Cuba 15 Read Online Free Page B

him with a killer four-five, laying it off his double four slowly, to rub in the humiliation.
    Dad took a domino from the spare pile, dropped it on its face, and spun it on its pinhead. He was getting nervous. But he played a low number from his hand.
    “So, where will you get your material from?” he asked as I played off his blank. He scowled and knocked hard, once, passing.
    Leda’s invitation had given me an idea. “I thought maybe I could do something on a Cuban theme, but I’m not sure what. Could you help me?”
    “There is nothing funny about Cuba,” Dad said curtly.
    “Oh, there must be something,” I insisted.
    “Sure,” Dad exhaled, “if you think dictatorship is funny.” He was still upset about having to pass. “Now are you going to play, Violeta?” he demanded.
    I paused for effect, drew my weapon, and smacked the domino board with a nine-five, motioning for Dad to place it for me, since I couldn’t quite reach the end of the chain in his corner. I donned Abuelo’s innocent look. “Can you at least play off your double?”
    He couldn’t. I played my final two pieces and went out.
    Dad knocked his dominoes faceup for me to see, shaking his head in disgust, and reached for a dime. I knew that, inside, he was marking this loss in his memory book of lifetime wins and losses. I smiled.
    “There’s nothing funny about this,” Dad said grumpily just as Mom came out to the porch, carrying our toy poodle, Chucho, and the family calendar. “I quit. Will you put the dominoes away?”
    “Aw, Dad, you didn’t give me any ideas for my speech yet. And we only played one game.”
    “Maybe your mother has some ideas for the
eh
speech. But this game is over.” He swept his dimes up from the corner of the domino board. “Unless . . .” He jingled his change at Mom. “Diane?”
    Mom set Chucho down on the floor, where he immediately found Abuelo’s discarded cigar wrapper and ate it. “I’ll play,” Mom said.
    Dad gave her his handful of change, ground his cigar out in the ashtray, and retreated into the house.

    Except for the extra legs and tail, Chucho looks exactly like a little old man who took a bath in superglue and rolled around on a hairdresser’s floor. Dad inherited the dog from Madrina, his godmother, who had owned him as long as anyone could remember. Nobody knows Chucho’s true age or agrees on what color he is for sure. He blends right in on the back porch.
    As dogs go, he is more like a goat, which is why Abuelo calls him
cabrito
and Abuela puts her shoes up in the closet when she takes them off at our house. Chucho will eat anything, especially bits of things that look like they’ve been thrown away. Dad often wonders if Madrina ever fed the poor animal, but then I remind him that Chucho seems to be in the peak of health and, apparently, at least a century old. Whatever he’s been eating, it agrees with him.
    “Mom,” I said as she settled with her calendar into Dad’s old plaid overstuffed armchair, “Chucho just ate Abuelo’s cigar band.”
    “Roughage,” Mom replied, already turning the last game’s pieces facedown and beginning to shuffle them. Chucho climbed up in Mom’s lap and began gnawing on the family calendar. With any luck, he’d eat May.
    We began another game.
    “Mom,” I said, hoping she was just distracted enough, “do I really have to go through with this
quince
party? I mean, is there any way we can just tell Abuela thanks, but no thanks?”
    Unlike Dad, Mom will talk and pay attention to you while playing dominoes. She says it’s because she’s Polish and doesn’t have the domino gene.
    She looked at me, hurt, obviously not distracted enough. I could see foundations weaken and columns collapse in her mind as her plans were shaken. “You—you don’t want to have the party?”
    “No, no,” I reassured her, “it’s not that I don’t
want
the party. . . . It’s just not the kind of party kids have.”
    Mom let this sink in but didn’t