33. Moved by Hope

“As long as I fight, I am moved by hope; and if I fight with hope, then I can wait.” —Paulo Freire

Step, punch, block, jump, kick.

Jen stopped and rubbed her hands together. They were getting numb already, and she had only been outside for ten minutes. Still too cold, she said to herself, pulling the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head.

There had still been snow on the ground when she returned to Michigan a week ago, but the weather had been unseasonably warm for January since then, above freezing, and the melted snow had made its way down to the lake in little streams. This morning the sky was a bright, enticing blue through the kitchen window, and it had lured Jen out to practice her forms and kicks in the yard.

She wrapped her arms around herself and stared across the lake, which was still covered with a thin layer of floating ice. The houses on the other side had been difficult to see through the thick layers of snow that covered their roofs and balconies and clung to the evergreens surrounding them. Now their full array of earth-tones was visible again: dark, muddy browns, stony tans and grays, a brick red. And there, off to the right, like moss clinging to the rocks, the old grass-green house that had comforted her back during the summer, when she first moved to Michigan and had felt so entirely alone.

Jen was happy now to see it emerge, like the patchy grass of the lake house lawn appearing from beneath the snow. The cheerful color matched the blue sky, and Jen felt suddenly optimistic that life in North Middleton would be tolerable, even without Shane to train with. Look at this beautiful lake, this house, she told herself. And all I have to do is hang around and read and study taekwondo and learn to really play chess; this is a good life.

She had said these words to herself each day since she returned to Michigan, but today, she actually believed them, at least for this moment.

As she looked at the green house, she began to get the feeling that someone was looking back at her. She looked harder, and yes, there it was: at the edge of the balcony, crouched on a short chair or perhaps a stool, was the distant figure she remembered from the summer, staring at her from far across the lake.

She continued staring for a moment, wondering if the person could see her. He moved a little, tightening his arms around his body, she thought, but his gaze did not waver. She realized how uneven their staring contest was; he was barely visible between the sweeping pine branches, while she was unobscured on a flat lawn. She wondered how long he had been watching, whether he had seen her doing such a horrible job on her forms, her feet numb and unstable on the cold earth, her hands too frozen to make proper fists. Embarrassed, she turned and walked back into the house, making a point of not looking behind her as she stepped through the door.

But once she was inside, she still had the feeling that she was being watched. She finished her forms in the living room, imagining what Master Park would say about her cramped movements as she worked within the limitations of the enclosed space, trying not to kick the sofa or the end table. As she ate her usual lunch of toast and peanut butter, she almost went back to make a second helping, but something stopped her, and she decided that one serving was enough.

She was antsy all afternoon, counting the hours until she could train again, even though she had been at the school only fifteen hours before. She had felt this way all week since returning to Michigan; it was like her body was trying to make up all of the exercise she had missed during her nine days in Los Angeles. She wanted to pull on her sneakers and go for a run, but she knew that was a silly idea; it would be better to save her energy for class. She forced herself to sit still and read the final chapters of The Meaningful Endgame.

When she finally arrived early for the intermediate/advanced class that night, she felt like skipping through the front door. Instead she calmly placed her bag and shoes in a cubby by the front window and made her way to the side of the room to stretch. She had half an hour until the class started, plenty of time for a nice, long warm-up.

As she lowered herself into a forward split, she heard Master Park call her name. She looked up, and saw him standing just in front of the screen in the back. He folded his hand twice, beckoning her to follow, then disappeared behind the screen.

“What now?” Jen whispered to herself, although no one had asked anything of her all day. She didn’t want to be interrupted from her stretching; she had just been thinking how wonderful the position felt, how eager she was to use all that range from her stretched-out hamstrings to kick high in the air. She sighed, lifted herself from the floor, and followed Master Park into the back room.

“Hi,” she said as she walked through the door to the living room in back of the school. Master Park was sitting at the table, staring at the bookshelf.

“I need you to do something,” he said, without looking up at her.

“Okay,” said Jen, trying not to get frustrated by his complete lack of urgency. Time to warm up for class, she thought, trying to project this idea into his mind.

He continued to survey the bookshelf with the passive calm of somebody browsing a bookstore for a fun summer read. Finally he reached into the middle shelf. “You should read this book,” he said, handing her a small red paperback. The New Aggressive Male. She remembered the title. It was the book Rob had been reading, the one that was encouraging him to want to win his fights more, but was also making him cheat on his girlfriend.

Was this what Master Park had called her back here for? Couldn’t this have waited until their post-class chess lesson? She held the book disdainfully in two hands, between her thumbs and index fingers.

“You think this will improve my taekwondo?” she asked.

“Hm, I don’t know,” said Master Park, as though this thought had not occurred to him. “Maybe.”

Jen looked at him expectantly, waiting for further explanation.

“I think it will improve your chess,” he said.

“Chess?” Jen repeatedly dumbly. She knew that Master Park wanted her to be more aggressive in her chess playing—but she had assumed that this was supposed to translate into her taekwondo. It hadn’t ever occurred to her that might be teaching her chess as an ends in itself.

“I think you should start playing chess at the Snail Plant,” Master Park said. “I go Saturday afternoons, in the courtyard. But you’ll need to improve your game a little first. The guys over there are pretty competitive.”

The courtyard, she thought, forgetting her hurry for a moment. She remembered the taekwondo class she had spied on there, how she had brought Rob to watch, how he had introduced her to Master Park. She thought about what the Snail Plant had symbolized to her then—the intrigue of a strange new town that was a cipher to her, a puzzle to solve. She hadn’t been back there since, called off the investigation as soon as she found something better to occupy her time. That place was too unreal, Jen thought, with that fortress-like exterior, those high, pink walls, the men with funny names that seemed to proliferate around it: Nicolai Snail, Ozzy Osterberg, even Vanto Hatch.

She suddenly felt a strong wave of dread at the thought of going back there. After all, hadn’t she left Los Angeles to get away from that sort of unreality, to find something more substantial, tangible, something that meant exactly what it seemed to mean and nothing more? And hadn’t she found it?

Calm down, she told herself; it’s just a place. A place to play chess. She shook her head and looked down at the book in her hands.

“Okay, I’ll read it,” said Jen, turning towards the door. “I just finished the endgame book, so it’s good timing.”

“Wait,” said Master Park, as she tried to leave. She stopped and turned around.

“I still need you to do something,” he said.

“Oh, right,” she said. She had assumed that reading the book and going to the Snail Plant were the somethings he had been referring to when he had called her into the back room.

“I need you to train the new girl.”

Jen tried not show her surprise, but she could feel her eyebrows rise. Only the top students trained the new people—usually Shane and Rob. Jen was still only a green belt. Of course, Shane was gone now, off to Ann Arbor with Brittany in time for their new semester to start at Eastern Michigan University. So maybe Master Park just needed a replacement, a new female trainer to set the female students at ease. Jen was now the most advanced woman in the school, she realized. Shane was gone—and wouldn’t be a woman for much longer at any rate. There were a handful of white and yellow-belted girls, most of whom had been there when Jen started training, but they barely ever came to class, and she had shot quickly past them.

“Okay,” said Jen. “When, tomorrow?” She was feeling anxious to wrap up this conversation so she could get back to her warm-up. She could hear Rob leading the beginners through their final set of push-ups and sit-ups out in the training room, and the advanced class would begin in less than ten minutes.

“No, now,” said Master Park. “She’s waiting by the front desk.”

“But the beginner’s class is almost over,” Jen said. “Do you want me to train her for ten minutes?”

“You can work with her during advanced class. She got confused and came at the wrong time; she got here right before you did. Just give her a first lesson, the beginning of the first form, roundhouse kick.”

“But I’ll have to miss class,” she said. She knew she shouldn’t complain, but she couldn’t help herself.

She knew as soon as she said it that she had made a grave mistake. Master Park looked straight at her, the edges of his mouth drooping grimly. “Some things are more important than class,” he said.

“Yes, I know,” said Jen, believing it in principle.

Out in the classroom, Jen scanned the room for the girl, looking for a college student. Instead she saw a woman close to her own age, perhaps in her early thirties, sitting in one of the folding chairs by the window.

Right, we’re all girls here, Jen thought, remembering how Master Park had so often referred to her and Shane as “you girls,” how Shane had talked about “that girl who knocked you out” to Jen.

Jen walked towards the woman, who rose to her feet. Jen sized her up quickly, comparing her to some of the other new woman she had seen at the school, most of whom had not stayed for more than a few weeks. The woman looked to be in decent if not exceptional shape, with some muscle tone visible in her arms and shoulders. She’s got to be doing some kind of exercise already, Jen said to herself. The woman’s skin shone with the healthy glow of someone well-nourished and hydrated; that was a good sign. Her hair was thick and dark, and Jen noted with approval that the woman had secured it into a plain, practical ponytail; that meant she wasn’t at the school just to meet a boyfriend, like some of the women who had come to class with their hair hanging unbound and well-combed, their faces full of makeup.

“Hi,” said the woman, beaming a large, familiar smile at Jen as she approached. “I’m Olivia.”

“I’m Jen.”

“I know,” said the woman, still smiling as she placed her hand in Jen’s and shook it firmly.

I guess she recognizes me, Jen thought, feeling startled; she hadn’t met any new people in a while, and she had gotten used to feeling anonymous in North Middleton.

But looking into the woman’s eyes, Jen had the feeling that she also recognized the woman, that they had met somewhere, not so long ago. Perhaps she had seen her around town; maybe she worked in the supermarket where Jen had been buying her food ever since she had stopped going to the co-op. She tried to imagine the woman working behind the cashier’s counter; the image didn’t seem to fit. But that’s was the only place she ever went in North Middleton—to the store and the academy. She scanned her memory—could she know the woman from Los Angeles?

She considered asking the woman if they had met before, but, thinking of how she had already gotten in trouble for not wanting to teach the student, she decided it was better to restrain herself from extraneous conversation that would distract from the lesson she was about to give.

Over by the mirrors where Shane—then Brittany—had given Jen her first lessons, Jen led Olivia through the opening of the first form.

“Good,” said Jen, meaning it, as Olivia confidently repeated her movements back to her. Watching her stomp and block and punch, Jen was impressed; there was no way Jen had looked half that good during her first lesson.

Likewise, Olivia’s first roundhouse kick felt surprisingly powerful on the pad that Jen held for her. Her hips pivoted well and her leg snapped out with a nice whipping motion.

“Have you done martial arts before?” Jen asked, realizing she should have asked this at the beginning of the lesson. I bet she did taekwondo as a kid, Jen told herself, or maybe kungfu or something. It was probably one of those things that never left your muscle memory, like running after a cab in high heels, which Jen had been pleased to discover she could still do during her visit to Los Angeles.

“No, never,” said the woman.

“You’re getting it very quickly,” said Jen. “Your form looks good and your kick is strong.”

“Well, I used to be a dancer when I was a teenager,” the woman said, slurring her words and looking towards the ground as she said it, as though wanting to avoid talking about herself. “So I guess it’s not too hard for me to copy your movements.”

Jen wanted to laugh from her surprise. It had never occurred to her that a dancer would have an advantage in learning to throw a roundhouse kick. The two arts seem diametrically opposed: dance was all about appearance and superficial things, whereas taekwondo was about power and fighting, and it didn’t matter how one looked.

But in the end, I suppose it’s all just movements, Jen thought. If you can do the movements, then you can throw a good kick. She imagined an army of ballerinas throwing round after round of perfect, pirouette-like roundhouse kicks.

“That’s amazing,” said Jen. “And you haven’t danced since you were a teenager?

“No, not at all,” said Olivia. “I’ve been too busy with,” she paused, interrupting herself. “Well, a lot of stupid things, really.”

“You look like you’re in good shape,” said Jen, noting again the definition of Olivia’s upper arms, more noticeable now that her muscles had been working. We should stop chatting, Jen thought, cursing herself for starting and continuing this conversation. She glanced around the room, hoping Master Park wasn’t watching them.

“Well, I’ve been doing a lot of yoga just recently,” Olivia said. “For the last couple of months.”

“Yoga?” Jen repeated, forgetting all about ending the conversation. “Where?”

“Pomegranate Yoga Studio,” said Olivia. “Have you heard of it?”

“No, I don’t know any yoga schools around here,” Jen said, a little embarrassed that she had given up her search so quickly after meeting Rob and Master Park. After that first taekwondo class, she had never bothered to even find out the names of any local schools. She marveled to think of her earlier yoga practice, how she used to go every day, even twice a day. She hadn’t done so much as a single sun salutation since she had arrived in North Middleton.

“So, let’s see that roundhouse kick again,” said Jen.

As the advanced students finished the isometric stretches that signaled the end of the class, Jen walked Olivia to the door. Seeing her in street clothes, a sweatshirt and puffy jacket, Jen was struck once again with how familiar she looked.

“Do I know you from somewhere?” Jen finally asked.

“Yeah, we’ve met a few times,” Olivia said, looking down at her feet again, as she had done when she talked about dancing.

How could that be, Jen thought? She hadn’t met anyone in Michigan, at least not any women. The only people she had met were taekwondo students and people who worked in stores, and none of them had been named Olivia—she would remember a name like that.

“In Los Angeles?” Jen asked. That would make sense. It seemed like she had been introduced to thousands of people there, more of them forgotten than remembered.

“No,” said Olivia. “In Michigan.” She was still looking shyly at the floor.

“I’m sorry,” said Jen. “I don’t remember meeting an Olivia here.”

“Well, I don’t think we were formally introduced,” she woman said. “And Olivia is actually my middle name.”

“But where did we meet?” Jen asked, puzzled. The more Olivia talked, the more Jen was certain that they had met before, many times, that this woman had played some significant role in her life.

“At the food co-op,” said Olivia. “And then I saw you again at your tournament.”

“At the food co-op,” Jen repeated, the center of her consciousness now racing to catch up to something lingering around the edges.

A voice rang in her head, and it wasn’t Olivia’s. It was a man’s voice, a man with a funny accent, Australian, perhaps, or maybe from some very isolated part of the Bronx. And the voice was saying, “Bradley’s baby.” Yes, she could hear it clearly now: “Do you have any comment on Bradley’s baby?”

Jen gasped.

“Um…um…” Jen stuttered, dredging for the woman’s name. That reporter, the one who wrote that horrible tabloid article about her. What was her name?

“Lorna O. Lee?” she finally sputtered, unable to hide the disgust in her voice.

“Yes!” said Olivia, smiling in pleasant surprise. “I didn’t know you knew my name.”

“Oh, yes, I do,” said Jen, confused now. Why was this woman beaming at her, this woman who had written all manner of ridiculous lies about her, who was making her own wealth by slandering Jen’s name? Here she was, allowing Jen to make a fool of herself, showing her the opening of the first form, teaching her to throw a roundhouse kick. Here was this woman pretending to be a student, accepting this precious knowledge from Jen, the most important things that Jen knew. And for what—another story? Another insider exposé of Jen’s secret life?

The woman fell to the floor, and Jen looked down at her fist. It stung a little. She had just punched the reporter in the face.

Never hit a reporter, Jen thought dully, watching her clutch both hands over her right eye.

Chapter 34