Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love (8 page)

Upstairs, Mom’s folding laundry and having her tot of Shiraz and grooving to some Bjork. That’s a relief. Sometimes I catch her playing Billy Joel on the sly, usually when she’s doing housework. Mom may run an esoteric bookstore in the East Village now, but once upon a time she was a nice girl from the Long Island suburbs. That’s where she met my dad, in fact.

I know I’m supposed to wait to ask her about matters pertaining to X until Matthew is here, because that’s what Matthew and I agreed, but I was mulling something over in the car and out of my mouth it pops. “Mom,” I say. “Why don’t you get a boyfriend?”

From the look on her face, you’d think I suggested she join the NRA. She rolls an entire sock ball before answering.

“Felicia,” she finally says, in a voice that makes her seem taller than she is, “relationships take
time
. Relationships are
work
. I don’t
have
any time, and I have
more
than enough work, and I
was
in a relationship for many years and it’s just not that easy. A
boyfriend,
” she continues, and now she’s looking at me sternly, as if it’s me we’re talking about and not her, “is NOT the only golden road to happiness.”

But it couldn’t hurt, is what I’m thinking. “I’m just saying,” I say. “Dad has moved on. You guys just didn’t have IT, you know? The X-factor. The catnip of Love. But maybe it’s out there, somewhere.”

Mom clams up, rather uncharacteristically, I should point out. She rolls another sock ball, except the socks don’t match and she doesn’t notice.

“Well,” she finally says, with a rough sniff. “Even Meg Ryan got divorced, in real life. So who knows anything?”

8

Our Next Interview Leads to a
Barefoot, Bruising Lesson of Love

R
andall’s karate school (which he calls a dojo) is in Chinatown, and as we rumble our way downtown on the N train, zooming through subterranean tunnels that were blasted through the rock of Manhattan a hundred years ago, Matthew and I wonder what Randall’s sensei will be like. I’m imagining a wizened Asian fellow prone to pithy, inscrutable statements. Matthew is picturing more of an action-hero type, sort of Jackie Chan meets Keanu Reeves. Clearly, there has been too much Blockbuster in our young lives.

We duck and dodge our way through the throngs of tourists and bargain hunters on Canal Street and arrive at a weather-beaten wooden door painted bright red, sandwiched between an herbalist’s shop and an Off-Track Betting storefront. There’s no sign and no buzzer, but it’s the address Randall gave us. The door is unlocked. I guess if your hands are lethal weapons you don’t worry so much about locking the door.

We push the red door open and step inside. Nothing but a rickety wooden staircase up a dark stairwell.

Matthew turns to me. “Creepy!” he whispers. “This is fun!” He’s half right, in my opinion. But up the stairs we go, Matthew in front, till at the top we turn left and enter (insert sound of Chinese gong, reverbeverbeverberating!): the Fiery Dragon School of Self-Defense.

Yes, we’re in the right place, except there’s no Randall, and, as far as we can tell, there’s no sensei, either. The only person here is a middle-aged man in baggy jeans, a black leather jacket, and a bunch of gold necklaces, talking fast in Spanish on his cell phone and drinking a Coke. He’s leaning back in a black office chair, with his feet up on a rickety metal desk. The phone on the desk is ringing, but he ignores it and continues talking into his cell.

Threadbare would be a kind way to describe this place, with its old brown carpet and walls in dire need of a paint job. Other than the chair and the metal desk, the room is empty except for a long wooden bench and a soda machine. The dojo itself is on the other side of a Plexiglas wall, with an entrance at either end. Like the curious Kitten I am, I take a step inside.

“Hey,
niña
!” yells the man. “No shoe in the dojo!”

“Sorry!” I cry, hopping back. Me and my shoes. It’s so hard to get it right.

“Can we look around?” Matthew asks. “We’re waiting for Randall.”

“Ah, Randall!” he exclaims. We’ve said the magic word. “Okay, look around. No shoe,” he says. He goes back to his phone call.

Barefoot, we enter. The dojo is basically an empty room with mirrors at one end, like a dance studio except the floor is covered with thick mats. There’s a punching bag in the corner and a collection of padded clubs, very Fred Flintstone, hanging on nails along the far wall. Where is this sensei person? And where is Randall? I haven’t really talked to him since Trip’s horrifying pronouncement regarding the Randall-Loves-Me thing. Not avoiding him on purpose, mind you, just, you know, failing to acknowledge his presence.

But now Randall is late! Is he home changing his outfit a million times, in anticipation of seeing ME? Do Dawgs even do stuff like that? How awful, if so. I resolve to be more relaxed about my wardrobe selection process in the future, even if I know I might be seeing Matthew. I mean, unless it’s CERTAIN that I WILL be seeing Matthew, in which case the wardrobe selection does deserve careful and prolonged consideration. . . .

This fascinating train of thought is derailed at exactly that moment by the sound of Randall speaking in a deep, abrupt voice:

“Osu! Onegaishimasu, Sensei!”

Matthew and I look out through the windowed wall of the dojo to the reception area, where we see Randall bowing deeply to his sensei.

And Sensei, now finished with his phone call and his Coke, is bowing right back.

“Hey, guys,” says Randall, spotting us. “Sorry I’m late! I was calling to tell you but no one picked up the phone. I guess you’ve met Sensei Reynaldo.”

“Not exactly. I’m Matthew,” says Matthew.

“I’m Felicia,” I say. “Sorry we didn’t realize who you were.”

“You think I be Chinese or something?” Sensei asks, smiling.

“Uh, yeah,” I say.

“Why?” asks Sensei, with an even bigger smile. “Karate is Japanese. Me, Sensei, is Dominican. I make dojo in Chinatown because rent is cheap. And because I love dim sum!”

He bows to us both. We bow back.

“Felicia-Felicia!” he says, smiling. “I like you name. In Spanish means happy! You be happy always with that name, yes?” Sensei Reynaldo’s teeth are very white and there’s something sweet about him, now that he’s being friendly. He looks at me and Matthew. “Randall say you have question for Sensei? You want to train?”

“We want to learn about love,” I say, watching Randall out of the corner of my eye. Did his cheeks redden?

Sensei grins again. “Ah! We train karate, you train love! Ha, ha, ha! Wonderful. Come inside dojo. I teach love and karate, together! No shoe, please.”

And thus begins our barefoot lesson of love from Sensei Reynaldo.

“Love!” says Sensei as we all sit down on the mats inside the dojo. “Love is why I start to do karate! Back home, in DR, where I grew up—”

“The Dominican Republic,” Randall explains.

“Yes. Santo Domingo,” says Sensei. “When I was little boy, same age like Randall”—Randall rolls his eyes at this—“there was a girl. Not so beautiful girl, normal girl, but most beautiful girl to me, you understand?”

We nod and he continues. “I love this girl, but she no love me! I try to win her, her—sorry, my English! What this?” He puts his hand on his chest.

“Her heart,” says Randall.

“Her heart,” Sensei repeats, working hard to get out the two
h
’s. He laughs. “I teach Randall karate, he teach me English! See? Everybody teacher, everybody student! In karate is same. Yellow belt teach white belt, orange belt teach yellow. Even most high-high-high black belt, always learn.”

Randall nods at his sensei’s words. He looks comfortable, for once.

“I brought her presents, flowers, I cook her favorite food and leave by her house. You cook?” Sensei asks Matthew.

“Not really,” Matthew says, flustered at the question.

“Man should cook! No woman resist man who cooks!” Interesting idea. I don’t remember my dad ever making anything but mashed potatoes when he lived with us. Now he grills. Now he has a deck with a gas-fired barbecue and silver-plated skewers from Williams-Sonoma.

“But my presents no good!” Sensei continues. “She nice girl, no mean to me, but no love me, you know? I cry inside, cry-cry-cry, but still, I love.”

I feel my cheeks start to flush. Does Matthew understand that this is how I feel about HIM? And ohmigod, is this how Randall feels about ME? Randall’s never given me a present, though.

“Then,” Sensei goes on, “terrible thing happen! Her brother have big, stupid fight with my brother, because of nothing, a car they both want to buy. Her brother say to girl, no more! No more see me, no more take my presents. How you say, Randall, no more?”

“Forbidden,” says Randall.

“Forbidden! Forbidden to know me. Like I dead.”

“That’s . . . tragic,” says Matthew, looking somber.

“Like Romeo and Juliet,” muses Randall. I mentally award one point for literary reference to the Randinator.

Sensei beams. “It was miracle!” he says. “I bless that rotten car. A Chevrolet! Once brother say ‘forbidden!’ to the girl, she change! She say, I no let brother tell me what to do! She decide she love me now. She sneak out of house to see me, she tell me she want to marry! ‘Take me away,’ she say. ‘Take me to New York!’ ”

And did he? Now we’re dying to know.

“Well,” says Sensei, relishing the tale, “the brother find out she love me. He come with his friends to beat me up. I always fast, so fast I could run from them. Most of the time I get away! But I hate that I scared. Hate that I run. That’s when I start to train karate. Now I run for bus, and nothing else! I no scared. Randall, you scared?”

“Uh, sometimes,” says Randall sheepishly.

“You champion. No be scared.” Sensei sits back, satisfied. His tale is over when his karate training begins, happy ending and fade out. But of course, what we X-investigators really want to know is what happened with the girl.

“The girl! Ah, no-no, that’s another story,” says Sensei, waving away our question. We plead. “Okay.” He relents. “Her brother get mad at someone else and she fall in love with him! I think she hate brother more than she love me. Later I join the army, I leave Dominican Republic. She still in Santo Domingo, I guess, I don’t know. Old and fat now, maybe! But if I see her, she still beautiful to me.”

“Why did you leave Santo Domingo?” I ask, curious. I can’t imagine leaving my hometown.

Sensei Reynaldo looks at me as if I should already know. “To come to New York!” he says. “That’s why everybody leave where they are.”

When you put it that way, he has a point. “Now you watch us train. You watch Randall,” Sensei says to us. “Your friend is great champion.”

While Randall and Sensei go off to change their clothes, Matthew and I share our thoughts. Both of us feel there’s a usable hypothesis lurking inside Sensei’s story.

“Cooking, I’m sure there’s something in that,” suggests Matthew.

“No!” I say, excited. “It’s the Romeo/Juliet Thing!”

He looks puzzled. “What kind of experiment could we design to test that?”

“Easy!” I say. “What if we weren’t allowed to speak to each other anymore? And we had to sneak around and do everything in secret?”

Matthew starts asking all kinds of scientist questions, like how could we record the results of the experiment if we couldn’t talk to each other, and how valid would the data be anyway, since we’d only be pretending, even assuming we got our parents and the Kittens and Dawgs to play along with us—

But now Randall and Sensei are back, each dressed in a spotless white tunic and loose trousers that stop right above the ankle. They bow in the doorway as they enter the dojo.

“This called a
gi,
” says Sensei. “Nice, huh?” I have to admit, Randall looks totally different in his white gi, with a dark brown belt tied low around his waist. It suits him. His upright posture is authoritative, not stiff and uptight the way I’ve thought of it before. And his quietness, so shy and goofy in the outside world, seems centered and serious here in the dojo.

“Before train, we warm up,” says Sensei. I’m expecting jumping jacks and maybe some stretching, but instead, Sensei and Randall both kneel on the mats and touch their foreheads to the floor. Then they sit up, eyes closed, and breathe deeply for a full minute.

And then, with a barked word from Sensei that I don’t understand, they spring into action. Punches so fast the hands blur, kicks to the front, the side, the back. Leaps that turn in midair and land on a dime. Sensei grabs one of the padded Fred Flintstone clubs and starts whacking away at Randall, who blocks every blow so quickly I can barely tell which hand he’s using. Then, with a high kick that snaps out from his knee at impossible speed, Randall knocks the club out of Sensei’s hand, spins around, and sweeps his leg under Sensei’s. A second later, Sensei is flat on his back on the floor, and Randall throws a lethal-looking punch that stops in midair, a half-inch from Sensei’s face.

“KEEEEEEEE-YAH!!!” Randall roars. He freezes and stays there for a long, long moment.

“Yame!”
says Sensei, finally. Randall drops his position and holds a hand out to Sensei, who takes it and springs easily to his feet.

“Not bad. Watch you leg! Back foot straight, not turn out,” Sensei says to Randall. “Not bad.” He turns to us. “You want to try?”

Well, of course we do! And need I say that I am experiencing a whole new appreciation for Randall? He’s barely sweating. He tightens his belt with a tug and looks at me, not shy at all, with a half-smile that says, Look, see, this is who I really am.

“Okay, I teach two things. Two different self-defense,” says Sensei. He proceeds to demonstrate how to escape if someone grabs you from behind. It involves reaching back and digging your middle fingers into this soft spot behind the other person’s ears. We all try it on each other and are amazed at how much it hurts, even when you don’t press very hard.

“Next, more difficult. Randall, you attack. Felicia-Felicia, you defense. Don’t move, first time just watch.”

Randall and I face each other. He assumes a relaxed, alert posture and takes several deep breaths. “Don’t move,” he repeats softly, almost as an afterthought, just as he starts to kick.

But how can I not move? His foot is flying toward my head at the speed of light. Without meaning to I take a step sideways and start to throw up my hands.

It’s no use, though. My Kittenpaws are no defense against the Randinator’s Flying Foot of Fate.

“I said don’t move!” cries Randall, too late.

When Sensei removes the ice pack from my eye, the first thing I see is Matthew’s concerned face looming in front of me. Randall is right behind him.

“Oh my God,” gasps Randall.

“Whoa!” says Matthew. “Nice shiner!”

I gather from this amusing banter that, for the first time in my life, I am sporting a black eye. I immediately picture myself as Petey the dog, the patch-eyed mutt from the old
Our Gang
films.

“Felicia-Felicia! You look like champion!” says Sensei, grinning. “Come back tomorrow, I want to show you to my students! See this girl? First time in dojo and she go home with trophy!”

“I’m so sorry, Felicia,” says Randall. “What a jerk.”

“It’s not your fault,” I say, my head throbbing. “I shouldn’t have moved.”

“See?” says Sensei, handing me a Coke from the machine. “She champion, too.”

My mom is not always the most coddling-type mom, but she does have an admirable way of getting on with things. After a brief round of hysteria when she saw my face, she pulled herself together, went to the medicine cabinet, and came back with a tube of arnica ointment. She dabs it on the bruised skin, saying, “I’m enrolling you at the dojo. You can take self-defense classes with this kid Randall and next time it better be him who ends up with the shiner.”