Chapter One
The Boxer
Rock Chick Rewind
Some time ago…
“I cannot believe we scored tickets
to Prince,” Ally shrieked.
“That lick, the one that starts off ‘When Doves Cry,’ man,”
Indy was fanning herself.
I was trying not to freak out.
We were hanging in the front of Ellen, Indy’s grandma’s
bookstore, Fortnum’s. There were some beat-up leather couches (that were super
comfortable) and armchairs so people could chill out after they bought their
books and read.
And off to the side, there were some tables and chairs,
where right then, two old guys were playing chess. A checkers board was set up
at another. And in pure Ellen style, because Indy’s grandma went her own way,
Battleship was set up on the last.
“Lee! Will you take us?” Indy shouted to where Lee
Nightingale, Indy’s huge crush, was sitting with Eddie Chavez and Darius Tucker
in some armchairs not close, but not far.
Lee, acting like he didn’t know Indy was there (when, let’s
face it, he was at Fortnum’s because Indy was—I wasn’t sure what was keeping
those two apart (yes, I was, it was Lee being a stupid boy), but it
had to end or they’d both spontaneously combust), turned his head her way.
Darius didn’t have to turn his head our way. He’d been
staring at me for a while.
The reason I was failing at not freaking out.
“No fucking way,” Lee replied to Indy. “I still haven’t
gotten over your bullshit when I was your ride to Def Leppard.”
Lee had a foul mouth. Sadly, it was attractive, but only
because he was top to toe hot.
Not as hot as Darius, and I wasn’t into white guys, but
still.
Also, I’d heard about that Def Leppard thing with Indy and
Ally and how Lee, Eddie and Darius got dragged in (like they often did because
Indy couldn’t get enough of Lee, Lee couldn’t get enough of Indy, Eddie also
couldn’t get enough of Indy, a tangled web, so unsurprisingly, shizzle
happened). The whole high school had heard about it.
The story was hilarious.
I still hoped nothing like that happened at the Prince
concert. I really liked Indy and Ally. They were fun and sweet and nice, but I
wasn’t a shenanigans type of girl.
Indy and Ally were synonymous with shenanigans.
“A master at his craft.” Ellen flitted through wearing some
weird, filmy muumuu and a terry-cloth braided headband around her forehead, her
wispy white hair a cloudy wonder of flips and curls haloing her entire skull,
though, the part of it at the crown was tamped down by the headband. “That
meaning the Purple One,” she explained.
She smiled and winked at me.
I smiled back.
You really never knew what you’d get with Ellen. Fortnum’s
was a cool place to hang (though, they needed a coffee counter or a soda
fountain or something), and Ellen was the reason it was. She was a bit weird,
but in a good way, and she welcomed everybody. I’d even seen her ask a homeless
person in, sending Duke off to go buy the guy a sandwich.
Today it was that muumuu. Last week it was a fringed vest
and jeans and high-heeled sandals with sparkles that would go better with an
outfit you’d wear to the Oscars.
Though, her terry-cloth headband was ever present. As far as
I could tell, she had one in every color, just as long as that color was
pastel.
She loved it that Indy and her friends and half the high
school hung at her store, even if none of them bought books (that being them,
I bought books all the time).
“I’ll drop you girls at the concert,” Ellen offered.
Indy looked upset because Lee blew her off, even if she
replied, “Thanks, Gram.”
Yeesh.
Lee was acting like a jerk. And if he didn’t get himself
together, he was going to lose that girl.
I mean, she was younger than him, she was also younger than
me, but not that much younger.
I saw movement in the stacks and looked that way.
Duke was there, his dark hair graying, his beard getting out
of control.
I got up, because he was my dealer, he had something to
pimp, and I could never resist what he was pimping.
I didn’t look at Darius as I passed where he was sitting
because I might trip or something, which would be so embarrassing, I wouldn’t
be able to deal. I wasn’t sure Mom would accept the excuse of, “I can’t go to
school for the next two years because I tripped in front of a hottie.”
Though, she’d get it, she just wouldn’t accept it.
Dad definitely wouldn’t (and he wouldn’t get it either).
As I made it his way, Duke turned and sauntered deeper into
the bookshelves.
I followed him, thinking I loved the smell of Fortnum’s.
Must and dust, the portal to a million different worlds, a cornucopia of
knowledge.
I’d just started hanging with Indy and Ally, mostly because
I’d started hanging at Fortnum’s, seeing as that’s where the kids hung.
And the first time I went there, I fell in love with it.
Now it was my favorite place on Earth.
Duke moved into a row.
P-Q-R-S, fiction.
I followed him.
When I stopped in front of him, he lifted his hand and
offered me a book. Fahrenheit 451.
I took it even though I said, “We read this in school last
September.”
“Read it again when you don’t have to write a term paper on
it.”
I smiled at him. “Is there a difference?”
“There’s reading something because you want to get a good
grade, and there’s reading something because every person on Earth needs to
read it and get it.”
Well, I thought I got the book when I read it, but right
then, I got him. We shared a love of words. We had a different language than
other people.
Since he knew I understood him, he nodded and took off, as
usual (Duke was a man of few words, the spoken kind, the other kind, he had
gazillions to offer).
As was becoming our way, I didn’t follow.
I leaned against the shelves and opened up the book, knowing
what I’d get.
This time, it was “The Boxer” by Simon and Garfunkel.
Duke always put a sheet of handwritten song lyrics in front
of the books he gave me. He said there was poetry everywhere, you just had to
look for it.
To prove his point, in one of the books he gave me, he once
put a snapshot he took of a fawn and its mother in the forest around his cabin
up in Evergreen. It wasn’t the greatest picture of all time. But it was pure
poetry.
I read the words of the song.
And at the bottom, I read Duke’s note:
They’ll cut you ‘til you cry out.
Be the boxer.
Remain.
“Hey.”
I jumped, fumbled the book, the note fell out and fluttered
to the floor, but I didn’t go for it, because Darius Tucker was standing right
there.
Right there.
“Uh…uh…”
Oh my God!
I was strangling. Why was I strangling?
I couldn’t breathe!
His lips curled up at the ends before he crouched and picked
up the paper, straightened and held it out to me.
“You dropped this,” he said.
My hand was trembling when I took it and forced out, “Yeah.”
He looked down, and it was only then I realized he wasn’t
letting go of the paper.
This meant he had his fingers on the paper, and I had my
fingers on the paper, which was only two steps away from us, like, holding
hands!
“What is it?” he asked.
“What?”
He dipped his head to the paper, and I lost track of what
was happening, considering all I could think about was how smooth his skin
seemed, how warm and soulful his brown eyes were, how long and curly his
eyelashes looked, how beautiful his lips were formed.
He gently tugged on the paper. “This.”
“What?”
He smiled, wide and white, it made his expressive eyes
taper, his cheekbones pop out.
Okay…um…
What was going on with my legs? I was having trouble
standing.
“Malia?”
“Hunh?”
“You okay?”
“Uh…uh…”
Oh Lord! I was strangling again!
He pulled the paper from my fingers and looked at it.
“I know this song,” he said.
I said nothing because I had to focus all my attention on
not passing out.
“Why’s Duke giving you song lyrics?” he asked.
I didn’t answer because I couldn’t.
And…okay, this was stupid.
I had to get myself together.
Indy wouldn’t stand here like a moron, uhing
and fighting for breath.
Ally would have probably kissed him by now just so he’d be
under no illusions she was into him.
I jerked my head from side to side to shake myself out of it
and replied, “It’s poetry. He gives me stuff to make me think, you know, like,
to decipher it. Figure out what it’s about.”
Even though I’d made the mammoth effort to string some words
together, I wasn’t sure he was listening to me.
I knew he wasn’t when I saw the expression on his face when
he looked at me again.
“Who’s cutting you ’til you cry out?” he growled.
Oh my.
I’d never heard a boy growl.
Hearing it, something was happening in other regions of my
body, not just my legs and my ability to provide it with oxygen. That something
felt very good, at the same time it was utterly terrifying.
“No one. It’s just…life. Life will…I haven’t had a good look
at it, and I’m not sure I know that song, but from what I could tell, it’s
about life. You know, standing strong like a boxer when life hits you. Um…I
think.”
He handed me the paper again, this time letting it go when I
took it.
“No one’s gonna cut you,” he said, staring straight in my
eyes.
“Life is life, Darius,” I whispered, then for good measure,
shrugged.
Did I look like a dork shrugging?
I looked like a dork shrugging.
I shouldn’t have shrugged.
Someone kill me!
“You’ll never have to be the boxer, Malia.”
It was said soft, but strong, and that did funny things to
my heart.
All I could think to say was, “Okay.”
“Wanna go out?” he asked.
There was only one thing to say to that.
“Okay,” I repeated.
Darius again smiled.
I again almost swooned (now I was getting all that romance
novel nonsense, which apparently wasn’t nonsense at all, shoo!)
I didn’t swoon.
I kept it together.
And smiled back.
We neared the crest, and as I continued to pretend
the hike wasn’t killing me, Darius, who was a few paces ahead of me (and not
breathing hard at all!), stopped and looked to me with a brilliant smile on his
face.