Dodging Trains (24 page)

PAISLEE

“Y
ou going to be okay
?” Old-Man grumbles from beneath his moustache. I’ve been busy inside my own rosy head, and a pang of guilt hits me at how he still needs a barber’s appointment. That moustache—geez. It’s getting in his coffee, leaving it with a yellowed rim.

I hand him a napkin and nod. “Mexico isn’t that far away, Old-Man. People go there all the time. From California, for instance.”

“But not from Rigita,” Mack supplies from the couch.

It’s difficult to look at Mack nowadays, what with the lovesick face he’s wearing. He doesn’t insist anymore, doesn’t ask about lunches upstairs or “walks” to get away from Old-Man for a quickie.

The first two weeks after Florida, I avoided his advances without explaining. The look in his eyes—shock, sadness—once I confessed that I was trying the girlfriend thing, was hard to swallow.

Keyon’s girlfriend-question might not be a big deal for other girls, but for someone like me, a floozy not worthy of the ground honest men stand on, it was as big as watching the love of your life unwrap an engagement ring.

Paislee Marie Cain is going steady. I grin at the thought even though it’s what most people did in middle school. Keyon and I might have gone there in high school if the world hadn’t flung us apart.

It’s okay. After everything I’ve been through, I probably savor it more than I would have back then. And with love, it’s never too late.

I let my mind roam to Mom and play with the idea of having her meet Richard Markeston. The man is the fun-loving, jovial type, and my mother needs to laugh more.

Then I think about Cugs, and my heart sinks. He accepted my Facebook friend request three days ago. I was so excited, I spent two hours devising the perfect, light, two-sentence message. Cugs is on Facebook all the time, and I see him update with football scores, pictures of pals from his team, and even a few photos of himself with a cute girl.

He’s a young man now. Handsome and happy-looking, no hint of bereavement marring his eyes. It’s like I was never in his life.

“I’d have to ask Old-Man, but I’d come along,” Mack breaks into my thoughts.

“What?” I ask, hearing him fine but buying time.

He huffs. “Paislee, you’ve never been out of the country, and much less with someone you hardly know.”

“You’re joking, right? Keyon and I have known each other since high school. He’s my boyfriend, and I’ll be more than okay.”

“You’ve known him for, like, two days! How can you trust him like that?”

I’m stunned. Not once since I met Mack has he asked about my past. He knows nothing about high school, about my friends and enemies, about Keyon. He has no idea what makes me
me
, which used to be fine. I accepted him each time he stood at my door, needing my body even if he didn’t need
me
. But what right does he have to throw unsolicited advice my way?

“Listen, boo,” he murmurs, reaching a hand out for me in ways he did when he wanted me naked. “All I’m saying is I can be there and make sure you’re safe. If anything happens…”

“Thanks, Mack,” I say. “I appreciate your concern, but I’ll be fine. My boyfriend will be with me along with a group of amazing people I love hanging out with. But if you ever want to have a coffee—
just coffee
—and a chat somewhere, I’ll be happy to treat you to it.”

He takes my message like I’ve delivered a blow to his gut. Mack’s eyelids flutter with the impact, and I do feel bad, because I could never blame him for what we’ve done and where we’ve ended up.

A lot could be said about Mack. He’s aloof and uninterested in people’s stories. He’s ignorant and self-serving. But none of those traits are crimes—good thing too, because if they were, most of us would be guilty.

I’m no better than my friend. I’ve nourished Mack’s choices with my needs, and instead of searching for the right woman to share his days with, he has hung on to the illusion of me because I quenched his physical needs.

Mack doesn’t realize he’s fed my choices too, and I’ll probably never speak of my revelation. As I stand up and walk out to the mirrors, his face pinches with retorts he’s dying to hurl my way. He doesn’t though, because when all is said and done, Mack is still a gentle one.

KEYON

Markeston and Dawson
are thick as thieves. They devise plans they let me know about last minute. Thankfully, it’s been stuff I agree with—so far.

Round-card Amy’s going to pass by my apartment and make sure Simon is okay during the days I’m gone. It’s the pitfall of not having a roommate; you need help with your pets when you’re out of town, and for me, Simon’s tons more than a pet. Little dude’s a freaking furry soul mate.

Whenever I think of soul mates, Paislee’s name flickers on my brain; it was astonishing how Simon took to her. I’ve never seen him suck up to a sleepover the way he did with Paislee. It was like he was trying to steal her—I wasn’t even kidding when I told my girl that.

I grin as I recall their first interaction. It’s so fucking hot when a woman loves on my little man the way she did. He knew he was special to her too, right away, and damn if it didn’t make me putty in her hands afterward. I mean, when have I ever let a woman take charge and ride me slowly into the sunset?

We’re in a rowdy, loud, dirty part of an enormous city. The hotel is four stars, but the bellman knows no English, and the receptionist struggles through her words. It’s okay.

Thanks to Markeston’s exuberant insistence, we now have four people gesticulating and guiding us to an elevator. Turns out they’re not only leading us there. They’re going up with us too, until we’re at the top floor, where three of them push the bellman wagon with all of our gear into the hallway and roll it toward the far end of the corridor.

“Suite,” one of them nods out.

“
Gracias mucho!
” Markeston bellows; he had a few cocktails on the flight and they haven’t worn off yet.

The suite is set up for Dawson, Robbie, and me, while Markeston has the next-door apartment to himself. “It’s not big,” he shrugs as he enters, “but it’s got a Jacuzzi on the balcony. Back problems.”

Later, we take a limo, also courtesy of Markeston, to the arena that’s being set up for the fight. It’s huge. You can tell Sanchez’s a big name in this city, which will make it harder for me. When thousands of fans cheer their asses off for your opponent, you’ve really got to be in your Zen.

We drop our shit off in the dressing room. None of Sanchez’s peeps are there, but his portrait’s so huge on the wall facing the audience, it makes me think of populist propaganda: Evita, Peron—hey, Hitler.

“Looks like all he needs is a statue of himself,” Markeston adds to my musings.

“No shit.”

“Oh boy, they’ll be sad once you’ve flogged the bastard,” Robbie mutters and slaps my back with his beefy hand.

“Damn straight,” I say. “I’m here to make Mexico City sad.”

Dawson swings to me. He’s not someone I’d characterize as full of humor, but there’s mirth at the back of his gaze before he starts unloading our bags.

From the hotel, I go for a run in a crazy neighborhood with Robbie at my side. We stare at each other over a car that’s caught fire on the curb. The owner, a girl, smacks a kid holding an oversized lighter while berating him. I want to say she used a tequila bottle as a weapon, but Pepsi bottles hurt too, judging by the wailing kid.

“You need help, ma’am?” I ask and watch her unleash a tirade of what must be Spanish cusswords.

“She’s fine,” Robbie fake-translates, and it’s the last straw for me to fold over laughing.

“Wow,” I manage, because it’s all I’ve got.

At the hotel, the employees aren’t overly interested in calling the police over the lit-up car. “Happen all the time,” a smiling receptionist offers.

I sleep well. Oh yeah, because I wasn’t going to let the pressure get to me before the biggest fight ever. I have the master bedroom. The guys crash in adjacent rooms, and when I wake up—at four a.m.—I’m splayed on my back across the king-sized bed like the winner I’ll be.

Fuck yeah. My heart starts a crazy sprint. Now all that’s left is to make weight.

PAISLEE

Another flight.
My life has become surreal. This one’s longer than the first and has an additional layover. Still, it’s not hard to get into this new groove; I feel free whether I’m at airports or in the air.

I picked up magazines at the first layover, and it tides me over when my thoughts rush rampant.

It’s been a full month since I last saw Keyon. The first weeks, we talked daily, but then it tapered off until our phone calls became nonexistent.

My boyfriend needs his mind wholly focused on the upcoming match, which I understand, but with him all the way down in Florida, ours started to feel like an imaginary relationship.

Mack drove me to the airport, and the entire trip, he spoke politely about daily tribulations at the factory. We laughed twice at something Old-Man had done, so typical of him, but then I caught Mack furrowing his brow deeply, making me realize how worried he was.

“I’ll be fine, Mack,” I assured him as he stopped the car at the curb.

He glanced over, wariness bright in his gaze. “Would you mind sending me an update here and there?”

His expression choked me up. He hadn’t been this way when I went to see Keyon in Florida. “No, I don’t mind at all. If calls aren’t too expensive, I’ll give you a buzz, but at the very least I can text you.”

“Thank you.”

Mack thanking me for an act that wasn’t related to sex. It was bizarre and made it harder to leave without tears.

“Have a good time, okay? Enjoy yourself. Get some sun. You need it,” he darted out last minute.

“Oh your yapper, Mack Sonnenhaus. Get a tan yourself.”

A small smile ghosted his lips at that, of a type he hadn’t offered since I began rejecting his advances.

“Take a nice girl out on a date,” I said before I slammed the door closed.

Mack rolled down the window, not taking my departure as an end to our conversation. Car motors and airport doors overpowered his voice, so it wasn’t farfetched when I feigned I didn’t hear him.

I’m glad Mack never asked me out. I’m glad he didn’t try to “do the right thing,” the way men often do when they’ve spent more than a few nights with a woman. If he had, I wouldn’t have been there when Keyon barged in with such insistence. Even so, what Mack said by the airport curb made me sad. For him, and for years squandered on faceless men.

“I’d take
you
out on a date.”

KEYON

T
hey keep asking me stuff,
but I’m falling.

I can’t speak right now. I’m Light Heavyweight. That’s what I am. Whenever the weight cut schedule clamps its iron belt around me, I want to hurl out my disgust over everything my life demands.

Nothing matters when you can’t speak, when you can’t walk without tripping. From the recesses of my brain, conviction keeps me going. When I want to give up—when I’m dying for water, when I hallucinate of desert oas
es with fountains and palm trees and Paislee emerging from freshwater dives—I focus on my goal.

I’m going to Vegas. I’ll be there, contracted, ready to do what I love and make a damn good living of it. I’ll become a legend, someone so far from the kid who once trembled in Rigita.

The fighter who masters cutting weight has the upper hand
.

I faint in the sauna, dehydrating.

“Three more hours and we’re weighing in.” Dawson’s voice is implacable, like it should be. I’m a fucking baby as he feeds me Pedialyte, but I’m too weak to care. I resurface. Slowly.

“No matter what, you’ll always be Light Heavyweight,” he repeats my sentiment out loud. “But for an hour, you need to be Middleweight.”

I nod weakly while he points at the treadmill. Back to running. My eyes do their own thing, focusing, defocusing, while Robbie and Dawson lead me to my next workout.

Robbie holds out the sauna suit I’d rather not wear again. I flick to his face but don’t find compassion. Of course not. We all fucking chose this.

I blow air out through my lips, resigned and smirking a little at the same time. He catches me as I fall. “Dude. Dawson? I think he’s had enough.” He says it as my eyes roll back into my head.

“No!” I manage pretty loudly. “No. This is happening. Half a pound left?”

“Yeah, man.”

“It’s happening.”

The stage
is a bit blurry but I get up there okay. Robbie’s there to peel my robe off—red silky thing—boxer-style from the old ages. Makes me want to laugh.

So close.

“Ready to carb-load?” Robbie hisses at my ear. Ah no one’s more ready for carbs than I am right now. Once the weigh-in is done, I get to resurface and put on the ten and a half pounds I’ve lost over the two days we’ve been here.

I can’t even think of the consequences if I’d been disqualified for not meeting the weight class. Friends of mine have experienced it. Depending on the opponent, I could be sent home without as much as a bloody fist. Sure, renegotiations are common, but I’d hate to rely on it for the biggest fight of my career.

I can’t see Sanchez properly when he gets on the scale. There’s a faint rumble of hate at the bottom of my stomach, but I feel like a mollusk unable to pull off even the rawest emotion.

Sanchez steps up first, defender of his kingdom, and his fans roar around us as if he’s already won by weighing in below the limit. I walk up next. Once I’m on the scale, I lift my arms over my head when I see the number on the display, and I break into the biggest grin I’ve achieved in forty-eight hours.

A
whoosh
of someone clapping, a tenth of the response Sanchez drew. I’m fine though, because if Sanchez wants a rematch in the States after I’ve defeated him,
my
fans will give him what he deserves.

I shut my eyes, a sensation of accomplishment setting in. Bliss. In twenty-four hours, I’ll be finishing this match and closing a chapter. It’ll be good. And I can’t wait to watch. Him. Bleed.

PAISLEE

It’s strange to be in this city,
this hotel, knowing Keyon is two floors above me. Markeston picked me up from the airport. His elation as he chattered about flights and weight loss made me think he’s a lonely man finding company in something outside of his domain.

He told me Keyon is fine while he escorted me to my floor. Told me Keyon couldn’t see me tonight. I already knew this and came mentally prepared to hold out until tomorrow.

Keyon is probably back from the weigh-in and going to sleep. Me, I’m restless after Markeston leaves me. He withdraws only after ordering room service and double-checking that my minibar is stocked to his liking.

I have a few bites of a non-American burger, grab my can of Coke, and venture out of the room. I’m not sure what my plan is. The neighborhood isn’t safe I’ve been told. Maybe I’ll just familiarize myself with the hotel.

The lobby is pretentious in gold laminate, high ceilings, and pink marble. I’m dragging a finger across the wall in the bar, following the intricate pattern of the silk wallpaper as the lobby door swings open and Dawson and Robbie walk in—

With someone in between them. Someone smaller, thinner, a dilapidated human being. I suck in a breath, because beneath those hollow cheeks, the sunken eyes, I recognize my love, my fighter, the one I haven’t seen in a month, and I fill my lungs with air and burst out, “Keyon!”

They hold him up by the arms as they walk toward the elevator doors. Robbie sees me. Shakes his head slowly and forms his mouth into a
“No.
”

I’m bolted to the ground, some part of me warning me not to proceed according to instinct. I don’t understand what’s going on, why they let him exhaust himself this much. How can he fight in twenty-four hours if he’s this weak?

Or is he sick?

Is the fight not happening?

Dawson notices me. The kindness in his eyes turns steely with resolve as he looks away without greeting me.

I take a step back. Stand obediently behind a planter as they assemble him against the wall of the elevator. Keyon’s eyes are closed. I force myself to study his face carefully. He doesn’t look sad. Doesn’t seem to be in pain.

Robbie’s stare bores into me, and I meet it seconds before the elevator doors close.
I’ll find you,
he enunciates, drawing a connection between us with a wave of his hand. I don’t wait for an elevator. I take the stairs to my room so fast my lungs want to explode.

“Keyon is eating and drinking,” Robbie soothes me when he arrives. “Taking a few bags of IV. Thanks for not making yourself known to him downstairs. It’s an intricate balance, and right now his mind is perfect—one hundred percent in the game. If he maintains his confidence, he’s going to win.”

He reaches a hand out and touches my cheek when he notices a tear has slipped out of my eye. I can’t help it. Keyon is such a big, strong guy. The memory of how broken he looked isn’t compatible with how I know him. He reminds me of the little boy in the woods.

“My girlfriend hates it too,” he says.

“Dawson lets her be with you when you’re like that?” There’s jealousy in my voice, and Robbie smiles.

“No. It was by accident, like you saw Keyon. My girlfriend learned her lesson though. She doesn’t even come to my fights anymore. I actually lost that fight, and she blames herself for it.”

“You think she’s right?” I ask.

“Well, I think she’s onto something.” He pinches his upper lip with two fingers, considering. “I want her to be happy, and she wasn’t after she had seen me like that. There was a lot of fear going on in her face during the whole match the day after—she even squealed when he got me in the temple once. Moira is a terrible fighter wife-to-be,” he adds affectionately. “She might’ve lost me four thousand bucks.”

I exhale, feeling better knowing that other women suffer through what I am. I’m taking mental notes. No squealing tomorrow at the fight, and I’ll need to be fearless and quiet.

I’ve been through worse.