Chapter 6 Mateo
Chapter six
Mateo
I checked the donation list Jake had set up multiple times over the course of the next few days.
I found myself pulling it up on my phone while in line at the grocery store or waiting for my students to arrive.
The amount of donations we were pulling in was astounding.
I hadn’t expected that kind of support. It didn’t feel real.
I also got a lot of messages from parents who had read the newsletter.
Some of them had ideas for other events.
Some of them wanted to know if they could make monetary donations to help the dojo.
Taking money for nothing felt wrong, so I encouraged them to save that money and bid on things at the silent auction.
Which was going to be Christmas themed, after a few parents all made the same suggestion.
I thought a dojo Christmas party sounded fun, and Jake agreed.
Someone donated an old tree and a few decorations to the dojo before the next class. Sophia and I stayed late putting it up. She spent most of the night laughing at my disbelief that so many people cared about the little dojo I’d built up.
I wondered if my sensei had ever felt the same way. I’d bought this place from him. Had he struggled with keeping it afloat too? Had he faced the same concerns that I was dealing with now? He’d always made it look so effortless.
The realization made me want to bang my head on my desk.
I’d spent so long trying to get ideas on how to make this place successful but never once thought to ask the man I’d bought it from.
He’d run the dojo for over twenty years.
If anyone knew how to successfully run a dojo and make it through the hard times, it would be him.
What the hell was I thinking?
I called him Friday night when I got home, and we made plans to meet for lunch the next day.
I’d planned on taking him out, a preemptive thank you for taking the time out of his retirement to meet with me and discuss ways to help my business. He insisted we meet at his house.
I’d been to his house a thousand times in my life.
As a teenager, I’d bonded with him more as a person and less as my sensei.
He was the man I’d gone to for advice, because my own father had always been too busy with work to ask all the questions I had about being a man.
My sensei had opened his door to me. He’d listened to me talk about my problems and offered advice.
I’d been more worried about coming out to him than my actual parents, but it had been a lot of worry for nothing. He’d accepted me immediately.
My own father had taken a little longer to come around, but then his brand of masculinity had always been different from Sensei David’s.
David was waiting for me on the porch when I arrived, holding a bottle of beer with another one sitting beside the empty chair that I’d claimed as mine years before.
We’d had so many discussions right there.
I remembered talking to him about my worries before I first competed on a national stage, fears that I wouldn’t be good enough and that I’d let him down.
I remembered talking to him after my first heartbreak.
I even remembered stumbling over that chair when I’d showed up at his house, drunk and a little too afraid to go home and face my own dad for drinking underage.
“What’s the reason for the house call?” he questioned after I was settled and had my beer open.
“Technically, I asked for lunch,” I pointed out. “You’re the one that suggested I come here instead.”
David tilted his head, conceding to my point, before he took another sip of his beer. His sharp green eyes were still fixed on me, questioning my motives without a single word.
“How did you do it?” I finally asked. His raised eyebrow urged me to clarify. “Run the dojo, I mean. Without going completely broke.”
“Different times, Mat.” It was my turn to look at him, to urge him to continue and give something more than just different times.
“I started the dojo before there were so many distractions for kids. The cost of running a dojo was a lot less then, too. Rents weren’t as expensive, gear, insurance, all of that.
” That made sense. “But even with all of that, there were so many times that it got tight. Nancy hated it sometimes, because all her friends in the neighborhood talked about husband’s getting Christmas bonuses and going on vacations, and she knew that her husband was never going to have that. ”
Because he ran the business. It was something I’d accepted I’d never have either. Granted, none of my friends got Christmas bonuses either. Most of my friends weren’t taking annual vacations either. Like he said: different times.
“But you always got through it,” I affirmed.
“Yes. Sometimes, it took a lot of sacrifice on our part. We took out a second mortgage on this place once, because the economy wasn’t great and a lot of students had to drop.
Then I had to raise rates to help make up some of that difference, but I didn’t’ want to raise them too much and risk losing my other students.
” I could relate to that. David looked at me again, and his face softened. “Is the dojo having troubles, Mat?”
My stomach sunk as I nodded. He’d taken out a mortgage on his house to keep the dojo afloat, and then he entrusted it to me when he retired. I’d bought the brand from him. I’d made the decision to carry on his teachings to another generation, and I was failing him. “I’m really trying, Sensei.”
“I have no doubt about that,” he assured me. “I wouldn’t have sold my business to just anyone. I trusted you with it for a reason, because I know what you are capable of and that you were the best person to teach my students.”
I smiled at his comforting words, but I still felt like I was letting him down.
I felt a burning need to reassure him, to make sure he knew that he’d not made the wrong choice.
If I hadn’t already taken Jake up on his offer, this conversation would’ve had me driving right to his house.
“I’m working with someone to hopefully fix some of the problems,” I told him.
“One of the dad’s at the dojo, Jake. His daughter joined about six months ago, and he works in marketing.
He’s come up with some really good ideas already. ”
“What kind of ideas?”
“Mostly some basic stuff like revamping the website and moving more of the marketing digital.” I fought the urge to laugh as my sensei scrunched his nose at that. “Different times,” I reminded him. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing once he let out a bark of laughter at his regurgitated words.
When we calmed down, I told him about the other things that Jake had suggested.
His face lit up at the idea of Buddy Week, and I could almost see him wishing that he’d thought of something like that in his tenure as the dojo’s owner.
He volunteered to help with the competition teams once a month, if I wanted him to come in and help that was.
I accepted that help without any hesitation.
I didn’t know if that was growth from working with Jake or if I would have accepted that no matter what.
After all, this was the man who taught me almost everything that I knew.
He seemed the most excited about the event I was putting on.
Then I began telling him about Jake.
If he’d been attentive while I’d talked about the dojo, it was nothing like the level of attention he paid to my every word about the man who was helping me. His eyes twinkled, and he was leaning forward in his seat, just like Sophia did when she was listening to a bit of particularly juicy gossip.
I didn’t understand his reaction at first.
“Jake seems like he’s becoming very important to you.”
His words were slow, and I recognized the tone.
He’d used it on me more times than I could count in the twenty-plus years I’d known him.
It was the voice he took on when he was trying to lead me to reach conclusions that were already obvious to him.
Unfortunately, like every time he used that tone, I didn’t quite understand what point he was trying to make.
“He’s becoming a really good friend.”
“Just a friend?”
“He’s one of my student’s parents. That’s all he can be.”
“But you’d like him to be more?”
There it was. The point he was trying to get to. At least it didn’t take me as long to find it as it used to. He used to beat around the bush a lot more than he did now.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “He’s nice. He’s really attractive.
He listens to me, like really listens to me.
There’s also this…” I sighed. I sounded ridiculous, but David was looking at me with that look that said not talking was not an option.
“There’s this spark between us. I think I felt it the moment I met him. ”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“He’s my student’s dad.” Surely, if anyone could understand that it would be Sensei David. He knew how important it was to keep a professional relationship with the parents at the dojo. He had to see how even admitting my feelings to myself could damage that. I sighed. “It’s impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible.”
The words were simple. I just wished I could believe them.
I could only see the ways that it could go wrong.
I’d had my share of relationships, and they’d all gone wrong in the end.
The guy hadn’t been the right one, and after, it was always awkward.
If that happened with Jake, the dojo would suffer. More importantly, Emerson would suffer.
I’d seen the ways that little girl had changed from day she’d stepped into the dojo for the first time six months ago and now. I could imagine the powerhouse she’d be in another year, and I didn’t want my reckless heart to derail that.
“You’re overthinking it, aren’t you?” David asked, pulling my thoughts from my fears.
“I don’t think I’m overthinking it. I think I’m thinking about it enough.”