Tooth and Nail

by Jennifer Safrey

  “Well,” I said.

  Not-Rocky chuckled. “Idiot kid.”

  “We’ve been there,” I reminded him. “Some more recently than others.” I kept my eyes on Trey though, and watched him flatten out. He remained upright, leaning against the wall, but the nasty, hungry thing inside him had perished. He gazed straight ahead at nothing and nodded once or twice, as if now being coached by an invisible mentor. His eyes were familiar. Eerily familiar, dead eyes.

  “Sure you don’t want to go?” Not-Rocky asked me, and I peeled my stare off Trey to focus on my buddy.

  “Nah, thanks. Just the bag for me today. Let off a little steam.”

  “What steam do you got to let off? Didn’t you quit working?”

  “No. I took a leave of absence.”

  “Whatever.”

  “It’s not ‘whatever,’ it’s temporary.” I sat up for the last time and reached into my bag, pulling out a Band-Aid and a bacterial wipe. “Sit still,” I told him. I cleaned the cut on his chin and smoothed the bandage over it.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I was just giving you a hard time and everything. It’s nice you’re here during the day now, not like when you used to be working and we only saw you on weekends.”

  We grinned at each other, and I almost regretted covertly sticking the pink Hello Kitty Band-Aid on his chin. Almost.

  We stood and he punched my upper arm. I retaliated with a light backhand bop to his stomach, then headed to the one available heavy bag.

  I walked past Trey and he pushed himself off the wall. His dead stare landed on me, and in the fraction of the second it takes to recognize someone you’d rather not see, his eyes filled with hate and fear.

  Hate and fear, aimed at me.

  But before I could form another thought, he’d pushed past me and stalked out the front door.

  Creepy. Weird. Sort of sad. I turned my attention to the bag.

  A heavy bag might be practice for a real bout, but in truth, it was a challenge in itself. It became the person in your imagination. The one you just had to beat so you could feel right. You always connected, but who you were hitting, and where, and why, was individual to the moment.

  I bounced up and down lightly on my toes, concentrating on keeping my shoulders relaxed. My weakness was my tendency to stiffen my upper body too much, which slowed and hardened my motion, draining my intensity.

  Fluidity. I was floating in water. I was water.

  I started with some jabs, circling the bag in one direction, then the other, working both arms. Then, still bouncing, I rolled my neck from side to side. Relax, relax, then the one-two punch.

  My first power punch of the day never failed to surprise me with the hard reminder of what I had inside, and what I could let out. I connected, and absorbed the shock up my arm, and my sore back teeth clicked together.

  I had a flash of that guy against the lamppost, and his easy but purposeful gaze. My next one-two landed harder. I wouldn’t have even noticed him, and sure as hell wouldn’t have still been thinking about it, if it wasn’t for that stupid dream. And nothing bad was going to happen. One-two. I was in a great place with Avery, with our new condo. His campaign was going as great as we could have planned it. We were masters of our own future. One-two. A random man with strangely supernatural sex appeal was not going to mess that up. I was certainly not going to mess it up. One-two. I had a perfect life right now, and it could only get more perfect, and I would fight with every degree of determination in me to make sure nothing—one-two—nothing ruined it.

  My father held up a pad in each hand. I hit—crossing my right into his right, my left into his left—with my hands wrapped. Dad hadn’t been able to find gloves small enough for me, but he’d promised to keep looking. “Gemma,” he said, when I was out of breath and my knees were shaking. “Come on, be tough. It doesn’t hurt.”

  “It does hurt.”

  “No, it doesn’t. When you connect,” he said, gently taking my wrist and touching my fist to the pad, “what you feel isn’t pain. You’re feeling what it is to be human. You’re human.”

  I didn’t understand that. But I felt pretty damn human when he left us.

  I hit the bag again, envisioning the punch slamming right through it to the other side.

  “Easy, Bricks,” I heard behind me. Smiley. I kept my fists up, kept up the bounce. “What you after?” he asked me.

  “Anything that gets in my way,” I answered without turning around. He’d be watching me the way he watched all of us, with the right side of his craggy face cocked forward, and the left side of his head dropping back, left eye squinted. He couldn’t afford to tug on the thin gray hair he had left, but he did it anyway when deep in study. He could find the tiniest inch of a hip angle that would double the power of a punch, and he could isolate the exact moment a bout turned a corner, when one boxer’s advantage was lost to the other. He knew every one of our bodies better than our primary care doctors, and he chipped away at each of us until our excess fell away and the fighters we were meant to be emerged, tight and strong. Smiley was a scientist and an artist and, if crossed, a force of nature.

  I stepped into the bag, bent my right elbow and delivered a right hook, then a left.

  “Woman on a mission,” he said, and I half-grinned, because the way Smiley said it, I could tell he meant no derision, humor or irony. He was real with me, and always was. He knew my father, when he used to box here. A long time ago. Smiley didn’t talk about my dad, and I never asked him to. It worked out best that way.

  “Might want to cool out,” he added. “You got a visitor.”

  I dropped my arms to my sides, surprised. The adrenaline slid downward with gravity, and my fingertips tingled with the sudden inactivity. I’d never had a visitor here. The one time Avery came, like I said, I’d accompanied him, and anyway I didn’t think he’d have a break in his action until later tonight. My mom never came here, and my pals from work were pretty much my friends only at work.

  So who was here to see me?

  I turned, and what I saw was guys clustered at the door, all talking at once. Testosterone permeated the air even more than usual, and that was saying a big something. I moved toward the group but my approach was ignored. I couldn’t see through Shirley’s massive back, and I wasn’t inclined to hop up and down like a child to get a better view, so I waited.

  “You just missed an awesome show, babe,” I heard Mat say. “If you’da walked in five minutes ago, you woulda seen me lay out that guy.” I had no idea who Mat was indicating but I did know he was full of it. He’d gone over to a bag after our brief chat, and hadn’t been laying out anyone except maybe in some daydream. “Feel that,” he continued, and I winced, positive he was presenting his bare bicep to a person whom I would have to undoubtedly apologize to later.

  “Mat,” Shirley said to him. “You’re a kid, and what’s more, you’re a lying kid. Don’t pay him no mind,” he said to my mystery guest. “Would you like a tour?”

  “I suppose you the new tour guide?” Mat asked, surly from the put-down.

  “Surely,” the heavyweight champ replied.

  At least three others joined the shuffle for attention. Then I heard, “Please, ma’am, have a seat,” and I watched Not-Rocky step away from the group to shove my duffel bag and black boots off the folding chair onto the ground with an extended clatter. “You can sit right here.”

  Okay, this nonsense ended now. I understood a female visitor in here was a novelty, but on the rare occasions it happened, the guys generally performed a nonchalant, cool appraisal from their posts while they continued to work out. But this woman had reduced these toughs into a gaggle of ogling junior-high stupidity. I couldn’t say I enjoyed this. I mean, I had status in this place, and I intended to keep it.

  And I really, really hoped the guest wasn’t my mother after all.

  I cleared my throat. “Someone wants to see me?”

  A group of fat heads swiveled around, still blocking my view of the
newcomer. No one said anything to me. I honed in on Not-Rocky, who stared at me kind of glassy-eyed, as if trying to figure out where he’d seen the blond chick in boxing gloves before.

  I had another unbidden mental flash of the lamppost dude, and realized I had probably resembled this gang of idiots when I had stood there and stared at him—powerless and drooling. It annoyed the crap out of me anew.

  “Everybody get lost,” I said now to the group, but no one moved. I put my hands ineffectively on my hips.

  “You heard her,” Smiley called from behind me. “’Cause I don’t see one fighter here who couldn’t improve just about everything. Move it.”

  There was much muttering and shuffling, and there were many longing, over-the-beefy-shoulder glances, but when the pack dispersed, I was left looking at Frederica Diamond.

  “Gemma,” she said, and again it was a statement, not a question. “Shall we talk? There’s a coffee shop across the street.”

  “Hold it. I mean, seriously.” I pushed my sweaty bangs back with my forearm. “You track me down at my gym, magically freak out every male here, make it clear you know all about my extended vacation and my love life, and assume I’ll be intrigued enough with your cloak-and-dagger routine to listen to some job pitch. Not to mention that yesterday you pretty much vanished into thin air. If you were me, what could you possibly say?”

  The words burst out of me but Frederica didn’t flinch. “If I were you,” she said, the placid smile still in place, “I probably would think, ‘This woman’s full of shit.’”

  I raised both eyebrows then.

  “But,” she went on, “again, if I were you, I would at least listen after the strange woman told me I’m the only one qualified for this role.” I caught it—the smile fading just the tiniest bit around the edges. “I promise I’ll explain, but you have to know, we don’t just need someone. We need you, Gemma Fae.”

  The use of my middle name startled me. I was sure I never used it professionally—it was a calculated decision. I was hardly faerie-like in appearance or in disposition, and although the middle name had been passed down from my mother and her mother before her, I considered it an unfortunate misnomer that was best left on my birth certificate.

  So I could only imagine what else this woman knew about me. And I should have been even more creeped out than I already was.

  But it was the other part of her last statement that got me. It had only been about three weeks, but the idea of my professional expertise being so valuable that this woman became my personal biographer in order to recruit me was kind of—flattering. I was needed. And I missed that, I really did.

  I twisted my mouth to one side, torn, as Frederica waited, the very picture of patience. Would it really hurt to let her buy me a cup of chai—hmm, and maybe a cookie—and listen to her woo the professional me for twenty minutes before turning her down and going on my way? Besides, headhunters could be, well, tenacious, and she’d proven herself a more-than-adept stalker. Saying no might just drive her to show up in my bathroom some morning to hand me a towel as I stepped from the shower and make her pitch as I dried my hair. Probably best to cut my workout short to let her do her thing now and get it over with.

  “What the hell,” I told her. “Let me change, and I’ll…“ I was interrupted by my cell phone. “Call me!” sang rock-star Blondie. I knew it was me she was singing to, because she was coming out of my duffel bag—which was still on the floor, by the way, where Not-Rocky had chucked it. I scowled at him over my shoulder, but out of the two women in the room, I wasn’t the one he was looking at. Geez.

  I grasped the singing cell phone in my two big gloves and handed it to Frederica. “Press the green button, please?” She did, and held it to my ear as I worked the Velcro off one glove. “Hello?”

  “Gemma,” my mother said. “I made this huge turkey. I don’t know why. It was on sale. Come over for dinner and help me eat it.”

  “This isn’t a good time,” I said. “Can I call you back?”

  “Are you all right?”

  I dropped one glove to the ground and took the phone with my sweaty hand, half turning away from my guest. “Actually, I have a kind of impromptu meeting with a job recruiter.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “No, neither did I. She kind of –“ I lowered my voice a few notches “—found me. Something about a business proposal.”

  My mother began to speak, then cut herself off. “I thought you were taking a break from work.”

  “Right, I am. I’m just hearing her out,” I said, tucking the phone on my shoulder and raising my voice back to normal as I pulled off my other glove. “So, I’ll call you later and let you know about dinner.”

  “What agency does the recruiter work for?”

  “I don’t, uh, I don’t actually know.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Her name’s Frederica something. Oh, I suck with names. I’ll ask her again.”

  “Diamond,” I heard, and swiveled around. Completely unashamed of eavesdropping, she turned up that smile again. “Frederica Fae Diamond.”

  “Fae,” I repeated, surprised. “Her middle name is Fae,” I told my mother. “Now, that’s random. Maybe we’re related.”

  My mother didn’t say anything, and I was about to check our connection when she spoke again. “Gemma,” my mother said in my ear, “I wouldn’t—“

  “I was kidding.”

  “No, I mean,” she said, and her voice rose in pitch. “This isn’t a good idea.”

  “No, probably not,” I agreed, “but I’m going to let her state her case since she came all the way down here.”

  “Listen to me.”

  “Mom, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, “but you can’t…”

  A fuzz filled my ear. “You’re breaking up,” I told her. “The reception in here is terrible. I have to go.”

  “Gemma!” she called as I was about to disconnect, and I put my ear back to the phone. “Just please,” Mom said, and I think what I heard next was, “do the right thing.”

  “Uh, yeah, thanks. Love you,” I said, and hung up. I turned to Frederica. “I’m just going to change.”

  “Sure. I’ll meet you across the street,” she said. When she left, every guy in the room watched her leave. Through the window of his tiny office, I even noticed Smiley glance up from his desk to watch the door shut.

  I picked up my bag, brushed dust off the bottom, and slipped into the bathroom to change. I pulled out the hair elastic and fit it over my wrist, shaking my hair out. I slung the bag over my back and clunked to the front door in my short boots. I turned to wave at whomever, but everyone had gone back to their business. Jump ropes, as well as fists, were swinging. Speed bags were flapping. The floor in the ring was creaking under two pairs of maneuvering feet.

  No one watched me leave.

  “Schmucks,” I muttered, but even I could hear my own grudging fondness. I rolled my eyes at myself and headed outside.

  CHAPTER 4

  When I stepped into Grounds Floor, Frederica was sitting at the corner window table with two steaming mugs the size of salad bowls in front of her. I slid across from her and peered into my mug. Chai.

  “I have to finally confess, you’re starting to scare me,” I said.

  “I assume you mean the drink,” she observed, then grinned. “Lucky guess, I assure you. I myself prefer chai to coffee. Sweet over bitter.”

  Speaking of lucky guess, I made a silent one of my own, then glanced around the café to test its validity. Yup, sure enough, there were four men plus the barista in here and all of their wide-eyed gazes were fixed on the face of my companion. There also were three women who stared, but with far less awe and far more envious animosity.

  “Can we switch seats?” I asked, and Frederica obliged without question. When her back was to the restaurant and my back was to the wall, three of the men turned away, and when I scowled at the barista, he turned his embarrass
ed attention to the pastry case.

  “So,” I began, “you’re here for which company?”

  “Not a company,” Frederica said, “so much as an organization.”

  “An organization. And you’re a member?”

  She nodded. “As are you.”

  I thought. “Triple A?”

  “No,” she said with the serene-yet-completely exasperating smile. “Not quite. We’re—well, we’re collectors. Not trinkets of any kind, antiques or coins. Our collection is far more important, with ramifications for our future.”

  “Recyclable bottles?” I admit I was now acting deliberately difficult, but I was fed up with the mystery crap and I’d figured out by now that there was no hurrying her presentation.

  Maybe I finally struck a nerve in Frederica. A shadow passed across her placid face as she said, “This is difficult because it’s clear you haven’t the slightest clue what I’m talking about. I was warned, but I was so sure you’d at least recognize me for what I am, if not who I am. But you don’t, and I’ll really have to start from the beginning—start with what you are.”

  “Well,” I said, “I can help you out with that. What I am is confused, as well as somewhat inclined to cut this short if I don’t get some usable information in the next minute or so about a job opportunity, which is the reason I agreed to talk to you.”

  Frederica sighed and glanced skyward, as if she were the one thrown in the middle of this weirdness. Then she clasped her hands together and leaned forward. I concentrated on a spot in the middle of her forehead, instinctively not wanting to look her in the eye.

  “It’s a family business,” she said. “Your family business. We’re asking you to take a crucial role in keeping this business—and its ultimate goal—alive and thriving.”

  “My mother is a kindergarten teacher,” I replied, “in a public school. My family does not own the school. And even if we did, I’m pretty sure she’d just ask me herself instead of sending a representative. I have no idea what my Dad’s up to these days, but I imagine if he were grooming me to take over his job, he might have contacted me in the last two decades or so to say hello. I’m sorry to tell you this after all your meticulous research about me, but you’ve got the wrong girl.”