Thou Shalt Not(37)

That’s good. What about your daughter? What’s her name?

Her name is Alexandra, after his grandmother. But we call her Alex. Well, at least I do.

That’s a really pretty name.

Thanks.

There was nothing baiting about that response, and I could keep asking questions if I really wanted to, but it was probably time to end the conversation.

Well, I should let you go. It’s been a long day for you I bet.

It’s probably been a longer day for you. I’m sure it wasn’t easy.

It was actually much better than I had anticipated and featured a seriously memorable romp in my living room. I figured those details should be left out. But she didn’t say, “okay, goodnight” either, so I seemed to have been given permission to continue the conversation.

It’s actually been a pretty damn good day. All things considered.

I thought that if she could be herself and use certain words, I could too. I would start small though, and a good damn never hurt anyone. We would already have been reprimanded by the Lakefront heads for this conversation. For starters they would probably say we shouldn’t be talking at all, considering her status as “married” and all, plus they advised us not to text members of the opposite sex as well. The damns and bullshits would have just been icing on the cake.

Hopefully, because my posole kicked ass. ;-)

That was a big part of it, for sure. :-) I can’t believe your husband hated it.

He’s an asshole. He has terrible taste in everything.

Her statement was so matter of fact, so direct, that I laughed out loud. It was exactly what I wanted of course, but not at all what I expected.

That was bad of me to say, but... she added immediately after.

He apparently had good taste in women at least. Or one woman for sure.

I guess if the shoe fits...haha?

Oh the shoe fits. He designed the damn shoe just for his foot.

That made me laugh, but now I knew if I wasn’t already skating on thin ice with her, I definitely was now.

Proceed with caution, the good shoulder angel reminded me. This could be risky.

Shut the fuck up, the bad one (although I was starting to like him more and more) countered. You’ve been prodding, and this is exactly what you’ve been prodding for.

I saw that he made of mess of things in the locker room...

I think Cubans automatically think they can pull shit like that and just write it off with ‘Oh I’m Cuban, it’s normal to be this way.’ It’s ridiculous.

Has he always been this way?

Don’t pretend like you don’t know. I saw your face at the table when I mentioned his name.

You noticed that?

Yeah. I can be observant. ;-) Everyone else was wide-eyed because he was an athlete. You looked like I had told everyone I was married to the Unabomber.

I definitely knew who he was...

Thank God you were the only one.

At least he’s just a hothead when baseball is involved?

This was as baiting as I could possibly be. Basically I was hoping she would tell me he was an asshole all the time.”

Did you ever watch the show Animaniacs growing up?

Oh god, of course I did. Every day I watched them. I actually am usually embarrassed to admit I even own the DVDs. Was this her way of telling me she was changing the subject?

I did. All the time.

Okay, so you remember the Goodfeathers skits?

Hilarious—pigeons made to resemble characters from Goodfellas. And the Godfather. It was amazing the kind of adult references that were made in each episode. I never noticed as a kid, I just thought it was all hysterically funny.

Very much so.

Well, my husband is Pesto, the bird who would explode on people for no apparent reason, even if they were giving him a compliment.

This made me laugh. I could see Pesto attacking other birds in my mind. But, I wasn’t sure how funny it was when the character related to an actual human being.

You realize that now whenever I see him play I am going to picture Pesto, right?

I’d rather picture a cartoon than a crazed Cuban.

Damn. She was loosening up. I was starting to feel more comfortable. It was already midnight.

How long have you guys been married?

It’ll be 8 years this year. I married him when I was 19.

That would obviously put her at 27, a few years younger than me. It took me a moment to remember that he was 38 now and that would have put him at 30 when they were married. God, he robbed the cradle. By that point he was already an All-Star and World Series champ. She had basically only accomplished finishing high school. I bet there was an interesting story there. God, I loved text messages. This conversation would never have been happening in the technological world of yesterday.

Stop digging, Luke.

Shut up.

I knew from my own marriage that getting married that young wasn’t the ideal thing to do. Looking back, I can see that I wasn’t ready at the time. In fact, I don’t think people become ready emotionally or mentally until much later, maybe 25 or 26. But that doesn’t stop people like us from doing it. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t.