Cuba 15 Read Online Free Page A

ones in their hand to play.
    Resolutely, Dad knocked twice, passing.
    Abuelo cracked his knuckles down. “I win, for once,
¡Dios mío!
”
    Dad exposed his remaining pieces to reveal several blanks, a low score. He reached over and spread out Abuelo’s hand: twenty-six points. Dad just sat there, arms crossed in a yellow long-sleeved velour shirt, sweating and looking smugly across the table at his father.
    Abuelo returned his gaze innocently.
“¿Qué?”
As if he couldn’t add.
    “Dame el dinero,
Papito,”
Dad said. “Pay up!”
    With lips tight, Abuelo opened a small leather coin purse, plucked a dime from it, and tossed it onto Dad’s side of the table. Quite a few dimes were stacked there, next to a cracked ashtray that said FONTAINEBLEAU HOTEL—MIAMI on it.
    “Se acabó,”
muttered Abuelo. “I quit!” He winked at me and revealed the landscape of a grin he’d been hiding. He didn’t really mind losing. “
A
menos que . . . eh,
Violeta? Do you want to take my place?”
    The game never stopped as long as another sucker came along.
    “Sure, Abuelo,” I said. “How’re you feeling today?”
    “Mucho mejor,”
he said, stubbing out what was left of his cigar and handing me his coin purse. “
¡Pero,
this
humedad!
It will kill me!” He fluffed his shirt up and down to get some air down the neck. Then he stepped back into the air-conditioned house.
    A heat wave in September, and not even Indian summer yet. This didn’t bode well for an early ski season.
    “How was school today, Violeta?” Dad asked. I could barely hear him as we mixed the dominoes with our hands, the roar finally subsiding into distinct clicks as the tiles collided one last time, then came to rest.
    “Good, I guess. I’m joining the speech team.” I chose my ten pieces carefully from the blind pile, setting them upright horizontally. There are two schools on this; I prefer the low profile.
    Dad stood his ten on end vertically. Maybe because he’s so tall. Dad is six-two, with slightly olive skin that always looks tan, and black hair that’s eroding in one small spot on top of his head. Besides the totally wrong shirt for a hot day, he wore polyester pants in a sickly watermelon color, leaving a good six inches of his ankles exposed. Green and white striped socks ran into his brand-new white bowling shoes with tassels on them, which he was breaking in by wearing around the house. I noticed he had fitted his cigar band around one finger as a ring. “Double nine!” he called. Highest double goes first.
    I shook my head.
    “Double eight!”
    Still nothing.
    “Double
siete
!” He ignored me and slapped down the double-seven piece.
    I picked out the seven-five, one of two sevens in my hand.
    “
Eh
speech, you say?” Dad remarked in a Spanglish accent. He must have been sitting out here with Abuelo for a long time. “There’s a team for this?” He laid a piece down.
    “Well, you’ve heard of debate, right, Dad? Tri-Dist doesn’t have debate, but we do have these individual events that compete.”
    He nodded impatiently, waiting for my move. We each laid down a piece.
    “Some events are like reading parts from a play, or reciting a famous speech. I’m doing Original Comedy; I’ll have to write it myself.” I looked at my hand, trying to decide, then went for the five-two.
    Dad winced and knocked sharply on the domino board, passing.
    Oh ho, no more sevens or fives in his hand already? My turn. I slapped the double-five piece at the end of the chain to form a T.
    Dad had to knock again. “You have to write what yourself? Jokes?”
    I nodded, laying down a tile. “My speech coach says I’m funny.”
    Dad sighed in relief and played a double. He took a happy puff from his cigar, pulled up a green and white striped sock, and fiddled with his cigar-wrapper ring. “But you come from a perfectly normal American household. What do you have to be funny about?”
    “That’s what I said.” I kept a straight face, then hit