I wouldn’t call it a deflowering. More like a weed whacking.
After being blinded by the image of Shelly and Hunter going at it, I sat in the kitchen, dazed and vomit-y, still in my damp shirt, thinking about every girl who’d ever used me to get closer to him.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been as shocked as I was. It was on her list of goals.
Hannah and DJ asked me what was going on, and I filled them in, my voice shaking with rage and disbelief. Snapshot of Imogen at sixteen: unkissed, no license, no best friend.
A minute later the Happy Couple appeared, looking disheveled. Hunter gave me a sheepish grin, like “Whaddaya know?”
Shelly kept her face down, but her spine was perfectly straight, imperious, a dancer’s posture as always. I stood in front of her and made her look at me. “Get out of my house,” I told her.
“Whoa, calm down,” said Hunter.
“Shut up,” I growled at him.
“What about all my stuff?” asked Shelly, blinking too much, her face scrunched and red. She looked delicate, small, and confused. How dare she be confused! I wanted to shove her. I wanted to sob.
“How am I supposed to get home?” she said. “It’s one a.m. What am I supposed to tell my parents? The front door’s locked …”
“You know what?” I said. “I don’t care. Just leave!”
“I’ll drive you,” said Hunter.
“I’ll walk,” said Shelly, not looking at him, as if that would help her cause, prove something to me, make everything okay.
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine,” she said.
Tears shimmered in my eyes. “And don’t expect him to call you,” I yelled to her retreating figure.
I was too angry to speak to Hunter. Hannah, however, was the right amount of fury and calm.
“I can’t believe I used to wish you were my older brother.” (Hannah’s an only child.) “What a laugh.” And she actually laughed then, this horrible, awesome, joyless laugh. “I can’t believe I used to think you were cool. You are the worst, most selfish older brother a little sister could ever have.”
Hunter’s face transformed. The half smile he’d been sporting slid down his face, all the way off, and the bright color of his eyes dimmed, turning a murky-pond-water shade like mine. For a moment I swear all the blue went out, like something vital had left and wasn’t coming back.
I didn’t tell my parents I’d caught Hunter and Shelly doing it. I wanted something to hold over his head, in case I ever had a secret I needed him to keep from Mom and Dad.
But Hunter and I don’t hang out anymore. We don’t make fun of teachers or watch Amazing Race and strategize how we’d beat the other teams if we were picked for the show. He’s not allowed in my room or at my Tae Kwon Do tests. We’re just two people who have to live in the same house, and one of us hates the other.
As for Shelly, she made her choice. Part of me believes our friendship was never important to her, and part of me knows that’s ridiculous. All of me hurts.
Funny how I thought that was going to be the worst thing to happen to me this year.
At home, Dad checks out my hand, squints at it, and declares it okay. Mom’s not home yet, so we just watch tennis in the living room for an hour while Dad takes notes. He writes nonfiction books about sports, and his latest one details the history of the different kinds of tennis courts.
On-screen, the tennis ball is hypnotizing, and I try to turn my mind off, but I keep thinking about the punch. For a second, just one tiny second, without smiling or any other indication I might be doing this, I allow myself to be proud.
It was a really good punch.
The problem, and it’s a huge problem, was that I didn’t use it in self-defense. I attacked someone. Smashing Ricky’s face like that went against everything I’ve been taught and everything I’m supposed to stand for.
There are five tenets of Tae Kwon Do:
Courtesy, Sir!
Integrity, Sir!
Self-control, Sir!
Wisdom, Sir!
Indomitable Spirit, Sir!
How could I toss them aside so easily? Especially self-control and integrity. If all the tenets are meaningless, just things I said in class so I could get my next belt, why did I bother? I’ve only been away from training for a week and a half. How did I lose my way so quickly?
Then again, maybe it’s normal to want to use my training in real life, outside the walls of the dojang. Otherwise, it’s like having a skill you never use, a present you never get to open. Total mind game.
Grandmaster Huan left another message on the machine this morning, saying he’s back from Korea. Knowing he’s teaching classes right this minute, right down the street, makes me feel anxious and unsettled.
Hunter’s supposed to go back to school after “dropping me off,” but even though I walked the whole way and it took half an hour to get home, he lingers in the kitchen, eating an apple and waiting to see if Dad’ll give me a lecture.
Negative.
Shortly after Hunter takes off, Mom shows up and we all traipse into the kitchen for a Serious Talk.
“We want to make it very clear we didn’t expect you to do anything at the diner last week” is Mom’s opening gambit. “It would have been dangerous to interfere. Martial arts is great; it’s a great sport—”
“It’s not a sport; it’s self-defense,” I grit out.
“And it’s great for that, I know, but it’s not always about ‘real life’ incidents; no one expected you to stop what was happening.”
“That makes it worse! You’re basically saying everyone’s been humoring me this whole time. ‘How cute about Imogen and her little hobby. It’s so adorable she thinks she knows how to punch and kick.’ It wasn’t sticker collecting!”
“That’s not—of course not; that’s not what I mean,” Mom says, rubbing her forehead with the back of her hand. “It’s so many things. It’s good exercise; good for your health, your confidence, your self-esteem; a terrific way to meet people, be a part of something.”
“How would you know? You could barely stand to watch my tests. You don’t even know what I can do!”
“I know I’m not saying the right things—”
“I can’t believe you knew this whole time it was a joke, and you didn’t tell me. Why did you let me keep going? Why did you let me think it was real?”
She reaches for my hand, but I dodge her.
“It is real, but he had a gun, Imogen—”
“So then I must just not be very good at it. Is that what you’re saying?”
“No, of course not—”
“You’re amazing at it,” Dad bellows out of nowhere. “You’re the top student. How many kids have you taught? And I can’t believe you’re apologizing for protecting yourself.”
I’m startled. For a second he seems six feet tall again, like he could pick me up and place me on his shoulders.
After a moment, Mom starts over. Her new opening line is, “We know you’re upset.”
They know nothing.
“But we do not get in fights,” says Dad.
Mom is nodding like this is normal. “It’s okay to scream and shout and have a good cry, but we don’t hit people. Not in this family. Hit the punching bag in the garage instead. That’s what it’s there for. Right?”
They don’t get it. The punching bag won’t hit back.
“I forget sometimes that you’re only sixteen,” Mom says. She glances at Dad. “Which is why your father and I are deciding what happens next. No ifs, ands, or buts. You’re going to go to this boy’s house and apologize to him. And, to show him you’re serious, you’re going to bring him something you’ve spent some time and effort making. Okay?”
“Oh my God,” I say, covering my face with my hands. Because I know where this is going. She doesn’t mean a card. She means I have to bake cookies for him. BAKE COOKIES FOR HIM.
Ricky will probably take them to school and pass them around in horror. Look wh
at I got. Think they’re poisoned? Filled with gravel? Who wants to try one?
No one will be able to keep up with the narrative of my crappy, ever-changing identity. The Nobody, Hunter’s Sister, the Black Belt, the Coward, the Liar, the INSANE COOKIE BAKER. How much longer will this go on?
I picture myself in various outfits, like Halloween costumes. A gorilla. A Native American Indian. A princess.
A martial artist.
Was that all it was, in the end? Nothing more than a costume I tried on?
We decide chocolate-chip is best.
AFTER CONSULTING THE SCHOOL DIRECTORY, MOM DRIVES me to Ricky’s house at four o’clock, thinking he’ll be home from school by then. Mom would normally be at the Congress Plaza Hotel in Chicago right now, where she works as a concierge, but my suspension has screwed up her schedule. I feel guilty she’s skipping work because of me.
Ricky lives in a kind of not-okay part of town. All the cars parked on the street have the Club on their steering wheels, and shoved under the windshield wipers are flyers for massage parlors, accent elimination, and “Ladies Only!” specials at nightclubs and bars.
His apartment building looks scuffed and crumbling on the outside, but inside the apartment it’s actually really nice. Framed photos compete for space on the walls, like overlapping teeth in a smiling kid’s mouth. There’s Ricky, his older sister, his parents, and his grandma everywhere you look.
His dad’s a marine, pretty ripped for an old guy, with medals and everything. I bet Ricky’s dad puts a value on being healthy and fit and knows how to lift weights and run and swim and fight. I bet he knows self-defense, a military version of martial arts. Ricky’s dad would understand what it’s like for people like me. He would understand what I’m going through.
The smell of warm tortillas wafts over from the stove. I don’t want to be here, but I don’t want to leave either.
Ricky’s nowhere to be found, so we have to explain everything to his ancient abuelita. She’s the one who made Ricky donate his shoes to the church rummage sale and then buy them back. She doesn’t seem surprised when we introduce ourselves.
“Terrible thing, last week,” she says, pulling out kitchen chairs for us. “Terrible to see. Very upsetting. Ricky is very upset.”
“Where is Ricky?” Mom asks.
“Playing basketball at the Y.” She glances at the clock above the stove. “He won’t be home until dinner.”
I nod, handing her the tin of cookies. I can’t decide if I’m relieved or upset. I’d dreaded the visit, but I’d also wanted an excuse to see Ricky again, even if he hates me.
I like sitting with his grandma, one degree away from Ricky; she seems like someone else who understands, and I don’t want her to kick us out or look at me with disappointment.
“I did something bad,” I say softly.
I don’t want to narrow it down. If I just let that statement hang there, maybe it can apply to everything, starting at the diner until now, and I can be forgiven for all of it.
But I keep talking, shrinking down my apology until it forms an outline around the shape of my fist slamming into Ricky’s face. After listening to the rambling story of how I knocked her grandson into the display case, Ricky’s abuelita opens her mouth and laughs.
“He told me he was elbowed in the face in a game of basketball.”
“Well, he wasn’t,” I say irritably. “It was me.” Credit where it’s due, yo.
She leans in, her eyes mischievous. “Did he deserve it?”
“No,” I say, freshly ashamed, and not because Mom is staring at me like, “THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE AN APOLOGY.”
“Ahh, chiquita, he doesn’t want anyone to know. It was black and blue all over.” She gestures around her nose.
Huh! She’s amused, not angry. She opens the tin of cookies and lifts it to her face, brushing the wax paper to the side so it won’t tickle her nose. She closes her eyes, inhales, and smiles like a sleepy cat. “Mmm.” She plucks a cookie from the tin.
“The sun, the moon, and the stars,” she says, referring to the different cookie shapes.
Chocolate-chip cookies sound boring, but the way we make them is a bit different. One time when I was little, Mom ran out of chocolate chips and added a handful of butterscotch pieces in their place, so some of the cookies had a different flavor to them. Hunter and I thought it was deliberate (and we used to fight over who would get the butterscotch ones), so from then on we begged her to make them that way every time. Also, we don’t spoon the batter onto the tray in individual blobs so they all turn out the same circle shape. It takes too long and “you may as well use premade Tollhouse for that,” as Mom would say; instead, we scrape all the batter straight from the mixing bowl onto the sheet and spread it around from edge to edge. When they’re done baking, we cut them into bars, make four gigantor cookies, or use Christmas cookie cutters. Maybe it’s silly, but that’s how we do it. Sharing this with Ricky’s family is kind of like showing them who we are.
Ricky’s abuelita offers us coffee and a cookie, but I check twice with her before I take one, since they’re supposed to be a gift.
“What are you cooking?” asks Mom. “It smells delicious.”
Ricky’s abuelita gets up and ambles to the stove to lift the lid, releasing a heavy fog of peppers and heat and melted cheese. While they’re distracted, I take the opportunity to look around the room. Propped against the wall are campaign signs, the kind people stab into lawns. ALVAREZ FOR CONGRESS is written on them in red, white, and blue, alongside a picture of a woman who must be Ricky’s mom.
I recognize Ricky’s backpack in the corner. A thick spiral-bound notebook pokes out of it. My mom and his grandma are chatting away at the stove with their backs turned, oblivious, so I quickly pick up the notebook and flip it open.
It’s not a notebook, though: it’s a sketchbook, with heavy off-white paper, and there are a bunch of charcoal drawings inside.
Some pictures are of me.
They’re of my eyes.
THE NEXT AFTERNOON, TUESDAY, IS THE FUNERAL.
It occurs to me that the reason it’s a private ceremony isn’t because of the condition of the body but because they’re afraid no one will come.
I feel sick picturing an empty church parking lot, but Mom and Dad refuse to drive me over to pay my respects. They don’t want me to “wallow in guilt” for something that “isn’t my fault.”
Their words mean nothing.
I’m still grounded for punching Ricky, but I am allowed to walk to White Hen Pantry to pick up milk.
Shelly and I used to ride our bikes here every Saturday when we were in junior high. We sat in the magazine aisle and read as many tabloids as we could before the owner told us it wasn’t a library. We liked quoting to each other from Bop and Tiger Beat and getting ideas for our own fake magazine, which we launched the following year to a readership of three. (Shelly’s mom was in that phase of wanting to be our pal, so when she discovered a copy of the latest issue, she didn’t chastise us for drawing a pinup of Mr. Levin in a Speedo; she just corrected our grammar and handed the pages back to us.)
Today when I’m here, I buy the milk and a newspaper and sit outside by the curb, reading the police blotter. I already knew the gunman’s name (Daryl), but now I find out the cashier’s: Lauren. Ages twenty-eight and twenty-two, respectively.
“What the hell are you doing, Daryl?”
“Just empty the register! Shut up.”
Ricky and I aren’t mentioned by name because we’re minors. We’re just described as witnesses, which makes us sound passive, like we watched everything unfold on a screen hanging on the diner wall.
Gretchen is mentioned by name because she’s eighteen. They refer to her as “the resourceful teen who called 911.”
The way the article is written, everything seems off. Some of the facts are there, but not all of them, as if the article is describing the shadow something has made and not the thing itself.
“What th
e hell are you doing, Daryl?”
“Just empty the register! Shut up.”
It always bothered me that she knew his name. Why did she know his name?
When I get home, Grandmaster Huan is in our living room wearing a suit and tie. I’ve never seen him in anything other than his crisp cotton Tae Kwon Do uniform. He sits stiffly on the couch, his back a perfect straight line, like a bamboo stick is bracing it that way under his suit. It reminds me of Shelly and her dancer’s posture.
Dad’s in his chair, and he catches my eye when I pause on the threshold.
“Imogen,” says Mom in her new voice, the high, tinny one that originated at the police station and is supposed to be cheerful but sounds vaguely insane, “Grandmaster Huan would like to speak with you.” She stands and motions for me to take her seat.
I hand her the milk and she goes to put it away. I snap my hands to my sides and bow low to Grandmaster Huan. He nods curtly.
Not good.
Rules of conduct at Glenview Martial Arts, mostly for the twelve-and-under kids, are pretty strict and extend to home life. We have to be respectful of parents and siblings, keep our rooms neat and clean, and always do our homework and keep our grades up, or we can be held back on test day. Parents love it because they don’t have to create incentives; they can just say, “I’m going to mark down for Grandmaster Huan that you didn’t eat your vegetables.”
And how dorky is this? I loved the rules when I was that age. They made me feel secure, like I was a martial artist 24-7 and that everything I did was important, because it reflected on Grandmaster Huan and his Tae Kwon Do studio. If I saw shopping carts scattered around the parking lot at Jewel-Osco, I’d organize them. If I saw garbage in the movie theater, I’d pick it up and throw it away. My room was spotless. My grades were as good as I could make them (usually Bs and Cs, but for me that took effort), and I never ate junk food.
So I’m pretty sure I know why Grandmaster Huan is here, and it makes me ill. His English is excellent, but his accent sometimes makes it hard to tell what he’s saying. I don’t understand every word today, not even close, but I don’t need to.
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