondering if he’d ever build up the courage to send it.

  He was midway through the letter when his dad suddenly burst into the room.

  “Amelia needs to see a doctor,” he said before turning on his heel.

  “When?”

  “Now!” Victor García said.

  A lot of things happened all at once. Amelia’s breathing was erratic, her legs swelled up, and she had a 102-degree fever.

  “We’re going to the Montefiore Urgent Care,” Victor García said. “I’ll take her.”

  They had been there before. Nick knew it was a haul, even if you took a car service.

  “I’ll go with you,” Nick’s mom said.

  “You’ve done this so many times when I was working,” Nick’s dad said. “I’m here tonight. I’ll take her.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Nick said.

  “You don’t have to,” Amelia said weakly.

  “I want to,” Nick said.

  The Einstein Free Clinic was only open a couple of days a week, and occasionally at night. But Montefiore Urgent Care, up past Fordham Heights near the Bronx Zoo, was open twenty-four hours, seven days a week.

  Nick ran down to Mrs. G’s apartment, told her that Amelia was sick and that they needed a ride to urgent care. Mrs. G immediately called her nephew, but he said he was on a driving job up on White Plains Road and wouldn’t be back for at least another hour.

  Mrs. G told Nick she would order an Uber instead.

  “You have an Uber account?” Nick said, aghast.

  “I am more modern than you think, my young friend.”

  When the car arrived at their building, Nick jumped into the front seat, and his dad and Amelia slid into the back. Fortunately, traffic was light this time of night on the Grand Concourse, and the ride only took them about twenty minutes.

  Amelia’s legs buckled when she got out of the car in front of the big URGENT CARE sign.

  Victor García picked up his daughter as easily as he would a stack of folded clothes and carried her toward the door.

  From the corner of his eye, Nick caught sight of a big, heavyset guy lumbering toward the door. His shirt was torn in a couple of spots, and he appeared, to Nick, pretty wobbly, tripping over his own feet and muttering under his breath. Nick picked up his pace to get ahead of the man, opening the door wide for his dad and Amelia to pass through.

  “Hey,” the man said, his words slurred. “I was here first.”

  Nick saw there was blood on the front of his shirt, and a gash over his left eye. He looked like someone who’d just lost a fight.

  “No, sir,” Nick said, holding the door open for him to be polite. “We were here first. My sister is sick.”

  “Think I care?” the man said behind him.

  For some reason, the man laughed as Victor García carried Amelia through the door. Once they were all inside, the man again tried to rush ahead of Nick’s dad. But he wasn’t moving very well, stumbling across the lobby.

  “Hey!” the man yelled to the woman behind the welcome desk. “These people are trying to cut the line here.”

  Nick’s dad, still holding Amelia, turned and gave a piercing glare.

  “We were here first,” Victor García said, keeping himself and his voice calm.

  “You people,” the man said, shaking his head. Then he started grumbling to himself, and staggered over to one of the chairs in the waiting area. He fell into it so hard, Nick was surprised the chair didn’t break.

  Victor García asked Amelia if she thought she could stand on her own. She nodded, and he set her down gently. Nick stood beside her, looping an elbow through hers just in case she needed support. Then his dad leaned forward and spoke through a small window to the nurse behind the desk, making sure he could pay cash for the visit. Nick’s dad had brought the “emergency money” he kept in a box on the shelf of his bedroom closet.

  After filling out some paperwork, Nick’s dad and Amelia disappeared through some double doors, leaving Nick in the waiting room. The large man who’d followed them in was at the window now, talking to the nurse, and then a few minutes later he, too, was escorted back to see a doctor.

  Nick sat patiently in the waiting area. Every so often, another person would walk through the front door. Sometimes with a sick child in need of medical attention. Other times admitting themselves. His dad and Amelia were gone so long, that the man with the cut over his eye was out before they were, his head now bandaged in white gauze and tape. Nick hadn’t been around many drunk people in his life, but he was pretty sure that’s what the man was.

  He was just glad to see the man walk out the front door and out of their lives.

  Victor and Amelia finally came back through the double doors. Amelia’s breathing had returned to normal. She still had a slight fever, but her temperature had gone down, and the doctor had given them a prescription for a “nonsteroid anti-inflammatory” medicine that would reduce the swelling in her legs.

  “Nonsteroid,” Amelia said to Nick. “It means I can still play for the Yankees if I want to.”

  “Good one, sis,” Nick said.

  Nick and his dad walked on either side of Amelia as they made their way outside the urgent care center. Nick’s dad didn’t want to trouble Mrs. G for another Uber ride, and said he’d rather not wait for one anyway. A taxi was faster, and he had more than enough cash left to get home.

  They were standing on the sidewalk near the street, Victor with his arm out to flag down a cab, when the big man came stumbling back toward them.

&nb
sp; “What makes you people think you’re better than me?” the man said.

  You people, Nick thought.

  He knew what the man meant.

  People who didn’t look like him.

  “That girl looks fine to me,” the man said, gesturing to Amelia. “I was the one with the head wound.”

  “Please stop bothering us,” Victor García said. “We mean you no harm. I’m just trying to get my daughter home.”

  Nick’s eyes were on his father’s now, and he saw something in them he didn’t often see: anger.

  “Maybe,” the man said, “you’re the one bothering me, Pedro.”

  Nick saw his father’s fists clench. “My name is Victor,” his dad said.

  Standing so close to him, Nick could see the man was much larger than his father. Not so much in height, but certainly in weight. The man’s face was beet-red, and he bobbed slightly from side to side. He took one fumbling step closer to Victor García and, as he did, knocked Amelia aside, like he didn’t notice her standing there. Amelia lost her balance and almost went down, but Nick caught her by the hip.

  “Hey!” Nick said.

  “Not talking to you, boy,” the man said.

  Victor García whispered to Nick, “You and Amelia, step away.”

  He turned to the man and said, “No seas tonto.”

  “What do you mean, tonto?” the man said. “Like the one in the Lone Ranger movie?”

  “It means ‘fool,’” Victor García said.

  At that, the man swung at Nick’s father.

  It was a wild swing, one the man had telegraphed, and Nick’s dad easily avoided it. But missing the punch just seemed to make the big man angrier. He clumsily lowered his shoulder and drove into Victor, bringing them both violently to the ground.

  With Victor García pinned beneath him, the man grunted, throwing punch after punch, which Nick’s dad somehow managed to block with his hands and forearms. Nick’s dad always said that fighting proved nothing, and solved nothing. He refused to fight the man back.

  “Stop it!” Amelia yelled now.

  Nick’s head whipped around, looking for anybody who could step in and break this up. His instinct was to run back into the urgent care center, but he couldn’t leave Amelia or his dad.