Cuba 15 Read Online Free

was the day of Leda’s fund-raiser. I’d have to cancel. I tried calling her as soon as I got home from school, but her line was busy. The Lundquists don’t believe in call-waiting.
    When I finally got through, Leda said, “I was just trying to call you, dude! Too cosmic. Look, Paz, I’ve got to cancel out on Saturday. I mean, you can still go by yourself if you want—”
    “Wait a minute,” I said. “I can’t go either. Me and Janell got in some kind of trouble during speech today, and we have to show up at this meeting—”
    “Saturday at two o’clock!” she finished for me. “You’re joining the team too?”
    “What?”
    “Speech team, Paz. Do I have to spell it out for you?”
    “But your parents never let you join after-school clubs. On account of the weekend warrior thing. What the heck’s going on?”
    “Got lucky, I guess. I gave that animal-rights speech in class this morning?” Leda took Intro Speech another period. “Well, Ms. Joyner says I’m a natural for Original Oratory.”
    “So, did you have to talk to The Ax?”
    “Yeah, met him. He’s extremely cool. That earring?”
    I shivered, remembering it. “It looked
sharp,
for one thing. He could probably cut your heart out with it,” I said. “Why do you think they call him The Ax? And why are Beth and Niles letting you do this?”
    Leda’s voice clouded with paranoia; one of her parents must have been hovering nearby. “Paz,” she said low, “this is the greatest: If I write orations on the Causes, the units say they’ll pay me for every speech tournament.” Speech team. Leda’s parental units had found another outlet for their message.
    Leda sighed. “If I never have to go to another telephone-tree potluck, it’ll be too soon.”
    “Well,” I said ruefully, “I probably wouldn’t have met any hunky Cuban guys this weekend anyway. I hate meeting strangers.”
    “Then how’re you ever going to meet any new guys?” Leda made my allergy to strangers sound like a mortal sin.
    “Maybe there’ll be some cute ones on the speech team,” I said halfheartedly. I didn’t tell her what Mr. Axelrod had said about my looking funny. While
funny
may be a bonus-plus in comedy acting, it is not necessarily the attraction that the greater Chicagoland population of guys is looking for. Otherwise, why hadn’t they found me yet?

4
    I heard the click-clack-click of dominoes and smelled the cigar smoke before I found Dad and Abuelo relaxing on the screened-in back porch. Afternoon sun shone on them. Beads of sweat blossomed in neat rows across their brows, undisturbed by the overhead fan. I sat down on our old refrigerator-sized what-color-is-it-anymore couch with the wobbly leg and balanced a Coke can on the wiggly arm. Our old furniture bands together out here like a neighboring tribe; that’s why I like the porch. Familiar. Lived in.
    But the domino board, atop an ancient folding card table, looked shiny new as usual. The ever-present cigar smoke has tinted the whole thing a mellow tobacco color, and every so often Dad gives it another coat of varnish. Dominoes littered the board, festive sandwiches of red and white, locked together with a gold pin at their centers. Black dots pocked their white faces, counting off in orderly patterns. These were no ordinary game pieces. Calling dominoes a game in our house is a joke.
    Abuelo smashed the double-one tile onto the board.
“¡Tan!”
he whooped, beating the table with both palms, conga-style. “No ones, eh?” My grandfather, wiry, thin, and darker than Dad, is absolutely bald, and not because it’s in style. He always wears the same thing: a boxy
guayabera
shirt, white today, with roses embroidered on the pockets, and the kind of thin dark pants that old people call trousers. Slippers at home, dress shoes when he goes out. Abuelo solved his fashion crisis long ago.
    He waved his arms at my father. “You knock, then I knock,
¡tan-tan! como
Tito Puente.” Neither of them had any