Shadowboxer by Tricia Sullivan Read Free Book Online Page A

yourself.’
    ‘I don’t know, Cake. I was brought up on attitude. That’s how I got where I am.’
    ‘OK, OK, no problem,’ said Cake, and he literally backed away. ‘Just some good advice for you. I hope you will be happy in my uncle’s camp.’
    Now he was walking away from me, through the kitchen, stepping carefully so he wouldn’t get his shoes dirty on the trail of slime that the pig swill bag had left on the tiles.
    ‘Wait,’ I said, following. ‘Is there anything else I should know? Can you teach me some curse words?’
    ‘Keep practicing,’ he said, flashing a smile over his shoulder. Then Chrissie was there, an envelope with my cash in her hand, and he was slipping around her while she started asking if my cousin Luis could do anything about the ignition in her Mercedes. Then he was gone.
    I went home and told Malu what Cake said. She listened while she fed the fish and skimmed their tank.
    ‘You, learning to take it easy? That could be asking too much. On the other hand, this could be an opportunity for you.’
    ‘Have you been talking to my mom again?’ I closed my eyes. Mom had called me on the restaurant’s phone—she’s resourceful, right? I wouldn’t be surprised if she took out skywriting to get her message across: STAY OUT OF TROUBLE, JADE. She yapped away in my ear. Was I sure? Did I promise to be careful? Would I call her every day? I decided to let Mr. B explain to her that I had no phone.
    Now Malu flashed her eyes. ‘As a matter of fact, I did talk to your mom. And I had to swear upside down and sideways that you’ll be safe on this trip. So you better. Don’t get into it with anybody.’
    ‘Fine.’
    I thought I kept my voice neutral, but she gave me her Look.
    ‘ What, Jade? Spill.’
    She knew me too well. Me and my cousin had been close since my mom moved from Queens to Union City to get away from my dad. Even in those days Malu was big and womanly-looking and smart, but she got pushed around by pretty much everybody because she never stood up for herself. I was scrawny and truant and back in Queens I’d had a lot of fights. I picked fights because I liked everybody to know that I might be small, but I was no pushover. I was Malu’s bodyguard for years, and she made me do my homework.
    Then Malu got a scholarship to private school and we were separated. We lived in different worlds. Malu lived away from home, where she got educated and cultured. ‘You’re like a butterfly coming out of your cocoon,’ I used to rag her, and Malu would say, ‘You’re like bullshit coming out of a bull.’
    Then my aunt and uncle moved to Virginia, but Malu stayed to go to college in the city. I was starting eleventh grade when our grandmother was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer and my mom went back to the Dominican Republic to take care of her. Malu moved in to keep an eye on me, and she was doing that literally right now. She was drilling me with her eyes. I didn’t flinch.
    Eventually she said, ‘You know you’re going to tell me.’
    ‘Nothing.’
    Malu snorted.
    ‘Nothing!’
    ‘Uh-huh.’
    ‘OK. OK, but it’s stupid.’
    She raised her eyebrows, waiting.
    ‘I’m scared of Thailand,’ I said.
    Malu rolled her eyes. ‘Come on. You’ve been wanting to go to Thailand to train ever since you started in with this Mr. Big dude. Now you do something really stupid, hit a movie star who could have you arrested, and with your luck you manage to turn it around so you get what you wanted to do anyway, which was to go to Thailand. Where does the scared part come in?’
    ‘I know it doesn’t make sense,’ I said. ‘You’re right. I have always wanted to train there. It’s just that everything’s happening so fast. And I’m... scared. Of myself.’
    ‘Yourself.’ Malu can lay on the mock about three feet deep just by the tone she uses. I ignored her tone. I said:
    ‘I think I can feel a fuckup coming on.’
    Malu sighed. She went in the kitchen and came out with a plant