Fight Like a Girl - Sheena Kamal Page 0,31
and open it up. It’s empty. No birth papers, passports, bank documents, nothing. Not even my baby jewellery is in there, the little gold bangles and necklaces with shiny black beads that all Trinidadian Indian babies get from relatives when they’re born. Aunty K bought me mine.
“She probs doesn’t trust Ravi. That’s why she hid the important stuff. My dad does the same thing,” says Amanda the next day.
We’ve all put on a few pounds in the past couple weeks. Florida seems so far away right now. Hard to think about May when we’re still dealing with the February freeze. No fights coming up and food is too good to give it up for nothing. Amanda looks better than me and Noor with the extra weight, though, as it’s all gone to her ass. We’re stuck with face and belly, which reminds me to stop eating so much. I wouldn’t mind so much if it was boobs. At least Noor has boobs.
“For real,” adds Noor. “My parents have a safe they keep things in.”
Why would she be with him if she doesn’t trust him?
“Dick,” whispers Columbus later that night, on the phone. “He gives it to her good.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“What? Why else would a woman like your mom put up with all that crap?”
“What do you mean, a woman like my mom?”
“Trish, your mom is fine. You know that right?”
Of course I do. Ma is the most beautiful woman in the world. Her eyes don’t work so good, though. That’s why she always ends up with these losers.
Pushing thoughts of Ravi and Ma from my mind, I close my eyes and picture Jason doing abs today, which even though he was covered in sweat, didn’t seem gross at all. I thought the lunchtime Desis had killed my desire for guys completely. What with their talk of honour killings and getting shipped back if they got caught with a boy. I know one girl who actually did get tossed screaming onto a plane back to India. Everyone at school saw her making out with her boyfriend in the hallways, and someone had ratted her out. She had an army of cousins, who she swore were basically chill, but clearly one of them was not because one day she was moaning with us about some dumb assignment or another and the next she was gone.
No one, not even the cousins, ever heard from her again.
If I got knocked up in high school, I have no doubt Ma would ship me back to live with some obscure relative in Trinidad, no problem, to pay for my mistake. But it’s not something I usually worry about, and plus, I’m not the kind of girl guys at my school usually go for. Not the soft, nice ones. I get looks, sure, but not the kind you’re thinking. My legs are thick as tree trunks and just as hard. They’re monsters. Pure muscle. They can take a swing kick, brace and return in a matter of seconds. Split seconds. The fast-twitch fibres in my calves can catapult me into motion as quick as you can blink, and then I’m on you. One, two, grab, knee, clinch, push, step in, elbow. A matter of seconds, not even.
“You only think it’s gross cuz you never had any dick,” Columbus says, reminding me he’s still on the line. “I know a guy, if you want to find out more?”
“Is he skinny with zits all over his face? Because thanks, no thanks.”
He hangs up, letting me know that yeah, it totally was a skinny guy with acne. Columbus is so obvious sometimes. Am I a desperate Guyanese retail worker at the mall? Please.
* * *
At the gym.
We’re clinching.
I hate it so much even though I get a desperate little thrill whenever I’m in control. Clinching is all about fighting your opponent for the crown of the head, the plum, and pulling it down just as you extend the knee up. Your job is to protect your head while getting a hold on the other guy and kneeing him in the face. Brutal, but this sport ain’t for wusses. Clinching is all about the neck, so to get us stronger, Kru has us put on a leather head mask thingie that makes you look like a character from a horror movie. You’re supposed to strap weights on the bottom and then move your head up and down to make your neck stronger.
“Blow job practice,” says Noor, as she straps herself in.
I wait