Liberty

by Andrea Portes

  Viva and I both turn to Madden, each of us hoping he will call it a day.

  “Nice try, Paige. But you never know. Perhaps you’ll learn something.”

  “And perhaps YOU’LL learn something.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know, actually.”

  Viva throws me some serious shade and heads back to the car.

  “Okay, I have a follow-up question.”

  Madden exhales. “Yes.”

  “Is this car worth a lot in your human money?”

  “Paige, there’s nothing around. Okay? You’re going to be fine. Just get in the car, turn on the ignition, and do the obstacle course.”

  “In that order?”

  “Yes.”

  HOOOOOONK.

  Inside the car, Viva does the international shrug for what the F is taking you so long?

  I look across the obstacle course. It’s about a mile long and there are a lot of orange cones involved. Out toward the end of the track, there seems to be some kind of wet pavement, but that could easily be a mirage. The sun is just coming up from the east, blanketing the track in a kind of golden matte.

  “It’s now or never, Paige.”

  Well, here goes.

  4

  A 2016 Dodge Viper SRT costs exactly $87,895. I know, because I just crashed one.

  Allow me to elaborate.

  Before the wet pavement mirage, I was doing pretty well. Yes, there was a lot of nervous chatter coming out of my mouth, but, in general, I was actually kind of getting into the orange cone swerve of it all. To be true, it was exciting. Thrilling!

  Viva coaches me. “Okay, push into the curve. That’s right. Smooth. You gotta keep it smooth. Never jerky. Jerky is death. Never jerky.”

  “Jerky is death.”

  “Yes, confident. Smooth. Push into the turn. No second-guessing. You can’t second-guess. Second-guessing is death.”

  “Second-guessing is death.”

  “Exactly. Now do you see that? That’s wet concrete. If you lose control on a wet or snowy surface, it can be much harder to regain control. Got it? There is much less traction to work with.”

  “Much less traction to work with.” I repeat her, trying to absorb, nervous.

  “Less traction is bad. Losing control with less traction equals death.”

  “Losing control with less traction equals death. Boy, a lot of things equal death around here.”

  “That’s true, gringa. You gotta be doubly careful in the rain or the snow.”

  “Careful in inclement weather.”

  “You gotta be smooth. Never jerky. Anything jerky in the rain or the snow equals death.”

  “Again.”

  “Muerto.”

  “Yes. Muerto. Got it. Lo entiendo.”

  “Watch out!”

  And this is the part where some sort of decoy, designed to look like a woman crossing the street with her child pops up in front of me and turns what was a pleasant educational session into a careening, out-of-control death trap wherein Viva and I are swerving sideways to miss the sweet family decoy, overcorrecting the other way by about 180 degrees, and fishtailing all the way into the ditch next to the track, which is more like a gravel pit of death.

  After what seems like a million hours but is, actually, only about a second, I turn to Viva and see her covered in gravel, dust, and scratches. The crushed tin can around us does not bode well for my insurability. There is nothing moving in Viva’s face. Everything is moving under it, simmering.

  “Jesus. I am so, so sorry.”

  “Get out, get out!”

  And now Viva is dragging me out of the car and we are looking on. Everything seems pretty normal for a second. Just a crushed can of a car, in a ditch.

  And then . . .

  “Oh Jesus. RUN!”

  Viva hurls me back with her as something in the car catches, and next thing I know, there is a giant explosion behind us and a hot blast of wind propelling us off our feet, into the air, forward, and into the field. Our faces used to have skin on them, but now they are just mostly scrapes and dirt.

  Viva also has daggers in her eyes, and they are pointing at me.

  Behind her the smoke from the car billows up behind her in red-and-gray plumes.

  Madden comes sprinting toward us from the other side of the field. He should be out of breath but he’s one of those CrossFit guys, I bet, with some sort of medieval contraption in the basement where he maniacally laughs all night watching House of Cards.

  “Stay there! They’re on their way!”

  I’m assuming the they in that statement must be the ambulance barreling forward across the track, sirens blaring.

  Viva’s eyes stay on me. Blades.

  “You don’t like me very much, do you?”

  She exhales, resigned, there in the dust.

  “That’s okay. I don’t like me that much right now either.”

  5

  I’m not sure why anyone on the face of the planet would want to use a bow and arrow. I mean, it seems like a fairly limited field of expertise and usefulness. Unless your name is Katniss.

  One hundred feet away from us is a giant bull’s-eye. A tiny speck of yellow, circled by red, circled by blue, circled by black. There are five bull’s-eyes set up and four other beginning archery students beside me. I got here first, getting dibs on the far end so as to minimize my humiliation. I don’t think I need to tell you that it’s gotten around about the Viper.

  Madden stands beside me, sounding like an instruction manual.

  “Always inspect your arrows to make sure they are straight and that each nock is in good working condition. A cracked nock can break when fired from the bow and can cause the bow to ‘dry fire.’ This can cause injury and will damage the bow.”

  “Is there a person in there?”

  “Yes. Always make sure you know what lies behind your target. Never point your weapon at anything you do not intend to shoot. Arrows travel fast and have a lot of power.”

  “Thank you. I think I’ve got it.”

  “Make sure the arrow is in the nock before shooting; otherwise it can lead to serious injury.”

  “Got it. The nock.”

  “Listen to me, Paige. Instinctive shooting is the coordination between the eyes and the bow arm. It allows your experience and subconscious to guide your movement. It requires large amounts of concentration and practice. Focus on nothing but the center of the target.”

  “Concentration. Yes.”

  “Are you sure your right is the dominant eye?”

  “Yes, of course I’m sure. That was, like, step one, remember?”

  “I just want to be sure.”

  I raise the bow, set in the nock, and shoot.

  Black.

  Totally not humiliating.

  “Not bad. Actually, I thought you might not even hit the target, so this is good.”

  “Okay, good, are we done?”

  “Nice try. Again.”

  And again, I aim and shoot. This time, blue.

  “Better.”

  “Okay, cool. Ready to go?”

  Madden just stares.

  “Are you planning on sending me into a kind of dome where I have to kill all my friends with only this weapon to save me?”

  “Amusing. Again.”

  I raise my bow, concentrate, and shoot. Blue again.

  “Okay, let’s try for yellow this time.”

  “Um, yellow is a bull’s-eye.”

  “Always aim for the bull’s-eye, Paige.”

  “Well, duh. I’m just saying don’t hold your breath.”

  Again, I raise the arrow in the nock, aim, concentrate, and shoot.

  Red! Dang it. So close!

  “Keeping doing that for an hour. I’ll be back at noon.”

  “What? An hour? What is this even for? Unless you have a time machine and are sending me back to . . . Wait a minute. DO you have a time machine?”

  “Of course. I’m ac
tually from the fortieth century.”

  “Does the singularity begin in two thousand forty-three or does artificial intelligence eradicate humanity?”

  “We eradicate humanity. What do you think of my human skin?”

  “Too white.”

  “Of course. See you in an hour.”

  I call after him as he walks away, “You know this is sort of a pointless exercise, right? Like underwater basket weaving or Candy Crush or that game where the participants are meant to throw an orange inflatable orb into a wire circle placed parallel to the earth.”

  “You mean basketball.”

  “Oh! Is that what it’s called?!”

  Even though it’s too cold out here and I really would prefer to go inside and collapse for ten hours, there’s something about being in this space. This space with wet grass and the morning dew. This space with robins chirping. This space—with Madden.

  He makes it better.

  Even though he’s annoying and preppy and square. The air around him, or the way he takes it in, or just to sort of see what he’s wearing. He makes it better.

  I can never tell him that.

  He’s halfway across the field now, walking back to whatever secret operation he’s roped someone else into. I don’t know why but I catch myself watching him. Glued to him walking across the field, the morning dew a blanket under our feet and the sun casting amber shadow over the stretch of crabgrass.

  He turns back.

  “Why are you still looking at me?!”

  “I’m waiting for you to return to your true robot form!”

  6

  Viva is sizing me up with pity. The mats below us go red, blue, red, blue, red, the length of the floor, all the way over to the locker room. The sensei here is from Kyoto. Her name is Satchiko. That’s Japanese for girl who brings good luck.

  There’s eight other people on the mat, my fellow trainees, watching us, anticipating. I get the feeling they’re excited to see Viva make mincemeat out of me. Word not only got around about the Viper . . . it also got around about Viva. So, possibly, there are bets on this thing. Heavy bets.

  Satchiko steps back gracefully, with the respect given to the craft.

  This is just a standard judo dojo, and I’m pretty sure no one told Satchiko about my Eskrima, jujitsu, aikido, or karate training. That’s okay. I don’t need to announce myself.

  Viva and I face each other. She raises an eyebrow, wondering if I plan on just running off.

  I nod.

  She approaches me, obligated.

  THWAP!

  Yes, I just flipped Viva onto the mat. A collective gasp goes through the dojo. Everyone but Satchiko. Satchiko is true Japanese.

  Viva looks up at me from the mat.

  I can tell she’s about to use every curse word in English, Spanish, and Spanglish, but, seeing Satchiko standing there with the gravitas of Mount Fuji, thinks better of it.

  She gets up and dusts herself off.

  Satchiko gestures for another round.

  Viva, again, stands in front of me, this time on edge, ready to pounce.

  Satchiko nods and Viva comes crashing toward me.

  THWAP!

  That one was even harder. That’s her fault, actually. I just used her momentum. Again, a collective gasp.

  Viva stays on the ground for a second, stunned. Her eyes up at the ceiling. I guess she thought she had that one.

  Satchiko nods to me, the signal it’s over.

  I reach out a hand to help Viva up. She looks at my hand.

  I can tell the last thing she wants to do is take it. I get it. I just humiliated her in front of the entire dojo. Sort of like I humiliated myself by crashing that Viper.

  Satchiko stands there, calm. “The mountain remains unmoved by its apparent defeat by the mist.”

  You could imagine the world would blast itself into smithereens and Satchiko would still be standing there like a thousand-year-old willow.

  I leave my hand there for Viva.

  You may be wondering why I’m not spewing my usual sarcasm all over the place. That’s not what you do here. In places like this you aspire to be like Satchiko, quiet as the lake around the golden temple in Kyoto.

  Viva takes a deep breath and relents, accepting my hand and my assistance. Once up, she rubs her back and looks at me, curious.

  It’s okay. I know she thought I was just some dumbass. That’s the point, really. Never let them see you coming. There’s more to martial arts than just moves. Ask Satchiko.

  As we are leaving the dojo, we all nod in respect and walk gently out.

  “Arigatōgozaimashita.”

  It has all been very good with us.

  Just as I am stepping out, I hear Satchiko say, “Jukuren shita taka wa sono kagidzume o kakushi.”

  It means:

  “A skilled hawk hides its talons.”

  I relay this to Viva, who is beyond annoyed at everything about me right now.

  She rubs her back, mutters, “Yeah. Hides them so well, you mistake them for a turkey.”

  “Wait. Did you just call me a turkey?”

  But I smile. It’s the nicest thing I’ve heard in a while.

  7

  Strategies for Making Gael García Bernal Fall in Love with Me:

  1. Get hit by a car. Lie on the ground in a vaguely ethnic but not too culture-appropriating dress. Perhaps expose one thigh, or at least a knee. Make sure I get hit just so, so that I look disheveled but not like a nightmare horror show with half my face gone. No, no. I have to be in kissable disarray. Just the right amount so he subconsciously thinks of me lying next to him after he’s ravaged me. In this arrangement, I imagine the street to be cobblestone. Someone’s aunt is hanging laundry in the background.

  2. Accidentally become his translator. Insert myself into a situation where he is in a foreign land and in need of someone to translate between Spanish and Russian (or French or Chinese). It will all seem completely haphazard and meant to be. He will look up at me gratefully, and I will blush. He will find this endearing and invite me to dinner or a drink or maybe just to walk around the park and look lovingly at each other.

  3. Stalk him.

  I’m fairly sure number three would be the least successful of these plans, but it might be necessary to enact either number one or number two.

  Okay, I know you’re wondering why I am suddenly obsessed with Gael García Bernal. And I’ll be honest with you. It is a bit sudden. See, what happened was . . . I binge-watched. I started with Mozart in the Jungle. That was the appetizer. Then I moved on to Y Tu Mamá También. That was the entrée. Then The Motorcycle Diaries. Clearly, the dessert.

  So now I am a lost cause.

  In my daydreams, he and I are studying and he is next to me and I am completely nervous and there are butterflies flying all over the place inside my body, and then, this is the best part . . . he and I happen to fall silent for a moment. This is the part when I am wondering if he’s in love with me or if I’m just an idiot. And then he kisses me. And it’s a long, supersexy kiss, which I am having a hard time focusing on because I am thinking: Please think I’m a good kisser. Please think I’m a good kisser. Please think I’m a good kisser.

  That’s the end of the daydream.

  And I love this daydream. Because this is a reality I would gladly just fly into and never come back from. Like, if God came down and said, Hello, Paige, my child! Would you like to stay in ACTUAL reality or would you like to stay in THIS Gael García Bernal–kissing reality? Which do you choose . . . for eternity? I would not take a second before saying, I’m gonna have to go with Gael, Lord.

  Why do I know this? Well, whenever I have this dream I am hugely disappointed when I wake up. Like heartbroken.

  Also, now that I’ve broken up with or gotten broken up with by all my boyfriends, it’s really just Gael and me. That’s who I daydream about. By myself. During lunch.

  Lunch is in a sterile government-issue cafeteria. Right now Madden is walking toward
me, plastic tray held before him.

  “Daydreaming?”

  “Nope. Just strategizing on ways to make Gael García Bernal fall in love with me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “We haven’t reached the making-out point yet, but I am hoping that happens soon.”

  “Um . . . ooo-kay.” Madden seems all of a sudden to wish he’d chosen another table.

  “Do you have dreams, Madden? Do robots dream? Tell me. I need to know!”

  “Would you like me to ask my Roomba?”

  “Actually, now that I think about it, that seems like a more apt criterion than the Turing test. I dream, therefore I am.”

  He sits down next to me. Pulls out his ever-present phone.

  “Got Elon Musk on that thing? Maybe he’d have some insight on this. Also, I’d like to visit his factory.”

  “Really? You’d like to crash a Tesla, too?”

  “I was thinking I’d just take the rocket ship.”

  “You know, Paige . . . you may want to keep that list of strategies.”

  “What?”

  “For your star crush, whatever his name is?”

  “Really? Why? Oh my God, is my new spy partner Gael García Bernal? Please. Please tell me he and I will fall in love on a boat crossing the Bosphorus in Istanbul. It will be cold with the breeze, but he will lend me his coat and comfort me!”

  “Patience, oh delusional one.”

  8

  Everybody gets to be good at something. Need for Speed, from East Los, gets to be good at driving. I get to be good at martial arts. Neither of us gets to be good at carrying a fifty-pound pack over twenty miles through the mud.

  This is evidenced by the fact that everyone else is in front of us and, yes, I am the very last one in the pack. Paige Nolan. Last.

  Behind me, Randall is barking orders. If you’re wondering who Randall is, he’s the very large, usually quite warm, African-American training agent who is putting me through my own particular version of hell and humiliation over here. On any other day, I like Randall. Today, I want to strangle Randall.

  “What’s wrong, Nolan? Didn’t eat enough kale today?!”

  That is a joke.

  Humor.

  I would laugh, except I am about to keel over into a pile of mud, sweat, and tears.