My Life in Black and White (23 page)

I made it all the way down the hall and out the double doors before I heard footsteps behind me. Another yard before I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a plaid shirt.

“Hey.”

Theo’s voice was calm now, but I didn’t respond.

“Sorry about that … back there … I was mad at my dad. I shouldn’t have taken it out on you.”

I kept walking. Straight to the bike rack. Ignoring him.

“Hey,” he said again. “Did you hear me? I just apologized.”

“I heard.”

I knew how I sounded, but I didn’t care. After the day I’d had, I was too pissed to be nice.

I yanked my bike out of the rack.

“Whoa,” Theo said, looking down. “What happened there?”

When I didn’t answer, he said, “You’ll ruin your rims if you ride on them.”

I shrugged, throwing one leg over the seat.

“Seriously,” he said. “It’s not good for the metal. It’ll warp.”

I turned to face at him. “What are you, some kind of bike whisperer?”

Theo shook his head, and I saw the flicker of a smile appear on his lips. “Just a concerned citizen.”

“I didn’t ask for your concern.”

He shot me a look, halfway between puzzled and annoyed.

“Sorry,” I muttered. Then, “It’s not you. I just had a crappy day…. I mean a
really
crappy day. I think I might need to punch something.”

“Really?” Theo said. “Because I could arrange that.”

I gave him a blank look.

“My dad … the horse’s ass I was talking to on the phone? He owns a boxing ring. I work there after school.”

My expression must not have changed because Theo raised both fists to his chin. “You know”—he threw a jab in the air—“boxing? Muhammad Ali? Oscar De La Hoya?”

“I know boxing.”

“So if you want to go hit something, my truck’s over there. Your bike’ll fit in the back.”

I squeezed my handlebars. “I don’t know….” I pictured what was waiting for me at home.
English essay. My mother. Celery.

“Come on.” Theo jerked his head toward the parking lot. “We’ll have fun.”

We’ll?

Like a doofus, I felt my face grow hot. To cover it up, I shrugged and said, “Okay, whatever.”

Theo started to lift my bike over his shoulder, then stopped. “Just so you know … I don’t invite any old girls to do this.”

“Oh no?”

“Nope. Only the ones who dress as Catwoman and perform daring rescues … and you know … bust into darkrooms in their spare time.”

He grinned.

And I don’t know why, but my face got even hotter. As we walked across the parking lot together, I thanked God once again for inventing the hooded sweatshirt.

The First Breath Is the Worst

FROM THE OUTSIDE, Barbuto Boxing Gym looked more like a warehouse, but when you walked in, the smell gave it away.
Pungent
was the first word that came to mind, followed by
hockey gloves
, which Ryan once forced me to smell. Everyone in there—pounding on bags, jumping rope, dodging each other around the ring—was male and sweating bombs. You could almost taste the testosterone.

Theo must have seen the look on my face because he said, “The first breath is the worst.”

Within seconds, a man who could only be Theo’s father came bounding up to us. He was a few inches shorter than Theo and barrel-chested, but he had the same wiry, black hair and green eyes. When he embraced Theo and kissed him on the neck—not just once, but three times—Theo tried to pull away. “Get off me.”

But his dad wouldn’t let him go. “Still mad at your old man? Huh? Still mad?”

“Off!”

“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you. Arrrr.” He pretended to bite Theo on the shoulder. “Arrr.”

“Pop!”

This went on for some time, the two of them wrestling around, until Theo’s dad finally let him go and turned to me. “You believe this kid? Who doesn’t want to go to college, huh? He’s a smart boy. Talented. He’ll get a scholarship. His guidance counselor says—”

“Jesus, Pop.” Theo’s voice sounded strangled. “Don’t drag Lexi into this.”

“Lexi?” His dad jumped back suddenly, eyes widening. “
The
Lexi?”

He knows who I am?

I glanced at Theo and saw, to my complete shock, that he was blushing. “Pop, this is Alexa Mayer…. Lexi, this is my dad.”

Theo’s dad pumped my hand up and down. “Vince Barbuto,” he said. “Father to this stubborn son of a gun who won’t listen to reason. In this financial market—”

“Pop,”
Theo groaned. “For Christ’s sake.”

“Okay, okay,” his father said, holding up his hands in surrender. Then, “Where are your manners, Taddeo? Get the lady some gloves!”

“Oh, I’m not a boxer,” I said, and immediately felt like a moron. “I mean … I just came to watch.”

“There’s no watching here,” Theo deadpanned.

And his father said, “That’s right. Everyone suits up.”

Before I could open my mouth to protest, I was whisked off to a room that smelled—thankfully—more like detergent than sweat, and Theo handed me a pile of clothes.

I took a quick inventory: shirt, shorts, boxing gloves. Nothing to protect my face.

“Are you serious?” I said.

“I am.”

“You really want me to…” I hesitated. I knew Theo had seen my graft, but I couldn’t bring myself to mention it. “…put these on?”

“I do.”

I took my time getting ready, making sure the door was locked behind me so no one could barge in while I was changing. The room didn’t have a mirror. All I could do was look down at my standard-issue, gray T-shirt and navy mesh shorts and grimace at how big my boobs had gotten and how my thighs—which used to have an inch of space between them—now rubbed together when I walked. I decided to put my sweatshirt back on. The hood, I told myself, tying it tight around my face, made me look more like a prizefighter.

Theo knocked just as I was opening the door.

“How’d you do?” he asked.

“Okay,” I shrugged. Then, holding up the boxing gloves, “You don’t really expect me to wear these.”

“Yup. But not until I wrap your hands.”

“What?”

“A handwrap goes under your glove,” Theo explained. “It keeps the joints aligned and protects you from the most common boxing injuries.”

I reminded him that I was not a boxer.

“Not
yet
,” he said.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I muttered, feeling a weird flurry in my stomach as his fingers gripped mine.

“Okay,” he said, flipping my hand over and patting the palm. “I’m going to teach you how to do this so next time you can do it yourself.”

Next time?

“Are you paying attention?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Okay, see this little strip of cloth? This is what you use. First, you wrap it around your wrist a couple of times like so … wrap, wrap … then, you do the palm … wrap, wrap, wrap … then, the base of your thumb … wrap, wrap … and at the end, there’s this little Velcro tab thingy that you just press here … and … voilà!…. How does it feel?”

“Tight,” I said.

“That’s by design. The compression lends strength to your hand when you punch and secures your thumb so you don’t sprain it. Most important, it keeps you from fracturing one of your metacarpals—these bones here….” He squeezed my hand between his forefinger and thumb. “We want to protect them, especially the fifth metacarpal.
This
little guy.”

“Oh,” I murmured. “Uh-huh.”

His touch was gentle, warm, but all this talk of bones made me think of the hospital.
This is the zygomatic bone. This is the malar. The lachrymal. The maxilla
. Suddenly, I felt dizzy.

“We use the nonelastic handwraps,” Theo continued, taking my other hand and starting the process again. “My dad’s pretty old school. Some boxers like the Mexican-style handwrap, which has a little give to it…. And then there are these gel insert things you can use, too…. Personal preference, really … Hey,” he said, looking up, “you okay?”

I nodded quickly. Even though I was still picturing my face, puffed up like the Goodyear blimp.

“Don’t worry,” Theo said. “No one’s taking shots at you today. You’ll just be working on technique. Okay?”

I nodded again.

“Good,” he said. “Because we’re ready for gloves.”

While he slipped them on—two ridiculously bulbous red mittens—and tied them at my wrists, I forced my face out of my mind.
I’m wearing a hood, and no one is going to hit me. I’m wearing a hood, and no one is going to hit me.

“Okay,” Theo said. “You’re good to go.”

I clapped my gloves together. “Let’s do it, Coach.”

“Oh, I’m not your coach … I’m on laundry duty.” I felt a twinge of panic as Theo gestured to a pile of towels in the corner of the room, then looked back at me and shrugged an apology. “Tiny is your coach.”

Tiny? Who the hell is Tiny?

Theo must have read my mind because he said, “Go on out there. You’ll know Tiny when you see him.”

“Tiny,” I repeated, ordering myself not to be a wimp. “Okay. I am going out there. Going to find Tiny.”

As Theo reached out to squeeze my shoulder, psyching me up, I felt that weird flutter in my stomach again. It wasn’t like I’d never been touched by a boy before. There was Ryan and Jarrod…. Before that, there were junior high kissing games, boys who felt me up in closets…. Not that Theo was feeling me up … not that I was even
thinking
about him feeling me up … Probably it didn’t even have anything to
do
with Theo. Probably I was just nervous walking into this place where I knew no one. Where it was so glaringly obvious I had no boxing experience. I suddenly realized what an idiot I was for agreeing to this. I wasn’t a guy. I couldn’t even call myself an athlete anymore. I was completely out of shape. But before I could turn around to tell Theo I’d changed my mind, a voice boomed in my ear.

“Alexa?”

I found myself staring up at a mountain of a man, with skin the color of coffee beans and a completely hairless head.

“I’m Tiny,” he said, extending a glove so large mine looked like a baby’s mitten beside it.

“Nice to meet you,” I murmured.

Tiny smiled. His teeth were eggshell white, with gaps all over the place. “Let’s go hit something.”

As I followed Tiny across the gym, I marveled at the size of his calves. They looked as thick around as my thighs, making me wonder how he ever found socks to fit them.

When we reached the far corner of the room, Tiny stopped beside a big, blue, cylinder-shaped bag, suspended from the ceiling by chains. “Know much about the fight game?”

I shook my head. “No.”

“Ever watch a fight on TV?”

“No.”

“Ever want to knock someone’s block off?”

I hesitated, then nodded. “Sometimes.”

“That’ll do,” Tiny said. “Now get your hands up … like this.” He modeled the correct position.

I raised both gloves in front of my face.

“Know why you’re doing that?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“To protect myself.”

“That’s right. To protect yourself.
Never drop your gloves
. When you throw a punch with one hand, the other hand stays right here in front of your face. After you throw a punch, the hand you threw with always comes back to join the other one…. Got it?”

“Yeah.”

“Now watch my feet.”

I looked down.

“Why’d you drop your gloves?”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be sorry. Just keep ’em up.
Never drop your gloves….
Now, watch my feet.”

I looked down again, this time keeping my gloves up.

“What are my feet doing?”

“Moving.”

“That’s right,” Tiny said. “I’m always on my toes. If you’re back on your heels, you lose balance and give your opponent the chance to set up. You never want to let ’em get off a good shot.”

Tiny shuffled around me—first to the right, then to the left—with a surprising amount of grace. “Get the idea?”

“I think so,” I said.

“Show me.”

I was pretty sure I looked like a jackass, bouncing up and down on the balls of my feet, gloves in front of my face like someone was actually going to hit me. But I could have looked worse. I imagined untying my hood and yanking it down, baring my graft for the whole gym. I wondered what Tiny would say.

Now he was nodding, telling me my form was good. “Ready to learn some punches?”

“Yeah,” I said.

I was drenched in sweat—literally drenched—and so thirsty I thought I might die, when Theo appeared with a bottle of water and an expression of faint amusement on his face.

“Please say that’s for me,” I said.

“I don’t know…. I have to ask your coach first…. Hey, Coach, has she earned some water?”

“She earned it.” Tiny clomped my shoulder with one of his massive gloves. “You did good, kid.”

My own gloves, still hovering in front of my face, felt as heavy as bowling balls. “Can I drop them now?”

“Yeah.” Tiny smiled like a jack-o’-lantern. “You can drop them.”

The water—which I let Theo open because my arms were shaking too bad to turn the cap—was so cold and so wet I don’t think I’ve ever tasted something so delicious in my life.