ON THE LAST DAY OF SUMMER CAMP IN AUGUST, WE PUT on a talent show for the parents. Grandmaster Huan pretended to be a feeble old man with a cane. Ninja Cripple, we called him. When Chief Master Paulson attacked, Grandmaster Huan redirected the punch with his cane, whacked Paulson on the head, and then hooked the cane around the back of Paulson's knee and scooped it sideways so he fell spectacularly. The kids died laughing.
For my talent, I demonstrated breaking blocks of concrete with a hammer-fist punch (it's all about gravity and visualizing the impact beforehand), and then I showed how to throw a guy who's twice your size. After the first volunteer, none of the other dads raised their hands to be my next victim.
Taylor cheered the loudest. "That's my teacher!" she yelled to her mom. She told me she'd be signing up for the fall session, and she gave me a friendship bracelet she had made herself, embroidered with all the colors of the belts.
Shelly thought it was hysterical that the kids had to call me ma'am.
"It makes you sound like an old woman. What if you become a grandmaster?" she asked.
I giggled. "Then I'll be Grand Ma'am."
"Ma'ammary Master."
"Haus Frau Fu."
"Kung Fu is Japanese, not Korean," she pointed out.
"So?"
"So I thought you hated it when people confused the two. But fine. Spinster Sensei."
"That's Japanese, not Korean."
"That's what I just said!" she protested.
"Holy fuh, Shelly, you just totally insulted my style of martial arts." (That's the closest my friends and I come to "fuck." I don't remember which one of us started it.)
"Shut up." She laughed and pretended to kick me in the butt.
After the talent show, we drove across the border to Indiana, just because it was a starry night and we wanted to see it from someplace else. We zipped past the city, past Lake Michigan and the big Coca-Cola sign that writes itself in cursive, a letter at a time. We put one foot in each state and wondered where all the cornfields went.
We sat on the hood of Shelly's car and gazed up at the wide-open sky.
"Are we doing goals this year?" she asked.
"Definitely," I said, hopping down and grabbing some napkins and a pen from inside the car. "I'll type them up at home."
Every August, right before the first day of school, we made a checklist for the year and then held on to the other person's so we could mark off the goals once they came true.
"You start," she said.
"Okay. I want to hold a demo next week at school. Grandmaster Huan said if I get ten students to sign up for lessons, he'll give me six months free. And for the demo I get to choose the music, the routines, everything."
"Oooh, I'll make posters," Shelly said, which was awesome because she knew how to make them in 3-D, with several layers of letters popping out and intertwining with each other.
"Yay, thanks. What's your first goal?" I asked, pen poised.
"This year I'm quitting Spectator."
"Groan. You say that every year," I teased.
"I mean it this time. You have to come with me when I tell Mr. Andrews so I don't chicken out."
"I'll stand behind you and, like, glower in the background."
"Yes, be my enforcer! Wear your black belt."
"What are you gonna tell him?" I asked.
"The truth. I have to focus on dance if I want a scholarship."
"I'll totally come with you," I promised.
"Next goal," she said.
"Um, I want to get my license so I can drive myself to competitions. Next."
We went back and forth for a while until Shelly got quiet.
"I have an unrelated goal," she said, twirling a strand of hair between her fingers.
I was confused. "Unrelated?"
"Like, a personal life goal."
I rolled my eyes. "Homecoming?" Neither of us had ever cared about school dances before. "Are you turning into Hannah and DJ?"
"No." Shelly paused, looked down, and then looked back up. "Sex."
I was totally thrown. "What, just like zero to sixty? No kissing first?"
"Of course kissing. Not hooker sex! Jeez. Just … I want to have sex. That's one of my goals. I'm not saying it's going to happen this year; it's just a goal."
"Um, okay." I frowned but added it to her list.
There wasn't much to say after that. I probably should've asked if she had anyone in mind. I probably should have asked a million things, but I didn't.
On the drive home, I told her I wanted to open a martial arts school one day, and she told me she had an audition coming up for Manhattan Dance Company, Juniors Program. I figured everything was back to normal.
Monday morning. Three days since the diner. I wake up drenched in sweat, gasping for air.
I feel like a goblin came in the window while I was asleep and cut my chest open and replaced my heart. I just don't know what he replaced it with yet.
Whatever it is, whoever's it is, it's not mine. It's severely malformed; it's hard and tight and heavy, a compact nodule that spasms uncontrollably. There's a steel trap clamped around it, holding it in place so it can never escape. I can't tear it out, but I want it gone.
The phone rings at 6 a.m. It's Grandmaster Huan, calling from Korea, which is fourteen hours ahead. He's been there all month for his daughter's wedding. Mom answers and tells him I'm asleep, even though she sees me coming down the stairs when she says this.
"Why'd you tell him I was sleeping?" I ask after she hangs up.
She clears her throat. "He'll be back in a week. You can talk to him in person then."
She says I can stay home from school, and she stays home from work again, even though I tell her she doesn't need to. Hunter brings me my homework, but I don't even look at it.
Tuesday morning Hunter offers to drive me, but I'd rather walk. I forget to wear my coat, so Mom comes running out behind me.
On the way to school I see billboards for three different movies and a video game:
A woman in a bikini, holding a handgun behind her back
A man kicking down a door and firing a sawed-off shotgun
A man dropping out of a helicopter and aiming a machine gun
Two people pointing sniper rifles off a building
When I get to school, I have to pass the display case filled with sports trophies and team photos. Hunter's photo is up there twice, MVP awards for baseball and lacrosse, his dimple on full display.
The last four issues of the Glenview High Spectator are also tacked up. One of them is about my Tae Kwon Do demonstration, which was last month but feels like a million years ago now. My picture's on the cover, an action shot. I've left the ground and I'm hovering in the air, my hair blown back dramatically, right leg extended, the exact instant the ball of my foot smashed through three boards. A BLACK BELT IN OUR MIDST! reads the headline.
I cringe, barely recognizing myself. The girl in the photo looks like she could handle anything.
The hallway fills up with faces of every color, all of us not-quite-Chicagoans living on the edge of the city. Glenview is somewhere between suburban and urban. Robberies and vandalism happen sometimes, but a shooting is still a rare event, and I hear people whispering about me—about what happened at the diner. I know it isn't paranoia. When I look at their faces, mashing and mawing, their mouths go into slo-mo and their lips form the words "Im-o-gen" and "Did you hear?"
When time returns to normal speed, Gretchen's there, her hand on my shoulder. Her hand feels firm and guiding, and I wonder what it'd be like to be one of her little sisters. Better than being Hunter's sister.
Her hair is curled and sprayed, her makeup impeccable. Did she spend all morning using her curling iron? That's either amazing or psycho. I haven't dragged a comb through my hair in days.
"I called you a hundred times this weekend," she says in a low voice. "Why didn't you call me back?"
I figured she just wanted an excuse to talk to Hunter, but right now it's obvious that's not true, and I feel stupid. "Sorry. I didn't call anyone back."
Every sentence I utter now begins with "Sorry."
"And why are you telling people you called the cops?" she says. "That's not what happened."
Dozens of eyes find me. The bell hasn't rung yet. I should have taken my time walking, should've waited till the last possible second before grabbing stuff from my locker.
"She hid under the table," Gretchen explains to the crowd. "It was really brave. I probably would've started screaming."
She actually thinks she's doing me a favor.
I close my eyes, utterly humiliated, and try to breathe.
A hand on my shoulder. Gretchen again. I open my eyes and let her blurred face come into focus. "Are you okay?" she asks.
Before I can answer, Hannah and DJ emerge from a different packed hallway, either coming to my rescue to lie on my behalf, without realizing they're lying, or to join the condemnation. Either way I don't want them to reach me. I turn my back and start digging all of my books and notebooks out of my locker, frantically gathering a pile in my arms.
The bell rings and the crowd breaks up. I turn around and bump into Hannah.
"What the fuh? Why'd you tell us you were in the bathroom?" she asks gently. Hannah's brow is wrinkled in confusion, and her eyes are moony and sympathetic, ready to pull the truth out of me. Or so she thinks. Some other kids hang back, their necks straining, waiting to hear my loser explanation.
How can I explain it was just easier? That if I'd told them anything but a lie they'd have said things I don't want to hear, that I can't hear, in soft, downy voices that would make me want to cry?
DJ hugs me. "We're just happy you're alive. But why didn't you tell us what really happened?"
"Because I didn't want to talk about it with you," I explode. "I just wanted you guys to leave, to stop breathing down my neck! And maybe because I didn't want to spend the next six hours analyzing why Philip didn't kiss you, okay? I had more important things on my mind."
DJ looks like I slapped her, and I feel stunned as well when I turn and walk away.
I didn't mean to say any of those things, and I don't understand how they poured out of me without my consent.
First period is a freebie.
Second period English is when it starts.
Grant Binetti takes the seat behind me and pokes me in the back, hard, in the shoulder blade.
When I turn around, he puts on an innocent expression like he didn't do anything. I swallow and face front. He pokes me in the other shoulder blade, harder.
"Knock it off," I hiss.
"I'm just curious," he says to no one in particular. "What's the point of having a black belt if you don't do anything during a robbery?"
There are a few guffaws and a "Damn," and a bunch of murmurs as people consult one another. ("What's he talking about?" "You didn't hear?" etc.) Someone, I'll never know who, comes to my defense. "He had a gun, asshole."
"It's like one of those decoy cars," Grant continues. "You know, where they stick a cop car by the highway but there's no one inside? That's probably how Gretchen felt. She thought she was safe, having a black belt with her, but she's the one who had to call the cops."
I know why he's doing this. We all know why he's doing this. At my demo the first week of school, he heckled me from the audience, so I called him up onstage and let him make a fool of himself. Still, just because I know why he's doing it doesn't make his words any less true.
"You're right," I whisper. "I agree with you."
Grant's eyes narrow suspiciously and he has no retort, until after fifth period, when I discover a copy of the Spectator taped to my locker. In response to the headline A BLACK BELT IN OUR MIDST! someone's written in the margins: "Liar," "Lame," and of course the catchall phrase, perfect for any occasion, "Bitch."
It hurts, but I don't know why; the words are laughably tame compared with what I've been thinking about myself for the past seventy-two hours. Doesn't Grant know there's nothing in the world he can write or say that will make me feel worse than I already do?
There were hints and warning signs long before this. I'm not a complete idiot; some of the stuff we learned from Grandmaster Huan was never going to be useful. It was taught only because it'd always been taught, because it was a challenging exercise, because it made sense in olden days, or because it looked cool, like Tiger Stance.
I might be small, but I'm athletic and toned. When I'm in the groove, spinning and kicking during class, I glow; I'm a power conductor, I'm electric impulses, I look like I really could beat the crap out of people. And maybe I can; but when we spar, we have to abide by certain rules. No hitting above the neck. No fighting before you hear "Charyot" ("ready position") and "Joon-bi" ("begin"). There's bowing and protective padding and tapping out so the other person knows to stop.
Real life doesn't have a whistle and Charyot and Joon-bi and bowing and protective padding and tapping out.
Why did I think it did?
When I get home from school, Mom and Dad have an update for me. The cashier's out of the hospital, recovering from surgery, and the gunman's funeral is scheduled for next week. It'll be a private ceremony—probably because of the condition of the body.
The cops don't need me to come back in, at least not yet, but they dropped off some info on counseling services. Mom also got a call from Principal Simmons, who told her they have a specialist coming in part-time from another district who I can talk to during school if I want. Mom thinks it's a good idea.
I sort of tune her out, though, because baseball play-offs are on and Dad's acting like himself again, hooking up the new TV (it's a tax write-off for him, since he writes about sports). He's sprawled on the floor like he's repairing a car—but he can't quite bend the right way to reach under the speakers.
I don't like watching him struggle like that, so I head to the kitchen for some water. When I get back, he's sitting on the couch, tray on his lap, eating a blueberry Toaster Strudel, complete with icing. Why do we even have those in the house?
While the national anthem plays, Dad draws a C for the Cubs on his Toaster Strudel with the icing, holding it up for me to see.
"One day," he says. "Just you wait."
"In my lifetime, hopefully," I add. I take the other Toaster Strudel off his tray so he can't eat both of them, and I draw a Y for the Yankees on mine. I squish the tart until something pretending it was once a blueberry oozes out. Blue and white, perfect. With my nail I draw a slash over the Y.
"Excellent idea," says Dad. "Voodoo."
Doesn't matter who's playing the Yanks, we always root for the other guys.
We settle in for the game, our feet up, and I let myself relax. From my peripheral vision, Dad's wheelchair in the corner isn't so different from his easy chair, so for a moment everything feels familiar, the same as last year's play-offs, before he got diagnosed with diabetes.
But then he drops the remote and the batteries pop out, scattering under the couch.
I can't bear to watch him get down on the floor again and flounder around for them, so I dart down and pick them up and pop them smoothly back into place.
