21. Fall the Sword

“In the application of your principles you must be like the pancratiast, not like the gladiator; for the gladiator lets fall the sword which he uses and is killed; but the other always has his hand, and needs to do nothing else than use it.” —Marcus Aurelius

The white uniform, the crisp, starchy jacket, the floppy pants, the black belt—it reminded Jen of a karate movie. But she supposed that when Rob’s teacher was wearing it, it was a taekwondo uniform.

Even in this new set of clothes, Jen recognized the man easily enough, first because of his distinctive eyeglasses, and second because he was the only Asian person she had seen during the entire week she had spent in North Middleton, aside from a few students on the campus.

“Master Park,” said Rob. “This is Jen.”

“Nice to meet you formally,” said Master Park, extending his hand between the bars of the gate to shake hers.

“Do you mind if we watch the class?” Rob asked. “We’ll stay back here, so we don’t distract anybody.”

Jen wondered why the men would be distracted by Rob, but then remembered that it was she who would be the distraction. Despite her recent run-in with the paparazzi, she had felt invisible all day, her first day alone in a town where she didn’t know anybody at all. Even if people recognized her, none of them would notice if she had a heart attack in the house or drowned in the lake; no one would come looking for her. Not knowing anybody is like not existing, she thought.

“Anyone can watch through the gate,” said Master Park, turning his back. “No permission required.”

“Thanks,” Rob called after his teacher, who was already walking towards a group of students who Jen could hear conversing inside the courtyard, although they weren’t visible to her.

It was a decidedly poor vantage point. They could only see a few of the students at a time, easy to spot in their bright yellow jumpsuits, through the small break in the branches. Jen wished that she could have come inside the courtyard, where she could see the entire class at once. She was curious about how many people were in the class, and their ages, which she couldn’t discern at this distance, and most importantly, whether they were all, as it appeared from the small but ever-changing sample in her range of vision, men.

Rob narrated the class as they watched, their heads bowed close together, peering through the bars of the fence.

“First they stretch,” he said, and sure enough, the men were bending over one leg, the other leg, the center. In their sunny yellow outfits, the flexible men looked like graceful flowers, folding into themselves as though closing their petals for the night. Jen could see a couple of other men struggling to bend forward, looking more like rusty door hinges that didn’t want to bend.

“Do you wear that yellow thing?” asked Jen, wondering if it were some kind of taekwondo uniform. The bright color wouldn’t do much for his olive complexion, Jen thought disapprovingly.

“I used to,” he said.

“Oh,” said Jen, confused. She mustered up all of her limited martial arts knowledge. “Is it like a belt? Did you move up to a different color?” It made sense to force the beginning students to wear that horrible yellow, she thought; it would be a good incentive to improve. She wondered what color outfit he wore. Black, she supposed, since he had been doing it so long. That would look nice on him. Or maybe white, like the pants and jacket Master Park was wearing.

“What?” he asked, sounding startled. Then he laughed. “Oh, no, it’s not for taekwondo. Those are the Snail coveralls. Everyone in the plant wears them.”

“I didn’t see anyone else wearing them,” said Jen, feeling stupid now for her mistake.

“Anyone else where?” he asked. “Have you seen any other people around here?”

Come to think of it, she hadn’t. Both times she walked the grounds of the Snail Plant, it had been a barren ghost town. Within this courtyard, hidden behind rows of shrubs and tree branches and iron bars, was the only sign of human life she had encountered within miles of the plant, apart from the people she came here with. That’s what so creepy about this place, she realized, wondering why she hadn’t noticed it before—no one on the streets or sidewalks.

“No,” she said.

The men had finished stretching. Now they were doing what seemed to be an endless series of jumping jacks. Jen felt out of breath just watching them.

“There are tunnels between all the buildings, underground,” he said. “It keeps people from having to walk outside in the winter.”

“But it’s not…” said Jen. Rob interrupted her before she could point out the obvious: that it was a beautiful spring day, the kind of day that would motivate someone to take an extra-long walk outside for no good reason at all.

“You’re not allowed to wear the coveralls outside the plant,” he said. “So no one walks outside. Everybody enters at the employee parking garage, which is probably a mile from here, and then they get on moving walkways underground.”

“Why can’t they wear them outside?” Jen asked.

Rob didn’t answer her question; instead, he pointed his finger through the bars. The men were doing what looked like a violent little dance, stepping rhythmically and kicking in the air.

“Look,” he said. “Hyeong.”

“Huh?” she asked. The men were lined up and moving in formation now, like fighter jets. They walked to one side, punched, kicked, moved to the other side, punched and kicked again.

“Those are forms,” he said.

“Oh,” said Jen, who had no idea what he was talking about. It looked like some kind of practice fighting, like that stuff men did all alone in a field at sunrise in kung fu movies. Spartan, lean men with plain, functional clothing and ponytails; Jen could envision the scene exactly, although she couldn’t remember having actually watched a movie like that.

“Do any women do this?” Jen asked.

“Of course,” said Rob, his indignant tone suggesting that this was a ridiculous question. Then he suddenly seemed to recognize the motivation for her inquiry. As the students moved first left, then forward, then right, the leafy window revealed a few of the yellow jumpsuits at a time, and then a few more, and then a few more—all inhabited by men.

“Oh,” he said, as though conceding a point. “Well, mostly the young women do. There aren’t too many older women who keep up with it.”

Jen wrinkled her nose and let out a resentful harrumph, presuming that by “older,” he meant something around her own age, the age of adults who would work in a factory.

“You know what I mean,” he said. “They get married and have kids, and usually if anyone keeps training after that, it’s the husbands.”

Jen expressed her dissatisfaction with this attempted defense by remaining silent. The space between the trees was empty now, but Jen could still hear the men talking quietly. She wondered if class was over.

“It’s not just the women; a lot of the men quit, too. Anyway, not a lot of women work for Snail. The testosterone runs pretty high in there.”

As if to illustrate this point, two of the men came flying out into the clearing, one’s foot arching through the air, the other backing up so that the foot missed his nose by a few inches.

“Oh my god,” Jen gasped, startled.

“That’s not as bad as it looks,” said Rob quickly. “It’s just point sparring. They don’t kick very hard. The ground is concrete so you don’t want to fall on it.”

“No, I guess not,” said Jen, as the first two men moved out of her range of vision and two other men appeared, engaged in almost the same motions as the first two, the retreating man leaning back to avoid the advancing man’s foot.

“Do they just kick each other in the head?” Jen asked.

“No, in the stomach and legs,” said Rob matter-of-factly.

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Jen asked.

“No,” said Rob. “Worst case, you break your nose or your rib.”

Jen lowered a hand defensively to her own right rib, which was still tender if she poked at it. She remembered how easily it had snapped, without her even realizing what had happened. She wondered if the men’s ribs were much stronger than hers, or if they just didn’t actually get kicked very often. After all, of the two kicks she had seen so far in this class, neither one had reached its target.

Jen and Rob watched the men kicking each other in the head, and, as promised, in the stomach and legs as well for another fifteen minutes or so. She saw a few of the kicks actually connect with the men’s heads or stomachs, but, once they landed, Jen understood Rob’s point; the kicks that looked so aggressive flying through the air seemed to lose their power just at the moment of impact, bouncing cheerily off their targets like friendly slaps on the back. Maybe this wasn’t so scary, Jen thought, although she still wouldn’t want one of those kicks to hit her healing rib.

Finally Jen heard men’s voices joking and laughing all at once, and it appeared that the class was over. “Let’s wait for Master Park,” said Rob. The teacher appeared at the gate a moment later, now in jeans and a t-shirt, carrying a stuffed messenger bag strapped across his chest. He unlatched something that Jen couldn’t see inside of the gate and swung it open.

Rob let out a gasp. “You’re leaving by the gate?” he asked with exaggerated incredulity.

“Don’t tell,” Master Park replied, closing it quickly behind him. He turned to Jen, and said, “I can’t stand those stupid tunnels.” He turned back to look at Rob. “Tea?” he asked.

“I need to take Jen home,” said Rob, turning towards her. “Unless you want to come have some tea. Are you done here? I’m sorry, you didn’t get to see much at all.”

I saw exactly what I came to see, Jen thought, but she couldn’t say it aloud. “I’ll come back again,” she said. “I’ve got lots of time.”

Rob drove the three of them back into town, Jen sitting quietly in the back while the two men talked about classes and belts and fighting in the front seats. She had almost fallen asleep when they reached their destination, an ornate building near the university. It had the deep red walls and squat, bento-box shape that Jen associated with suburban Chinese restaurants.

“This is the only decent place to get tea in North Middleton,” said Rob, as he held open the tall, enameled door.

“Owned by my student,” said Master Park, walking into the dark, windowless room heavy with decorative linens and tapestries on the walls.

A cheerful-looking teenager was waiting to great them, but he was interrupted by a long-haired man with a blond beard and a Chinese-style suit who rushed from the back of the tea house to greet them with a small bow. “Master Park,” he said. “You want your regular table?”

“Thank you, Ken,” said Master Park, following the blond man towards the back of the restaurant, with Rob and Jen walking behind them.

Even though it was mid-afternoon, the restaurant was packed with students, identifiable not only by their youth but by the open textbooks and notepads that they had scattered across their tables. It seemed odd to Jen that they would come to a restaurant to study; then again, as she walked between the tables, she noticed that most of them held no food but only large pots of tea. A few of the students had snacks on their tables, small plates of dumplings or little Chinese tea cakes. Some were not studying but catching up with friends over their tea and food, speaking in rapid, over-caffeinated streams of words, as though they had far too much to cover during such a short event as a lunch date.

As Master Park walked by, all of the students looked up from their homework to greet him cheerfully. Choruses of “Hi Master Park” awaited him at each table from athletic-looking young adults. Master Park smiled and waved silently at each table, beaming down proudly at the students.

“All my students,” he said, as they arrived at a table at the very back of the restaurant, and Ken handed them each a menu. “So good, they study all the time.”

Jen wasn’t sure whether she should open the menu in her hand. She was starving after her long walk and minimal lunch; still, she didn’t want to be the one who suggested getting some food with their tea. She always felt nervous eating around men, especially ones she didn’t know very well. She looked hopefully at Rob and Master Park. If they ordered Chinese food, it would be served family style, and she could eat some without having to choose anything for herself. But if they put the menus down and just ordered tea, she would just have to eat later on; there was no way she was going to request food if they didn’t want any.

She was relieved to see both of the men open their menus. She opened her own menu and began to glance distractedly over the pages. She was too tired to focus well, and she wasn’t intending to order anything, but still, some vegetables would be nice.

She flipped through the pages, remembering that Chinese menus normally relegated the vegetarian dishes to the back. Something seemed strange about the menu; she didn’t recognize anything on it. She saw a page that seemed to be all Chinese words, written out in English letters: tie guan yin, shui xian, dahongpao.

She looked at the top of the page, which said “China.” What kind of menu is this, she wondered. She flipped to the front page of the menu, where the name of the restaurant read “Camellia Teahouse.”

So this wasn’t a restaurant at all, Jen thought, a little amused at her own disappointment; normally, when she wasn’t quite so famished, she liked tea places much more than restaurants, with their heavy, unhealthy food and everyone judging her order and appetite.

She wondered why she had thought it was a restaurant. It’s the building, she decided. A tea place in Los Angeles would never look like this. For starters, it would be called a tea bar, to show that it was a fun and hip place to be. Also, everything in the tea bar would be light-colored and translucent, lots of glass bricks and wide windows, the exact opposite of the dark wood and windowless walls surrounding her. A tea bar, she realized, catered to people just like her, people who wanted their food and drink to be light, airy, disembodied. That would make a pretty small customer base in the Midwest, Jen thought. Instead, this tea house seemed to cater to—she looked around at the patrons again—college-aged martial arts students.

This is a strange place, thought Jen. She had a lot to learn.

A young waiter, who looked like he had probably been culled from the regular clientele, appeared at the side of the table. “Hi Master Park!” he said, enthusiastically.

“Hi Chad,” said Master Park. Then he turned to look at Jen across the round table. “You like green tea?” he asked her.

“Sure,” said Jen. Actually she hadn’t drunk green tea in years. She remembered it tasting bitter, like raw leaves. She wasn’t about to argue, though. She had just been about to accept whatever food they ordered, so she could certainly accept their choice of tea. Still, she had been hoping for a nice, bracing cup of black tea; that would be perfect right now.

Master Park grabbed Rob’s menu from the table and lifted Jen’s from her hands. “Sencha,” he said to the waiter.

“Yes, Master Park” said the waiter. “Anything else?”

Jen waited, hoping he would order one of the snacks that she had seen on the other customers’ tables. She wondered where they were in the menu. She hadn’t seen anything listed that sounded like food.

”Not right now, thanks,” he replied, handing the menus to the waiter, who bowed and retreated back to the kitchen as Jen sat watching, helpless to stop this refusal of sustenance.

“So,” said Master Park, crossing his hands on the table in front of him. “How did you two meet?”

Relieved at the distraction from her hunger, Jen recounted the story of her afternoon. She felt shy, but she was happy to have something concrete to talk about. She described the reporters and photographers factually, without making any mention of why they were following her.

While she talked, the waiter returned with two teapots and three small cups. He placed a transparent glass pot on the table, then filled it with steaming water from a stainless steel one. Through the glass, Jen could see the water turning a pale celery color as it softened the tea leaves.

The most exuberant part of her narrative was Rob’s heroic deflection of the reporter in the produce section. “He just started walking towards the guy,” said Jen. “And the reporter just backed out of the store, like someone was pushing him.”

Master Park lifted the tea pot and poured tea into the three little cups. He passed one to Rob and another to Jen. He pulled his own cup close in front of him and wrapped both hands around it, as though warming them on a cold night.

“Robert is my top student,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice. Jen looked over at Rob, and thought that his face appeared a bit flushed, although it might have just been from the hot tea or the dim lighting.

“Everyone in this town is scared of him,” Master Park said. "People who don’t know him are scared of him, just from looking at him. They can feel his energy and they know not to mess with him.”

“Master Park,” said Rob, now clearly embarrassed and trying to interrupt him.

“Shush, shush,” said Master Park, waving his hand dismissively at Rob. “Your modesty is not necessary.”

Rob didn’t say anything, but Jen could hear him exhale loudly through his nose, like a secret sigh with no accompanying facial expression.

Then, perhaps to spare Rob any further embarrassment, Master Park changed the subject. “Are the yellow belts ready for Saturday?” he asked Rob.

“They seem pretty strong,” said Rob. He turned to Jen, and, by way of explanation, said, “Belt test.”

Jen tried to listen as they talked, quietly sipping her green tea. It actually tasted pretty good, she thought. Still like leaves, but in a clean, astringent way that reminded her of lemon even without lemon in it. It was hard to pay attention, with so many words she did not understand—in Korean, she guessed—and other words that were in English but meant nothing to her, words that seemed to describe kicks and punches.

She watched Rob make a punching gesture with his hand to demonstrate some move he was concerned about. What if he had turned out to be a kidnapper, she thought? He could have killed her with his bare hands without breaking a sweat. The most dangerous man in North Middleton, and she just hops in the car with him, no questions asked. She never would have taken a ride from a stranger in Los Angeles. Stupid, she chastised herself. Alone in this new town, with no one looking out for her, safety was more important than ever.

Master Park turned towards her suddenly. “You’re very quiet,” he said. “What are you thinking about?”

“I’d like to come to your school,” said Jen. Once again, she did not recognize her own intentions until she heard herself say them aloud. It was becoming a daily occurrence, and she wondered briefly what it meant, and why she was so lacking in self-knowledge.

Master Park took a small sip of his tea and held it in his mouth for a long moment before swallowing it. “Why?” he asked, bluntly, his question sounding more rhetorical than inquisitive.

Jen hesitated. So I can fight off kidnappers, she thought, but she didn’t want to say it that way in front of Rob, who she feared might take it personally.

“For your health?” asked Master Park, taking another sip of his tea.

Rather than try to explain her thoughts, Jen opted for the expected answer, her old habit for avoiding confrontation. She nodded passively in agreement.

“Humph,” growled the teacher, dismissively, slamming his empty cup decisively on the table. “That’s a bad reason. Taekwondo is terrible for your health.”

“Really?” Jen blurted out incredulously, surprised to be hearing this from the teacher. She looked over at Rob, who was rolling his eyes ever so subtly upward, as though he had heard some version of this conversation many times before.

“Of course,” said the teacher with a cynical, joyless chuckle. “You know people will be kicking you in the face, right?” He laughed again. “Look—broken nose. Broken wrist. Broken rib.” He pointed at the injured parts of his body as he named them. “Torn ACL. Two knee surgeries.” He tapped his head with one finger. “Four concussions.”

“Oh,” said Jen, unsure whether she was supposed to express some kind of sympathy or act impressed. “Well, I don’t know if I want to be fighting.” She had watched the men in the courtyard; most of what they were doing didn’t seem like it would cause her to break anything. She wasn’t sure what the next step up in intensity and danger would be after that, but she figured she’d stop before she reached it.

“Everybody fights,” said the teacher. “You’re not going to study and not fight.” Before Jen had a chance to respond, he said, “Now you know, you won’t do taekwondo for your health, okay?”

“Okay,” said Jen.

“So,” said the teacher, scanning his eyes over Jen’s body. “What are you doing for your health? You look very unhealthy.”

She wasn’t sure how to answer. She had actually felt exceptionally healthy during the last month since she had broken her rib. She had been eating more, putting on a little weight, getting lots of sunshine and fresh air. She knew she must look bedraggled at the moment, and perhaps a little sunburned, she thought, lifting her hand to the back of her neck, which was warm.

“You’re too skinny and pale. Somebody kicks you, you’re going to break in half.” He thought for a moment, putting his hand over his mouth and narrowing his eyes. “Hmm…You eat meat?” he asked.

Again, she didn’t know what to say. She didn’t prefer to eat meat, although she wasn’t technically a vegetarian. She avoided red meat in particular, which always made her feel like she had overeaten, even if she ate just a little bit of it. But she had been expecting Rob and Master Park to order Chinese food with meat, since that’s what men usually did, and she would have gladly eaten some, if only a very tiny portion.

“If you come to my class, you have to eat meat,” said Master Park. “No vegetarians allowed.”

He paused and squinted at something on the wall above Jen’s head. She turned and saw that the food specials for the day were posted on an erasable whiteboard above her head.

“I’m going to order food,” he said.

“Good, I’m starving,” said Rob. “Get noodles.”

Master Park called the waiter over and placed an order: noodles with spicy beef, pork dumplings, and crispy green onion pancakes. Jen saw steamed broccoli on the menu, her favorite, but she didn’t dare ask Master Park to order it.

”You’ll come to class tomorrow night,” he said to Jen, when the waiter had left. “Six thirty, beginner’s class.”

Tomorrow seemed awfully soon; she felt that she wouldn’t be ready yet, although she had no idea what she would need to be ready for exactly. Still, Master Park’s pronouncement sounded confrontational, like a challenge. It’s a dare, she thought, to see if I’m serious. He doesn’t think I’m actually going to show up.

She remembered her last month in Los Angeles, when she had gone to yoga classes twice each day, building the strength and flexibility to do all kinds of poses she never would have thought possible, despite the fact that she was barely eating anything at the time. I’m serious, she thought angrily. This guy has no idea how serious I am.

“Okay, sounds good,” she answered nonchalantly, but she stared confrontationally into Master Park’s eyes as she said it.

Her throat felt a little scratchy as she spoke, and she noticed that she was a little lightheaded. I’d better not get sick, she thought, because I’m going anyway. Even if she had pneumonia, there was no way she was going to miss that class.

Chapter 22:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2009/04/22-without-my-permission.html

20. Being More Paranoid

“Hannah Arendt says she escaped from Germany by being more paranoid than her friends. She read detective novels. She believed in conspiracies. They said she was crazy, but then Hanna died in 1972 in her own bed.” —Tony Kushner

Once she had finished her muffin and tea, Jen sat for quite a while, staring down at the table. She was supposed to fetch Rob from his cash register so he could give her a ride to the Snail Plant. It had seemed like an appealing idea when he had offered—not having to walk past all those photographers and reporters yelling at her about Bradley reproducing—yet now, faced with the reality of interrupting her benefactor as he worked, Jen felt needy and embarrassed. She considered just surreptitiously walking out on her own to save him the trouble of driving her. It would be good practice for her to ignore the reporters, and good self-discipline to continue with her plan of walking to the Snail Plant. It seemed so far away, though, and she had come so far already. Maybe she would just walk home instead.

Of course, these speculations were silly. There was no way she could sneak out now, having already accepted the offer of a ride. She would never be able to speak to Rob again after that, and he was supposed to be her first friend in North Middleton. But maybe she could go to the register and tell him that he didn’t need to bother, that she would just walk. A ride from him would be a good time to make conversation, but she was exhausted, mentally and physically, and didn’t feel up to the task of making a good first impression.

She slid her book into her backpack and stood up, preparing to go tell Rob something—either that she was ready for her ride or that she did not need a ride, although she hadn’t decided yet which she would say. But before she opened her mouth to speak, his “this lane closed” sign was up and he was pulling his apron over his head, folding it in one quick movement, and tucking it somewhere under the counter.

“Ready,” he said, walking to the door and holding it open for her. All right then, thought Jen; no decision necessary. She thanked him silently for sparing her the awkwardness of having to tell him she was ready to go.

As she walked through the open door, she saw the photographers jump to attention and begin snapping pictures from the sidewalk just past the edge of the co-op’s front yard. Crap, she thought. She usually tried to avoid being photographed with men, because she hated the headlines so much. She could imagine what these ones would say: Jen’s secret flame…The new boyfriend Jen doesn’t want Bradley to know about…Jen’s cashier Casanova. Instinctively, she ducked her chin to her chest so that her face was blocked by the visor of her baseball cap.

Then she remembered her new philosophy of not caring what the photographers and reporters thought. Was she ashamed to be seen with this man who had gallantly come to her rescue twice today, first by chasing the reporters out of the store and now by driving her away from here? Raising her head proudly, she followed Rob down the garden path to the parking lot. The photographers followed them, creeping down the sidewalk sideways like crabs and snapping photographs, until Rob stepped abruptly off the path and began walking towards them, slipping between a metal sculpture of a rosebush and a real, living rosebush covered with pretty yellow roses.

At the sight of him approaching, the photographers scattered, backing off the sidewalk and into the street without even looking out for approaching cars. One man almost dropped his camera, catching it awkwardly in midair and sending some important-looking plastic part bouncing across the pavement.

Again, thought Jen. He just walks towards them and they back away, terrified. She wondered how he did it. That would be a good topic of conversation, she thought. She would need lots of things to talk about during the ride. Even if it only took ten minutes, that would be a long time to sit in awkward silence.

Rob turned his back on the photographers, returned to the path, and continued on towards the parking lot. Jen followed him to a small black sedan. Rob opened the passenger side door open for her and closed the door behind her before letting himself into the driver’s side. Inside, the outdated upholstery and paneling showed that the car was probably fifteen years old, but everything was immaculately tidy and clean.

“They’re going to be waiting for us in their cars,” Jen said, as Rob began to back out of the parking space and into the open lane between the parked cars. From here, only a bit of the street was visible, the rest obstructed by trees and the side of a house. But Jen knew that as soon as they pulled out onto the street, the black SUVs would be waiting to follow them, the frightened reporters emboldened by the protective metal walls of their vehicles.

“Yeah, I thought of that,” said Rob, tilting his head to look in his rear view mirror.

Jen waited for him to angle the car towards the exit to the street, wondering whether he would try to race them or ignore them and drive normally. But instead of backing up, he turned the car in the opposite direction, driving down the row of cars towards the far end of the parking lot. There was nothing in this direction but a concrete wall. Jen expected the car to stop, given this obstacle, but it continued moving, until Jen was sure that they were about to crash into the wall. She gasped and thrust her hands out against the dashboard.

“Sorry,” said Rob, veering abruptly to the right, where a small, unpaved alley lay hidden behind the dumpster at the end of the row of cars. It was like a magic portal had opened, a doorway from nowhere. Jen was further amazed when, just before the alley came to a dead end, Rob turned onto another tiny invisible street, this time on the left. It was an extremely narrow road that butted up against houses and driveways, one of those strange little alleys that cuts through the middle of a city block.

Driving through these secret internal pathways reminded Jen of that children’s ride at Disneyland that staged the entire story of Peter Pan by winding through an impressive series of giant-seeming rooms, all packed into a building so tiny that you could walk its perimeter in under a minute. Every time it seemed like the ride had come to the end of its line, like there was no more room to move onto, a wall would transform into a door, and onward the passengers would go. It had amazed Jen the first time she rode on it, even though she was eighteen years old then. On the rare occasions that she had been coerced into visiting the amusement park since then, the Peter Pan ride was the only one she cared to go on; the unreal use of space never ceased to astound her.

Jen and Rob emerged from their secret passageway onto a back street lined with houses, much like the street that the co-op was on. Jen had lost her sense of direction a bit, but she guessed that this street was parallel to the co-op’s street. Rob turned left, and then made the first right, leading in what seemed to Jen to be the opposite direction of the Snail Plant. He’s probably just circling around to get onto Main Street, Jen thought, waiting for the familiar terrain to appear. But he kept driving down the small back street, farther and farther from the Snail Plant and from the only roads that Jen knew in North Middleton.

She felt panic surge up in her body as she realized that this man, this virtual stranger, might not be driving her to the Snail Plant at all. She had thought he was helping her escape, but she might in fact have led herself into far worse danger. She glanced surreptitiously at her door and saw that it was unlocked. If necessary, she could wait until he slowed down and then jump out. She would have to leave her backpack, though, she thought in consternation; she had foolishly put it on the back seat of the car. She moved her hand slowly toward the door handle, not wanting to alarm him into activating the automatic door lock.

“Where are we going?” she asked, trying to sound casual, but her high pitch and shaky voice revealed her panic.

Rob glanced quickly over at her. She lowered her hand to her lap, hoping he hadn’t noticed it on the door handle.

“This is the back way,” he said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you nervous. I figured we’d better lose those guys, though.”

His voice sounded a bit strained now, as though he were upset but trying to appear calm and comforting. Jen calculated what this might mean: either he was a nice guy and she had made him feel bad for scaring her, or he was a kidnapper, and he knew that she was onto his plan to abduct her.

Trying to calm down, Jen reminded herself that at least four photographers had taken her photograph leaving the co-op with Rob. Everyone inside the co-op had seen them together. So if he were really about to commit some horrendous crime, he would never get away with it. As she envisioned the scene of her funeral, she took some comfort in thinking of him locked away in solitary confinement, “for his own safety,” because everyone, everywhere would know about his crime. Jen murdered by grocery store psycho, the headlines would read, and not just in the trashy tabloids, either. This would be national news. Her funeral would be covered in all the papers. Becky and Paula would be bravely holding back their tears, swearing to avenge her death.

But this whole scenario made no sense, she reasoned. Rob seemed far too smart to commit such a stupidly planned crime. He was much more the sociopathic type; he would plan his crime carefully, and pride himself on the air-tightness of his alibi, the fact that no one would ever suspect him. No, she was quite certain, he could not be abducting her, at least not right now.

Jen looked over at Rob and felt suddenly comforted. His earnest blue eyes were fixed on the road, squinting in a worried expression. He was nice, she remembered. He didn’t look like someone who was trying to kidnap her. He’d been her ally all along, come to her aid to scare the photographers away. Repeatedly she had snubbed and ignored him, and here she was doing it again. He was going out of his way to drive her to the Snail Plant, and she hadn’t spoken one word to him except to question his choice of route.

She resolved to make conversation, no matter how scared she was. If she was going to die, she could at least die with good manners, she reasoned.

Trying to think of something to say, she remembered the question she had wanted to ask him earlier. “How did you do that?” she blurted out, as though this were just a natural part of the lively conversation they were supposed to have been having all along.

“Do what?” he asked. Jen thought he sounded a little relieved, probably that she had finally ended the awkward silence.

“Make those reporters back away like that,” she said. “You just walked towards them and they got scared and left.” Describing the event aloud, she suspected that the topic was more significant to her than simple small talk. “I need to learn how to fight people without touching them like that,” she added, only recognizing the truth of her statement, her need for self-defense, as the words left her mouth.

“Oh,” he said, laughing sheepishly. She looked over at him. She hadn’t seen him laugh yet; his eyes crinkled nicely. “I guess that’s one way of putting it.”

She could tell that this cryptic response was meant to deflect the question, but she wanted an answer. It wasn’t “one way of putting it”—it was a fact. She had seen it with her own eyes. The reporters had cowered visibly at the sight of him approaching. “How would you put it?” she asked, trying to sound inquisitive but not too confrontational.

“He thought I was going to hit him, so he backed away.”

“So it’s a trick,” said Jen. “You made him think you were going to hit him.” She understood that; it was acting. You needed to be convincing, to make the person believe you were a threat.

“No, it wasn’t really a trick,” he said. “I was actually planning to hit the guy.”

He sounded serious. But maybe he had a dry sense of humor. Jen looked over at him to see if he was smiling, but his face was as calm and impassive as ever.

“You weren’t really,” said Jen.

“Sure I was,” he said.

“No, you can’t hit them,” said Jen.

“Of course I can,” he replied.

Before she became completely exasperated, Jen reminded herself that she was in Michigan, where how to deal with paparazzi was probably not a requisite social skill for everyday life.

“If you hit them, they have you arrested,” Jen explained, in an urgent tone, as though he would need to put this information to use in the next few minutes. Which, come to think of it, wasn’t entirely impossible. “And the other ones take pictures so there’s no way you’ll get off. And then they sue you. And they would sue the co-op, too. ”

“I don’t care,” he said. “If one of those guys comes near you while I’m around, I’m going to punch him.”

Wow, thought Jen, laughing silently in her own head so she wouldn’t hurt his feelings. He’s chivalrous. She felt embarrassed to be coming into town and making all this trouble for this sweet, naïve guy, who had evidently decided it was his job to protect her.

“What if it’s the woman?” Jen asked.

“I’ll hit a woman if she deserves it,” he replied immediately. Then he added, “But not as hard.”

She remembered his shirt, the taekwondo shirt she had noticed a few days ago. Maybe he was into fighting, like those kids in the schoolyard. Although Jen didn’t remember either of them throwing any punches, now that she thought about it. All she remembered was that one kick, the one that knocked the loser onto the ground. It seemed like the fight had gone on for a few minutes; something else must have happened besides that one kick. She replayed the scene in her head, but she didn’t remember any other attacks, no punches or kicks or shoves or anything. It didn’t make sense.

“Do you go around hitting people a lot?” she asked Rob.

“No,” he said, “not at all.” Then, in a voice that sounded almost sad, he added, “People usually just back away first.”

The car was approaching a large intersection, where the road grew wide and angled off in several directions. Rob slowed the car and guided it around the sharp turn to the right. They emerged onto a broad street that looked familiar to Jen, and in a moment she knew why: it was Main Street, right up near the Snail Plant.

“Wow,” said Jen. “You really were taking me here.” She hadn’t meant it to come out quite like that; she just couldn’t contain her surprise that the winding, remote-looking road had dumped them out just where she was headed.

“That way’s faster, no lights,” he said, politely ignoring her implication that she suspected he was kidnapping her.

A minute later, Jen could see the pinkish fortress of the Snail Plant looming up ahead on both sides of the street.

“Is there anyplace particular that you need to go?” Rob asked, slowing the car down.

“Do you know where that visitors’ center is?”

“Sure,” he said. “On the next block.” He sped up again.

Jen was surprised that he readily knew the location of the odd little welcome area she had visited with Beck and Paula. The plant seemed so isolated and impenetrable to her. She wouldn’t have imagined that average residents of North Middleton knew their way around it. Then again, maybe everyone had been to the visitors’ center; they probably took field trips there in grade school, she reasoned.

As he pulled the car to the side of the road, parking in what seemed to be the exact spot where Becky had parked earlier in the week, he asked, “So, what are you doing over here?”

Considering his earlier reticence, Jen hadn’t expected him to ask this rather personal question. Still, she had given some thought to her answer, back when he had offered her the ride, just in case he asked. She had decided that telling him her true purpose at the Snail Plant would make her sound crazy.

“I’m just looking around at different parts of town each day,” she said. “To get to know my way around, since I just moved here.”

“Right,” he said, in a knowing voice, as though this was what he expected her to say. Maybe he figured she was studying for a role, she thought. That would be a logical reason for a Hollywood actress to take up residence in a tiny midwestern town. They probably all think that’s what I’m doing, she reasoned.

“Do you want me to wait for you?” he asked.

“Oh, you don’t need to do that,” she answered automatically. Really, it was enough that he had driven her here; that was a big favor for someone he had never formally met until an hour ago. Once she said it, though, she remembered how long the drive out here had been. What had possessed her, she wondered, to think she could walk all this way?

“It’s a long walk back,” he said. “It’ll take a couple of hours just to get to the co-op.”

Again, the thought flashed into Jen’s head that he knew where she was staying. After all, she wouldn’t necessarily have to walk past the co-op; for all he knew, she might live somewhere close to here. Although she hadn’t seen anything like a house anywhere nearby. Maybe everyone lived in the other part of town.

The clock on Rob’s dashboard read one forty-five, and last time she had been here right around two o’clock. She never would have made it on time to see the Snail army training. And was she really going to walk the whole way home? She still hadn’t eaten anything for lunch but that bran muffin. She could do it, she assured herself, if she needed to. It was just walking, after all; a person could always walk, no matter how tired they were. She imagined forcing herself to trudge, mile after mile, back into town, where she would have to find someplace other than the co-op to get a little food, and then, after that, more walking, back to the lake house, maybe even in the dark, down that long forest road. Thinking of this horrible journey gave her an idea.

“Do you want to come walk around the plant with me?” she asked. She wasn’t sure if the question was too forward; she didn’t want him to feel obligated. He might have someplace he needed to be, maybe even back at work. Then again, he was the one who had offered to wait around.

“Oh,” he sounded surprised, and pleased. “Sure, if I won’t bother you.”

“No,” said Jen. “It would be nice if you’d come.” She smiled warmly at him, and he smiled back, looking happy. Finally, Jen felt she had shown him her appreciation properly.

They got out of the car and walked over to the little garden in front of the visitors’ center. Jen wasn’t sure what to do with herself. She needed to make her way over to the gate where she had seen the strange men doing exercises. But she couldn’t look like she knew where she was going. She had told Rob she was just visiting the Snail Plant to get to know the town, so she couldn’t very well go marching into a back alley like Nancy Drew on a mission. She would have to make it look like an accident.

Meanwhile, she would need to fake some interest in the visitor’s center, since she had specifically asked to be driven here. She pretended to read one of the historical plaques, the one closest to where she happened to be standing. It was titled, “Forays into Mining.”

“Anything interesting?” asked Rob. He was keeping a respectful distance from her, standing a few feet away with his hands shoved into his pockets. He was wearing the t-shirt with the yin-yang symbol on the back, one of the ones she had admired earlier in the week.

“Not really,” she replied, although she hadn’t actually been reading it. Instead, she had been thinking of how long she would need to stay in the garden before she could suggest that they take a walk around the building.

“Look at this,” Rob said, pointing at a tall, metal sculpture that Jen hadn’t even noticed among the plaques and garish flowers. It was an abstracted figure of a warrior, pieced together with disconnected panels of twisted copper, so that his body seemed to be exploding outward from the center.

“It was made by a famous artist, Todd ‘Oggy’ Osterberg. Have you heard of him?”

“No,” said Jen, feeling a little embarrassed that she knew the names of very few famous artists.

“He’s from North Middleton,” said Rob. “Well, actually from just outside. He grew up in a trailer park in Cone.”

Jen suppressed the impulse to exclaim that she, too, was living in Cone. If Rob already knew this fact, as she suspected, he did not give any sign of this knowledge.

“The model for the sculpture was my teacher,” Rob continued.

“Your teacher?” Jen asked. She had a pretty strong hunch what he meant, but he hadn’t said it yet.

“My taekwondo teacher,” said Rob. “Well, he was Oggy’s teacher, too. Actually he was pretty much everybody in North Middleton’s teacher.”

“Everybody who took taekwondo classes,” Jen said.

“Everybody in North Middleton took taekwondo classes,” said Rob. “Well, I suppose not everybody, but a lot of people. Almost everybody. There were eighty-seven students in my ninth grade class, and about sixty of them went to taekwondo.”

“Why?” asked Jen.

“There wasn’t anything else to do,” said Rob. “It’s a little better now, with the university expanding. When I was a kid, the university was a tiny college and everyone in the town worked for Snail. Master Park opened the academy when I was twelve, and it was the most exotic thing anyone in this town had ever seen.”

“Is that why the kids in the schoolyard…”

“Yes,” said Rob.

There was a brief silence. Jen remembered that she needed to engineer her way over to the gate.

“Do you want to walk around a little?” she asked. She headed off down the block before he had even answered. She didn’t want to give him a chance to suggest they go look at some other sculpture in the opposite direction from where she needed to go.

As they walked down the long block towards the intersection, Rob noted other points of interest within the inscrutable pink walls. “There,” he said, pointing to a long expanse of wall on the far side of the street, “is electronics assembly headquarters for construction vehicles.” He pointed at a small row of tiny windows that Jen hadn’t noticed, high up at the top of the building. “There’s human resources,” he said, in a sardonic voice. “They hire you in the only room with windows.”

“How do you know so much about the Snail Plant?” asked Jen. It didn’t seem like the sort of place that would be easy to get information about.

“I used to work here,” said Rob. “For ten years.”

“Ten years?” Jen repeated, incredulously. He didn’t seem old enough to have worked at a factory for ten years before becoming the manager of a grocery store. She would guess he was about thirty, and if he had worked in the co-op for a few years….She tried to do the math in her head, but she couldn’t get it to add up. Maybe he was older than he looked, she speculated.

“That was my first job, when I was sixteen,” said Rob. “As soon as I dropped out of high school. I worked my way up to floor manager in a couple of departments.”

“Why did you drop out of high school?” Jen asked. She knew it was a rude question, but she was curious to know why this seemingly intelligent guy would have left school to work in a factory.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess there didn’t seem like any good reason to finish it. I knew I’d end up working in the factory anyway. Everyone here works in the factory. I still pick up shifts sometimes, when people are sick. I can do most of the jobs, except the really technical electrical stuff.”

They walked a few paces further, and then he added, “Plus I was competing a lot. In taekwondo. It took up a lot of time.”

Jen nodded as though she understood, but she didn’t really. She had been interested in acting during high school, had gone to auditions and done a few commercials. It had taken up a lot of time, and her grades weren’t as good as they could have been. But she had never once considered dropping out of school. In her New York prep school, it would have been scandalous not to apply to college, much less to drop out of school altogether. Jen remembered dutifully filling out her college applications, when all she really wanted to do was become an actress. She had only applied to schools in Los Angeles, she remembered; there was no place else she wanted to be.

They reached the intersection where Jen needed to turn. “What’s down here?” she asked innocently.

“That’s where they store the company vans,” said Rob, pointing at the row of garage doors painted with the Snail logo, on the opposite side of the street from Jen’s gate. “Plus there’s a mechanic down at the end.”

Jen turned, walking a bit ahead of him so that he would be forced to follow her lead.

“What’s in this building?” she asked, pointing up at the wall right next to her, the one that would break in a hundred feet, revealing the secret courtyard.

“That’s public relations,” he said, speeding up to walk beside her. “That’s why the visitor’s center is in there, on the other side.”

“What’s it like in there?” Jen asked. Mainly she was killing time until they reached the gate, but she was also curious what he might know about the mysterious building

“It’s nice,” he said. “Actually, it’s really beautiful. One of the nicest buildings they have.”

Jen was barely listening to him, distracted by her anticipation as they approached the break in the wall, the steel gate that allowed a view of the tree-lined courtyard where the Snail army would be training. Jen looked fixedly at the pink wall on their left, preparing for her feigned discovery of the opening. But before she could begin her performance, Rob had sped up ahead of her.

“Look at this,” he called out, beckoning her to where he stood, one hand wrapped around the gate that she had been intending to lead him to. She rushed over to him, arranging her facial expression to appear surprised and inquisitive.

“What is it?” she asked, joining him in front of the gate. It was hard to see in, past all of the layered foliage. She squinted her eyes and peered through the leafy expanse, hoping to see the men doing their exercises. So far, the spot where her view was the most unobstructed, where the men had appeared last time, was empty.

“This courtyard is my favorite place in the entire plant,” said Rob, grabbing two of the bars high up and lifting himself into a pull-up, before lowering himself back down to the ground. “There are so many trees, you can almost forget you’re in a factory.”

“The trees are really beautiful,” said Jen in a wistful voice. She was disappointed to find the courtyard empty. Even though she knew the men might not be there today, that it might take multiple attempts to spot them again, she had been excited to show her discovery to Rob and to see what he thought about it. Still, they might show up any minute. She would just need to keep Rob here for a little while in case they appeared.

“So you spent a lot of time in this courtyard?” she asked, trying to make conversation.

“I used to have taekwondo lessons in here,” he said, pulling himself up onto the gate a second time, his voice straining with the effort.

“Oh,” said Jen, as understanding began to sweep over her. “Taekwondo.”

“My teacher leads classes for the employees of the plant, three times a week,” said Rob. “Some time in the afternoon.”

“Maybe we’ll see him,” said Jen, weakly, feeling stupid now. The class might be starting any minute, and Jen would have to pretend to be surprised.

“Hey, look!” said Rob excitedly. “It’s my teacher.” He yelled something into the courtyard, words that Jen could not understand. Then he yelled the same thing again, more loudly. Jen still could not see anyone through the thick tangle of leaves.

”What did you say?” Jen asked, looking over at Rob, who had stopped doing his pull-ups and was staring intently through the gate, smiling.

“It was ‘Greetings Master Park,’” he said. “In Korean,” he added.

Jen felt a shadow fall over her face. She turned her head back towards the gate, and almost screamed, startled as she was to see a man standing directly in front of her, on the other side of the iron bars, smiling at Rob. He was an Asian man, middle-aged, unremarkable in his appearance except for his stylish eyeglasses.

“Hello again,” he said to Jen, bending his mouth into the faintest bit of a knowing smile.

Chapter 21:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2009/03/21-fall-sword.html