Page 84 of Unwritten Rules
It’s the last out, Eugenio turning to go back to his team’s dugout. “You still up for dinner?” Zach asks, though Eugenio never officially agreed to it in the first place.
Eugenio glances around them, considering. “Meet you by the players’ lot later.”
And if a few guys chirp Zach for smilinglike thatas he high-fives the infielders as they file off, they probably attribute it to a narrow win against a divisional rival and nothing more.
“Morales went two for three against you, with a walk tonight,” one of the reporters says, when Zach’s by his stall, doing his interviews in a ripped T-shirt and set of hastily pulled on shorts, his street clothes hung in a dry cleaner bag behind him.
For once, Zach is happy for reporters’ focus on the opposing team, for a chance to stare down the cameras and say, “Yeah, I hear Morales might be pretty good,” mostly to watch the beat writers laugh.
After the scrum disperses, Zach scrambles for his phone in his stall. There’s a text waiting for him, one from Eugenio that just says15 minsent a few minutes before.
Zach shaves over one of the sinks in the bathroom, trying to tame his hair in the Miami humidity. He got it cut, cropped closely over his ears, leaving the curls at the top longer. He dresses, carefully, putting on a nicer belt than he normally wears and considering cologne he bought before abandoning the idea.
Womack, who’s lingering behind as well, ice pack around his arm, says, “Hot date?”
Zach shrugs, something that’s not quite a confirmation but isn’t quite a denial either.
He finds Eugenio waiting for him by the players’ lot entrance. “Where to?” he asks, after Zach has given him the standard ballplayers-reuniting hug. He smells like cologne and ballpark shampoo, and Zach is tempted to suggest his apartment, his bed, possibly the back of his truck before they even get out of the lot.
“There’s a Dominican place nearby, if that works for you,” Zach says.
It’s a warm night even as late as it is, busy, even on a Monday. Zach navigates his way through traffic, down streets bracketed by palm trees, the only hills created by the grading of the road. There’s always a sense here of being close to the water, the way there was in Oakland, the ocean lurking just over the horizon, the city a defiant strip of lights sitting between the rising Atlantic and sinking Everglades.
“We’re just south of Hialeah,” Zach says when they make the final turn toward the restaurant. Hialeah, the baseball heart of a city that eats and sleeps baseball, though not Swordfish baseball, where the high school game is king and half the players go on to get drafted.
Eugenio has been quiet on the ride, face against the window, watching the strip malls and apartment buildings go by, the streets here as wide as New York ones are narrow. He’s wearing his glasses; the lights reflect off them.
Zach pulls his truck into a parking space. “The guy who owns this place has some great stories. He played in the Dominican league, and I’m sure I’m not getting the best ones because my Spanish isn’t that great but maybe he’ll tell them to you.”
“Hey.” Eugenio reaches for him as Zach is reaching for his keys to cut the engine, hand around Zach’s wrist. “Breathe.”
Zach looks down at the circle of his fingers, the pads of them warm points of contact in the blast of his truck’s AC. “I just don’t want to fuck this up.”
“Then don’t.”
It’s almost eleven p.m., but the restaurant is full. They wait by the bar even though Zach called, asking for a reservation in halting Spanish before the hostess took pity on him and switched to English. It’s not a big place, tables set in a perimeter around a parquet dance floor, a place for a band.
“They only play on weekends,” Zach says. Because he spent his first meal there trying to hear himself think before asking to move to one of the tables on the patio outdoors, even though it meant facing Florida wildlife after dark.
Eugenio orders a drink and a beer for Zach, when the owner, Vladimir, spots them, ushering them to a tucked-away corner, a tiny table with uneven chairs that complain under Zach’s weight.
There’s baseball memorabilia on the walls, pictures of the Dominican greats: Felipe Alou, Juan Marichal and his famous high-leg kick, Big Papi, Juan Soto, stance wide as he takes a ball on a two-strike count. And players Zach doesn’t recognize, though he’s spent time pointing to one and then the next, Vladimir telling him stories about each, slowing when Zach said, “Más despacio, más despacio.”
Vladimir comes back, an order pad in his hand, though he never writes down what Zach orders. “This is Eugenio,” Zach says, after Vladimir introduces himself, handing Eugenio the pad.
“For the wall,” he clarifies, and Eugenio signs it, a big sweeping signature, before handing it to Zach.
“Did you want me to sign it too?” Zach asks in Spanish. Vladimir looks at him like he’s being silly, saying something in rapid Spanish to Eugenio before nodding.
“What’d he say to you?” Zach says once Vladimir left with their signatures on the pad and their orders memorized.
“That you should go play in the Dominican league this winter. Then you’ll actually be famous.”
They’re left alone after that, save the waitstaff bringing their meals, food filling the table, Eugenio ordering oxtail, a side of mofongo, another of pigeon peas and rice. “This is really good.”
“You thought it wouldn’t be?” Zach teases.
They talk about what ballplayers talk about when they get together: their respective seasons, the upcoming games between their teams, other restaurants Eugenio’s eaten at in Miami and how this one compares. Safe topics, like they’re nothing more than former teammates, close friends, reunited by an accident of scheduling.
