Kelvin was tired from the long weekend. Frankly, he was quite on the fence about this whole Amtrak thing.
Not because he didn’t like the long ride. (He did. He loved traveling. Traveling comes with baseball.) He’d been used to the door-to-door Dominican bus line buses that dropped you off at your doorstep. That type of bus line was and still is a bus line where it didn’t matter if the bus fit twelve people; they’d squeeze in fourteen, fifteen max. The bus driver played his music of choice, mostly bachata. The music would only be turned down to a moderate to low volume to discuss politics in the Dominican Republic. The passengers were always a mixture of a handful of women in their mid-fifties to sixties, two loud-mouthed men in their forties, two annoyed pre-teens traveling with their mom in her thirties, a quiet male teen sitting in the back, wearing his headphones (Kelvin), and an active drunk, who’s still drinking. These passengers always made the trips feel homey despite not knowing anyone.
The last bus back to Providence, Rhode Island, had left at nine o’clock, and Kelvin had to be back home for tomorrow’s game. His mother was right when she told him that traveling to play in Long Island for the weekend on his cousin’s AAU team to try to make it back at a reasonable time for school and a game wouldn’t be a good idea. Of course, he didn’t listen. What seventeen-year-old young man does? So, he was at Penn Station at ten o’clock, waiting for his train.
Surprisingly, even at this time, this train seemed like it would reach total capacity as passengers filled Penn Station’s Amtrak waiting room. After playing two games yesterday and three this evening, the tile flooring at Penn Station wasn’t doing the exhausted Kelvin any favors.
The five-foot-eight, facial hairless, skinny, broad-shouldered, wide-backed, traditional medium brown Caribbean skin-toned kid was carrying his baseball bag and backpack. He was so tired that he thought about sitting on the floor after giving his seat to an older woman traveling with her daughter. He was just about to sit on the floor until he saw her.
She was beautiful. She couldn’t have been taller than five foot one or maybe foot two. She was a shade lighter than Kelvin, with long curly hair and dark but gentle eyes. Light freckles on her cheeks and full pinkish lips wrapped up this beauty. She stood about a foot away from a young couple that appeared to be in their early twenties. Because of the resemblance, Kelvin assumed the slightly older woman girl (woman) had to be her big sister. The girl wore light blue jeans, sneakers, and a green jacket over her blouse.
Suddenly, the urge to sit on the floor escaped his mind. He didn’t notice, but he was staring. Suddenly, the girl turned her head and locked eyes with him. Embarrassed, he quickly looked away and stared straight ahead.
Finally, the announcement to board the train came. Kelvin and the rest of the passengers boarded the train. The Amtrak train was large with panoramic windows, where you could relax and enjoy the view. The seating was four at a time, in case you traveled in groups. Passengers had someone sitting beside them and someone facing them. The seats were comfortable and positioned so each passenger had leg rest and far more space than on an airplane.
Kelvin sat by himself on the outer seat, leaving the window seat next to him vacant, with his back facing the rear of the train. Alone in the four-seater, he quietly and shallowly wished away undesirable strangers looking for seats. Every stranger briefly made eye contact with Kelvin before continuing their search for the perfect travel seat.
Suddenly, the beautiful girl’s sister and the guy she was with slid into the seating for four next to him, directly across the narrow aisle. Kelvin looked over for a quick second. The girl’s sister took the window seat. The guy sat next to her. Kelvin knew the beautiful girl would be seated before the young couple. He would have the perfect view of her and her of him. On the one hand, he’d have a pretty face to look at during the ride.
On the other hand, what if she caught him staring? What would he say? What would she say? Then, there she was, approaching down the aisle. Her face was as serious as ever. If she were a cartoon, her character would blow smoke out of her nose.
He gave a quick, innocent smile, but it was in vain because she still looked angry. Feeling the rush of embarrassment running through him, Kelvin looked down before rotating his head to stare out the window.
Suddenly, to his surprise, he could see the beautiful girl stopped short of her sister from the corner of his eye. Her eyes quickly glanced over at Kelvin, then back to her sister. Instead of sitting with her sister, she slid in and took the window seat before Kelvin’s bags to ride with the nice boy who gave up his seat to the older woman.
Her sister said to her from across the aisle, “Are you sure you wanna play it like this?”
“Yeah,” the girl replied without looking at her sister.
The girl was upset about something. Kelvin noticed her eyeballing his backpack and baseball bag occupying the window seat directly across from her. He felt confused but chose to remain quiet.
“You know, I don’t even know why you’re making a big deal about this,” her sister said.
The girl didn’t bother replying to her sister. She quickly directed an annoyed look at Kelvin.
“Hi. Do you mind keeping me company during this trip?” The girl asked Kelvin. “My sister and this dude are going to be talking a lot of shit, and I don’t wanna be in the middle of it. I could sit here silent, but then I’d be forced to listen to their shit. So, do you mind talking to me?… What’s your name, by the way?” Her voice was soft yet firm.
Kelvin’s eyes quickly rolled over toward the girl’s sister. Her sister sucked her teeth and crossed her arms. Now locking eyes with this beautiful girl, Kelvin replied.
“Kelvin. My name is Kelvin. What’s yours?”
“Analis.”
“Nice to meet you, Analis.”
“Nice to meet you too, Kelvin.”
Analis’s sister’s boyfriend spoke from across the aisle, “You’re immature.”
“Excuse me. I’m having a conversation,” Analis replied with more base in her voice.
Everyone sat in awkward silence as passengers occupied their seats. Soon after, the train started to move.
Through the first hour of the ride, Analis and Kelvin small-talked. Their topics were their current residence, ages, and what each other was listening to in their headphones. Analis listened to reggaeton, while Kelvin listened to hip-hop. Finally, Kelvin learned that Analis’s mother was Dominican, her father was Puerto Rican, and she was a seventeen-year-old senior attending Classical High School in the heart of Providence, Rhode Island.
Throughout their school conversation, there was a particular interest in Analis on why Kelvin was a junior and not a senior like herself.
“It’s cause of my birthday…My birthday is in October after the school year starts. So, I started school one year behind in Miami,” Kelvin explained.
“Miami?”
“Yeah. We moved around a lot because of my father.”
“Oh… and the baseball bag?” Analis gestured to Kelvin’s bags by slightly nodding her head toward the direction of his bag.
“Oh, I was playing in a baseball tournament.”
“Did you win?”
“Lost the championship game.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“It’s okay. I was a fill-in. I have a game tomorrow.”
Analis smirked. It wasn’t a smirk like she heard something funny. It was one of those smirks that people make when they realize something was said that has gone over their heads.
“Wait, who decides to fill in for a tournament before he has to play for his team the next day?” Analis asked.
“I do.” Kelvin flashed a smile. It was the first confident smile he flashed while conversing with Analis. “I love baseball. It’s what I do.”
Analis had the eerie feeling of a set of eyeballs on her. Despite discretely arguing with one another, Analis’s sister and her boyfriend have been glancing over at Analis. Analis had been so preoccupied with her music and her conversation with Kelvin that she hadn’t realized the glances at her until now. Kelvin quickly noticed the discomfort on her face and wasn’t sure what to say or do. This beauty was a stranger to him. He’d been having an experience one only sees in a movie, and he didn’t want to do anything to mess this up. Now, the problem was that Analis’s mood was about to change. He didn’t want that to happen.
“Do you mind if I sit next to you?” Kelvin asked.
He felt stupid for asking because Analis seemed to have sudden hesitation. Her eyes widened slightly, her lips suddenly appeared dry, and she straightened herself up in her seat. Damn, why did I think I could be some cool guy here. Kelvin was about to take back his offer, but to his surprise, Analis nodded.
“Yeah. Sure.”
Kelvin felt a pang in his chest. It was a good pang. A pang that could be described as feeling happy when the girl you wanted to ask out to prom says yes. Still surprised, Kelvin tentatively rose and scooted out of his seat, glancing across the aisle toward Anais’s sister and her boyfriend. They were still bickering in a lower, angry whisper as their gaze transitioned toward Kelvin. Analis was quietly surprised at Kelvin’s skinny-ish but wide frame as he stood in the middle of the aisle. To her, he appeared to be on the far shorter side as he sat in front of her. With Kelvin standing up, she could see he was pleasantly taller than her. Although slimmer than the average junior and senior high school athletes, he was cute. It’s funny what height does to a boy.
Kelvin scooted in and sat beside Analis, now feeling her older sister’s gaze. He slightly turned left and stared out the window of the moving train. Analis did the same. Her scent mesmerized Kelvin, smelling fresh with a hint of coconut. Kelvin didn’t know if the scent was coming from her hair or body lotion, but he loved how she smelled.
“Can I ask you a question?… Is that your sister sitting next to that guy?”
“Yeah,” Analis replied.
“What up with her and that guy?”
Analis broke her gaze away from the window and met Kelvin’s eyes. She could make out the brown in his dark eyes.
“That’s her boyfriend. I saw him trying to kick it to another girl. My grandmother once told me that if you see something, it’s best to keep it to yourself because you won’t like the result nine out of ten times.”
Kelvin knew what that meant. “You told her, she forgave him, and now you look like the asshole.”
“Yeah. It’s a shame, too, because she doesn’t really know what she wants.”
“And what do you want, Analis?”
“For starters, not someone who’s for everybody.”
There was something about the way she talked. Maybe it was the hint of the inner-city Spanish accent or the honesty in her voice. Kelvin didn’t know what it was, but it was there in how she spoke. Precise. Truthful. Deep. Unlike anyone else. Familiar – impossibly so.
“I feel you,” Kelvin said, trying not to accept that this may be love at first sight after hearing her laugh, watching her smile, and going through almost every emotion during the trip.
Throughout the rest of the trip, Kelvin and Analis learned more about each other. Likes, dislikes, home life, hobbies. She had learned Kelvin played varsity baseball for Metropolitan West High. Not only was his older brother a senior, starting shortstop for Central High in Providence, with multiple college offers already, but he was Kelvin’s Irish twin, ten months and a half older. Being a shortstop himself, he knew he’d never see playing time playing on his brother’s team. So, he used his father’s address in Cranston to be able to play and start for a somewhat rival school.
Analis was an honor student and the youngest of four. Her mother was a secretarial clerk in judicial courthouses, and her father was a lieutenant in the Providence Fire Department. Although she wasn’t involved in sports like the girls Kelvin knew back home, Analis knew precisely what she wanted to do. She wanted to study sports medicine. To Kelvin’s disappointment, Analis was in a situation-ship that she was thinking of ending and didn’t feel right about giving Kelvin her phone number. At least not yet.
Disappointment struck when their ride came to an end. After gathering their travel bags, Kelvin and Analis slowly exited the train station to Gaspee St in Providence, Rhode Island. Gaspee St. was located between the train station, the State House, and the city’s largest Mall, just outside Downtown. Usually, this street was a traffic nightmare. But at this hour, 1:15 in the morning, the place was a ghost town with only a couple dozen cars parked outside. Analis's sister and her boyfriend were ten yards ahead, crossing the street to meet their ride on the State House side of Gaspee St.
Kelvin spotted his father’s car a few cars behind Analis’s ride.
“So, it was nice meeting you, Analis.”
“It was nice meeting you too… Good luck in your game tomorrow.”
Kelvin flashed a quick smile. “Thank you… If we never see each other again-“
“Then I look forward to reading about you or watching you on SportsCenter,” she interjected. She met his eyes with hers and felt something funny. What was happening? She anticipated his response and decided to speak up again. “If we ever meet again, let’s just hope I’m not treating you for any injury.”
Kelvin smiled again. “You take care of yourself, Analis Ruiz.”
“You too, Kelvin Machado.”
If you want to read more, you can purchase this book, Baseball & A Girl on Amazon and at Barnes and Nobles