“Then tell me!” In Spanish, she added, “Get your head out of your ass and talk to me!”
“What?” Yona asked, frowning.
Lydia shook her head. “What, you forgot Spanish in the last six years, too?”
“I only used it with you.”
“You work for a congressman in a state that’s got a huge-ass Latino population.”
“He needs to speak Spanish, I don’t.” Now Yona was staring at the stage.
Fed up, Lydia grabbed Yona’s jaw and turned her head toward her. “Look at me, for fuck’s sake!”
But Yona just flinched, and Lydia realized that she was in pain. “What’s wrong?”
“Sore jaw is all. From sparring. Look, everything’s fine, okay? I’m working my way back to black belt, I’ve got a good job. Everything’s fine. Really! Okay? So let’s cut the maudlin shit and get on to the serious drinking!”
To accentuate the point, she gulped down the rest of her margarita.
One of the perky young female servers that Key West bars seemed to have an endless supply of went by, and Yona flagged her down. “Refill, please?”
“I’m good,” Lydia said when the server flashed her a look. She still had half her tequila left.
By the time a year has gone by, the day you most look forward to driving up to Marathon is on Friday, because that’s the day you do kumite. The sparring class is your favorite, because you don’t have to get the details right. Doesn’t matter if your chamber hand is in the right spot, doesn’t matter if your fist touches your ear the right way before you do a down block, doesn’t matter how you cross your hands at your ear before an inner temple strike, all you have to do is punch and kick the person you’re facing while keeping them from punching and kicking you.
By the time you reach yellow belt, Kaicho is talking about sending you to kumite tournaments.
But Yona — or, rather, Senpai Yona, you have to remember to call her that at least when you’re in the dojo, never mind that she changed your fucking diapers — has something else in mind. She brings it up after you pound the living hell out of Senpai Albert one Friday night. Like Yona, Albert’s a Seminole, but he’s also built like a brick shithouse. He’s another one who gets sent to kumite tournaments.
You get a side kick to his ribs, a front snap kick to his groin (thank Christ he was wearing a cup), and a solid uppercut to his solar plexus that causes him to collapse to his knees, trying and failing to catch his breath.
Kaicho stops the fight after the groin kick with a lecture on how all techniques are to be above the belt. You don’t tell him that Albert’s got a foot on you and it’s really difficult to kick that high, but instead just are determined to make your kicks better.
After class, Kaicho addresses the students, all drenched in sweat after twenty rounds of sparring. “What is of most import,” he says in his quiet yet impossible-to-ignore voice, “is respect. Remember, this is not a street fight. The purpose of kumite is not to learn how to fight on the street. The purpose is to enrich our spirit through honorable combat. In the dojo, we are friends — we are family. We wear safety gear because the object is not to hurt each other.” Then a wry smile and a look at Senpai Albert. “At least not much.”
Everyone chuckles, Albert more than anyone.
The smile drops. “But if you are in a position where you must fight someone outside the dojo, then your first recourse should be to get away. Because if you are forced to fight, then you have already lost.”
“So Albert just talked to me,” Yona tells you in the parking lot after class. “He says he told Kaicho to make sure he pairs up with you at least three times per class.”
“Really? He that hot to get his ass kicked again?”
“He’s that hot to make you a better fighter. You got lucky tonight, but that won’t necessarily happen again — mostly because now he knows not to assume that you’re just some little yellow belt girl who’s just learning how to fight.”
“Yeah, right.” You just think he wants revenge next time. Whatever.
“Listen, what are you doing Monday morning?”
“Sleeping off my late shift at the bar Sunday night, why?”
“I want you to come up to Congresswoman Martinez’s office on Simonton.”
“Uh, okay. Why I wanna talk to some politician for?”
Yona smiles. “Just come to the meeting. Don’t you trust me?”
You have to admit to trusting Yona. In fact, even after a year at the dojo, Yona’s probably the only person you really trust.
Yona was in no shape to drive back to Miami — or anywhere else, for that matter — so they left her car parked on the street near the Schooner Wharf. Lydia double-checked to make sure it wasn’t a residents-only spot — they were everywhere, and not always clearly labeled — and after determining that it was safe to stay parked there, she stumbled back to the bed-and-breakfast she was staying in.
As she poured Yona into one side of the king-size bed, she muttered, “Tha’s s’m good t’quila.”
“Go the fuck to sleep, Yona.”
“Watcher mouth, chica.”
“Don’t call me chica, bitch.”
Yona was snoring a moment later.
Lydia, though, was still kind of wired. She opened her laptop and did some more research on Kenneth Coffey, aka Grandmaster Ken.
The martial arts sites were all pretty much hagiographies of the man.
A few news sources, though, and especially a couple of blogs, had some accusations, though no charges had ever been pressed.
Then she looked at the schedule for his Miami dojo. Tomorrow night was his adult color belt class, which Yona was probably going to be attending. The day after was listed as an “open sparring class.” Clicking on that part of the schedule led to a page that claimed that anyone from any discipline was welcome to join in, as long as they brought their uniform and belt.
Looked like a trip to the storage unit was in order to retrieve her gi and yellow belt.
The next morning, she woke up around eight — which was luxury for her, since she rarely got up later than sunup since she started her SEAL training — but Yona was already gone.
Checking her phone, Lydia found a text from Yona time-stamped at a little after 5:00 AM: Thanks for the crash space. Gotta haul ass to Miami. Really good to see you again. Love you, chica.
Lydia stared at the phone. “I love you, too, bitch.”
“Ms. Ruiz, my aide speaks very highly of you.”
You’re in the Key West office of Congresswoman Bettina “Betty” Martinez, the person who represents the 26th District in Florida, which covers most of south Florida, including all of the Keys. Yona’s off on the side, leaning on the wall, while Martinez is at her desk, looking all prim and proper, like someone’s aunt.
You sit in the leather desk chair, wondering what the fuck you’re doing here.
“Well, ma’am, she’s about the only one who does.”
“Nonsense.” She opens up a folder, and you catch a glimpse of your high school yearbook picture. “Straight A’s all the way through to high school, and a 4.0 for all your classes during the one semester you were at FKCC. Why’d you drop out?”