Fight Like a Girl

by Sheena Kamal

  But she can.

  Inside my suitcase is a packed lunch and snacks for the plane. It’s a short flight and I don’t need to be lugging all this food with me. I can feel her residual anger, but nothing will ever stop her from feeding me until I burst. When she leaves me at a security checkpoint, at the lineup before the gate, I hold her gaze and dump the food in the garbage. Tupperware included.

  She doesn’t blink.

  Just stares at me until I go through the line and out of her sight. I can feel her eyes on me the whole way. That’s okay with me. Let her look at Ravi like that. I spend the whole plane ride trying to not picture them together in the house while I’m away.

  Aunty K starts chatting from the minute she meets me at JFK. It’s like she’s stored up conversations for weeks or something, just for me. “Why are you so quiet?” she keeps asking. On the train to her tiny apartment from the airport. At the apartment. When I’m on the sofa bed in the living room. The next morning when I start work at her cramped roti shop in Brooklyn.

  She doesn’t stop talking, doesn’t stop asking. She makes the roti, someone named Mary fills it, and I handle the cash. All the loneliness she must feel living here by herself seems to be gone now with my stellar presence.

  I turn my phone on after the first day and it starts buzzing right away.

  Where are you? Noor.

  Another buzz. Amanda. Sparring 2nite?

  Jason, who got my number off the list at fight camp, sends me a photo from the demo where I dropped his ass. Rematch? Fight prep? Where you at?

  Got a new gf so don’t cry for me. Columbus.

  Haha, I text him back. Make sure you use a bike pump to inflate her or else your jaw’ll get sore.

  That’s what she said.

  I know. I did.

  Then I look at Jason’s text. What do I say? I don’t know, so I just tell him I’m in New York for the holidays. See him when I get back.

  He sends me a thumbs-up. It could mean nothing. I mean, it probably means nothing. Right?

  I work my ass off for these couple weeks. This is no Foot Locker, I’m telling you that. You think retail is bad? Try working at a roti shop in Brooklyn for less than minimum wage. Ma calls every day, but I refuse to talk to her. She put me here, left me to work under the table, washing dishes and coming back to a lumpy sofa bed every night with shitty soca songs looping in my head and smelling of Grade-B curry. Nothing I do can get the odour out of my hair. Nothing but the garbage that piles up out back when I haul out the restaurant trash. Garbage and curry are my life this break, and I know exactly what got me here.

  I should have kept my mouth shut, like Ma told me. I should never have talked to Pammy about the night Dad died.

  I feel my muscles slackening, going soft, turning to jelly, so I start running in the mornings. New York is going through the same kind of seasonal madness as Toronto, where there isn’t a flake of snow to be found anywhere. It’s…hot. Thank you, global warming. I go for runs so early the sun isn’t even up yet. Aunty K bought me two rape whistles. Two. Just in case I get attacked and no one comes, I can chuck one at the guy and still have one to spare.

  Aunty K likes books about Trinidad, is constantly talking about going back, though why she would ever is beyond me. A more fucked-up country I never even imagined. Thank God for Canada. I mean, we’ve got problems, but not Trinidad-level problems.

  Now I know more than what could fill an A-cup sparkly bra with tassels. I’m up to a B-cup, at least. Aunty K’s knowledge matches her actual cup size, which is bordering on an H. Christ.

  “Richest country in the Caribbean,” Aunty K says, shaking her head. Her hair has long streaks of grey that she doesn’t bother to dye brown anymore. “Pitch, sugar cane, natural gas. Always drilling offshore. It’s a curse. So much money there and everybody wants some. They don’t care about nobody back home.”

  And don’t get the roti-shop Trinis talking about the Venezuelans. The moaning about the effect of Venezuela’s collapse on island life is almost a pastime. As if the Venezuelans did it on purpose!

  On the top shelf of her bookcase are the family photo albums. Ma doesn’t keep any at home because Aunty K started hoarding all the photos a long time ago. I take them out at night, one by one, and go through them. They’re filled with images of life in Trinidad. By day I go to the roti shop and am surrounded by the West Indian diaspora and their shit talking, the way they sling acronyms like PNM, UNC, DDP, ILP, et cetera. The only thing I understand from the conversations is that Trinidad is the most dangerous place in the world, but also there is nowhere sweeter. In the minds of these immigrants, both of these things are true. The tabanca is real.

  Tabanca, if you don’t know, is a Trini way of saying you love something that doesn’t love you back. The island pushed them out, but they still love it.

  Nowhere else in the world you can walk to the corner and get a hot doubles, eat it right there on the road. Wash it down with an Apple J.

  Where the women are so thick and beautiful you can’t find the like anywhere else. (Although, trust me, never say that to a Bajan. All you’re gonna get is an earful of Rihanna worship for your troubles.)

  Where they are so strong you know they can handle whatever weight you lay on their shoulders.

  Where they are so dangerous, you can never turn your back on them, not for a second. (The moment you do, they’ll be flinging something at your head, telling people your business, generally messing up your life any which way they can.)

  Aunty K comes into the den, which she uses as a second bedroom when I’m here. I’ve already put the photos away and I’m just trying to go to sleep, but I can’t even have privacy for that. In her hands are those tiny cards you get at the paint store. She’s looking at the brightest colour samples, of course.

  She switches on the lamp and announces that she’s renovating the restaurant. “What do you think of these shades?” she asks, running a hand through her sharp new bob. Which is now dyed scarlet. A present that she gave herself yesterday. She ducked out of the shop for three hours and came back with a haircut and colour that I never thought I’d see on her. Gone is the muted chestnut of her past and here she is, with a red crown and the matching lipstick.

  Now, I’ve seen what we make at the restaurant. Over the years she’s complained endlessly about how hard it is to survive in New York. But that must have changed, because she’s thinking about a renovation. She looks at me, and smiles a strange little smile, an uncertain one. I think she’s about to tell me something important, there’s just that feeling of quiet that comes before…but the moment passes. She turns back to the sample cards.

  “Which one do you like better?” she says instead.

  I’m asked to choose between a yellow and an orange that both threaten to burn my retinas. So I go with the orange, because it’s slightly more forgiving.

  Ma calls on Christmas Day but I miss it because I’m too busy working at the shop. She doesn’t leave a message. Later, Aunty K and I eat leftover roti for dinner and I unwrap a pair of gold earrings from them both. Dangly ones that are too pretty to even think about wearing. Aunty K gets a warm scarf from me. When she asks me what I got for Ma, I say “Nothing,” because I didn’t have time to get her anything before she packed me off and I’m still mad that I have to be here. Missing the gym Christmas party where we all get together wearing something other than tiny shorts. Not even going to Times Square for New Year’s Eve improves my mood. On the packed train over there, Columbus texts me.

  I think your mom is crying. Should I go over?

  You can hear her? Is she alone?

  Yeah, she’s alone.

  I think, good. She wouldn’t want you to see her like that. Where’s your mom?

  Out.

  Columbus is home alone on New Year’s, and so is Ma. Where the hell is Ravi, though? I guess part of me thought that Ma sent me
away not just for talking to Pammy but because she wanted to be with Ravi without me there. But it’s not Ma’s style at all to do something like that, and now I feel bad that she’s alone. Even though it’s her own fault. I try to call her but her phone is off. Every call goes to voicemail.

  I can’t get her out of my head.

  On the way into Manhattan, I couldn’t care less about the stupid countdown. Aunty K is still talking. Several times I try to tell her about Ma alone, crying, but there’s something new and fragile about Aunty K right now. Like the red in her hair hasn’t settled in on her yet and she’s not really sure about it. She keeps fussing with the strands, pulling them forward and examining them. She seems close to tears, too, like maybe she’s only just discovering she wasn’t meant to be a ginger, so I shut my mouth and pretend to be interested in numbers being counted backward. At the stroke of midnight, she throws her arms around me and kisses me wetly on the cheek.

  “Aunty!” I push her away and wipe the lipstick mark off my face.

  “Oh, live a little,” she says. Which is rich, coming from her. I don’t need advice from a fifty-year-old spinster on how to live. I think she must have read the thought in my mind, in the witchy new way of hers. She turns quiet on the train ride back. Everyone in our carriage is strangely subdued, too, except for a couple having a hushed fight at the opposite end of the car. It’s like Aunty K’s mood has expanded outward like a force field and has knocked everyone into some kind of examination of their life choices.

  Or maybe thinking about a whole new year of the same shit does this to everyone. People talk about the New York magic, but I dunno, it feels dark here. Like everyone thinks it’ll be like something out of a film and it’s never what you expect.

  Columbus and Noor text me to say Happy New Year, so I text them back. After two minutes of thinking about it, I text Jason, too. I get a fireworks emoji from him, like right away. I know it’s silly and I shouldn’t think anything about it, but it feels nice.

  fourteen

  Ma picks me up from the airport and she doesn’t have a whole lot to say besides asking me how my flight was and whether or not I’m hungry. She’s quiet and I don’t want to be bringing up anything that will send me back to the roti shop, so I just keep my mouth shut until we get home.

  She pulls into the parking lot and turns off the car. I’m about to get out but she stops me. “Trisha, I have to talk to you about something.”

  For a moment I think she’s going to bring up Dad, but then she says, “Ravi is going to be around more often. I know you don’t like him, but I think you should give him a chance.”

  I think she shouldn’t give him a chance, since he ditched her on New Year’s. She gets out of the car before I can reply.

  It takes me a while to follow her into the townhouse, which has always been her space. Never mine. Even when Ma’s not there, her presence spreads like bacteria after a sweltering July day at the gym. It’s everywhere. In the furniture she’s chosen, the colours on the wall, right down to the arrangement of the dishes in the cupboard. Even my father, when he was alive, was careful to leave as small an impression as possible on her house, since he lived half the year knocking about in Trinidad anyway.

  But now there’s Ravi, and his presence feels like a more permanent thing.

  When I go inside, there he is. Fixing the back door. “I already did that,” I say, as I grab clean hand wraps from the clothesline.

  “You did it wrong. I should have fixed this weeks ago.”

  He digs through his toolkit for something. “I knew I broke it when I came in,” he says absently. “Damn flimsy thing.”

  I stare at him. “You’re the one who broke the lock on the back door?”

  He freezes. “I hear your mother calling you. You better go see what she wants.” He says this easily, like I’m going to forget about this anytime soon. Ravi broke our back door trying to get inside, even before he and Ma got together.

  Around the time Dad died.

  What the hell is happening here?

  “Ma,” I say, when I get upstairs. She’s in the kitchen, heating up some lunch. “Ravi’s the one who broke the back door—”

  She slams a pot down on the counter. “Trisha, I swear if you bring up that door again, you won’t be going to that gym for the rest of the school year.”

  “But—”

  “I mean it!”

  This is so ridiculous! But effective. She really knows how to get to me sometimes.

  Fine.

  I ask her if by saying Ravi’s going to be around more often, she means he’s living here now and if he’s got a job to go to maybe?

  “Yes, he’s here now. And he works at a warehouse.” She sighs and turns away from me.

  I’ve never seen her so tired. I get the feeling that Ravi keeps her up a lot at night, but I don’t really want to think about that, because ew.

  I find out later his part-time warehouse job is in Mississauga, where he operates a forklift. When he’s not doing that, he’s shirtless on the couch, his saggy chest sprouting new hairs every day. My father was no peach in that department either (too much roti and fried rice can do that to a person), but at least he kept his shirt on.

  And apparently we have an accident at his work to thank for Ravi’s constant presence in our house.

  Using up all the hot water in the mornings. Replacing my whey protein with a disgusting vegan version, on account of his old-man digestive issues. Looking at my biceps with judgment, as though they’re puny. Which, of course, they’re not, because even though the trip to New York has me off my regular training regimen, I’m working my chin-up bar and I can lift like a motherfucker. Well, myself. Still. Lifting yourself like a motherfucker is no small feat.

  “What’s up with this Ravi guy?” asks Columbus, the day after I return. We’re on his bed, as per usual now that Ravi is a constant fixture in my house. Tomorrow is our first day back at school from break. We don’t talk too much at school, so Columbus likes to get in these little chat sessions outside of class time. “Why is he always there? Doesn’t he have his own place to go to?”

  “No, he’s moved in for good,” I say, beyond depressed about this. “He hurt his back a couple years ago. A crate fell on him at work or something. So apparently he needs a lot of rest, according to my mom.”

  “Shoulda fell on him harder,” mutters Columbus. No shit. It’s about the first time Columbus has been right about anything. “So what about New York? Any hookups?” he asks, abruptly changing the subject.

  “No.”

  He rubs his puny pecs. “Not even some up-top action? Christmas holidays before college and you’re in New York City?”

  Which, to Columbus, is like hookup central because he’s never actually been.

  “Don’t worry,” he says, with one of his baby punches to my shoulder. “You’ll get laid in college. But it’s kinda pathetic, still.”

  Apparently he spent his break having butt loads of sex with a (slightly) older woman who worked at the accessory store at the mall. She is, as he put it delicately, a fine piece of ass, a Guyanese import (who likes her men skinny and barely legal, I guess). If Columbus is telling the truth, which is up for debate.

  “I gotta go train,” I say, pushing him off the bed.

  “Right,” he says, as I step over him. “You know real men don’t like women with muscles.”

  “When I see a real man, I’ll ask him.”

  But it bothers me all the way to the gym. I see Ricky at reception and bring up my demo fight with Jason, making sure to comment on his cardio. Naturally, Ricky takes this opportunity to tell me everything he knows about Jason. College boy. Training for less than a year. Has “heart.” Lives in res but comes back to the east end most weekends to do his laundry at home.

  “Girlfriend?” I ask.

  Ricky smirks. “Why do you want to know?�
��

  “Why don’t you want to say?”

  “Lucky wants to get lucky,” Ricky teases. “Lucky” is what they call me as a private joke since I never win my fights. He’s about to say some other douchebag thing but shuts up quick because Kru comes into the reception area just then.

  Kru smiles when he sees me, asks about my holiday. I feel like all my dreams have come true for just that moment. I don’t tell him about the roti shop or hanging out with my aunt. I tell him about my morning runs and the shadowboxing I did to keep sharp. He gives me a round of pads and shakes his head sadly at the end. “You need work.”

  So I’m back to training every day.

  Kru has me hold pads for the little kids in the junior class and it’s not so bad because at least he gives me a round or two after evening sessions. I feel an itch, just beneath my skin. Sparring isn’t the same, it really isn’t. I need the ring. The crowd. The feeling of surrender to what is happening between me and the other girl.

  Like my mother, who has completely surrendered to Ravi. She’s so busy all the time now, with work and dealing with him. Even my eighteenth birthday wasn’t anything special. Just some takeout and a cake. She looked relieved that I didn’t want any presents, only money. Usually she loves shopping for me, but I’m kind of glad I have no more dresses taking up room in my closet. I’m okay with not spending time at the house now that Ravi’s there. In fact, I prefer it.

  One night I come home so late they don’t know what to do with me. It wasn’t my fault. Sparring went past closing time and Ricky was the one closing so he didn’t bother kicking us out the way that Kru would have.

  When I get to the house, I try to be quiet. Ravi comes into the kitchen while I mix a protein shake. He knocks the tub out of my hand. A puff of vanilla-scented powder comes flying up at us.

  “We have rules here now,” he says, as the container rolls away and into the wall. “This door locks at nine o’clock. No more gallivanting around till all hours of the night, you hear? That’s not what proper young ladies do.”

  I do hear, but I kinda zone him out because who ever told him I was a proper young lady, anyway? My attention is focused on Ma. She’s standing behind him, a stricken look on her face. This is new, so very fresh that we’re both reeling from it. She has never, not once, allowed my father to speak to me like this because it’s always been understood that I’m hers, and hers alone. To love, to scold, to whatever.