The Song of David

She looked at Henry for a minute, her expression softening, and then looked back at me. Henry leaned his forehead against the lockers as if the whole conversation was making him dizzy.

“He’s sorry, Ayumi. He wasn’t trying to infer that you are like a sumo wrestler. He was trying to tell you he reveres you, the way the Japanese revere their wrestlers.”

Henry started to nod, his head banging against the locker. I put my arm around his shoulders and pulled him back just a bit so he wouldn’t knock himself out.

“However, he does think you’re tough. You obviously know how to throw a punch.” I looked pointedly at Henry’s face and Ayumi blushed a deep, ruby red. I figured I didn’t need to say anything more on that subject. I just hoped she’d think before popping poor Henry again. Because girl or not, she couldn’t go around slugging people. Especially people like Henry. “And anytime you want to come and hang out with us at Tag Team, me and Henry, you can. A friend of Henry’s is a friend of mine.”

“Okay,” she squeaked, and I tried to imagine her angry enough to double up her fists and swing. Henry must have really set her off.

The bell rang and Henry jumped. Lockers slammed, and kids started to clear the hall.

“See you at the gym after school Henry, okay?”

Henry nodded, his face relaxing into a smile. His color was returning to normal, and his grip on his back-pack had eased.

I tousled Henry’s hair, giving him a one-armed man hug, and as I walked away, I heard him rattle off my record to his little friend.

“David ‘Tag’ Taggert, light heavyweight contender with a professional record of eighteen wins, two losses, ten knockouts.”





“THERE’S NO WAY you can support Henry on a dancer’s wage,” I said. Even the wage I’d moved her up to. I was walking Millie home again, like I’d done every night she’d worked for the last two weeks. I still hadn’t found a replacement for Morgan, and I was still working too many hours at the bar. But I hadn’t minded it at all, and the reason walked beside me.

“No. There isn’t. But lucky for us my mom planned well. She had a life insurance policy, a good one, and the house was hers, free and clear. It’s been in her family forever. And my dad gave her a chunk of money—maybe you’ve heard of him. Andre Anderson? He played for the San Francisco Giants. He was a first baseman. I don’t know what he’s doing now.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said, surprised. “I do remember him.”

Amelie nodded. “We think that’s why Henry became so fixated on sports. He was only five when my dad split. You know how players study game film? Well, Henry does that. My mom had discs made up of all the video, all the recordings of my dad’s games, as much as she could get her hands on. Henry would sit and watch, endlessly. He still does. He can quote entire innings. It’s crazy.”

“So why do you dance?” I hadn’t meant to ask. It just came out, the way most things usually did. If I felt something, it eventually worked its way from my gut to my throat and out my lips.

“Why do you hit people?” she asked. I didn’t bother to defend the sport. I did hit people. That was a big part of it, and it was silly to argue about it.

“I’ve spent my whole life fighting.”

“Your whole life?” Amelie asked doubtfully.

“Since I was eleven,” I amended. “I was the happy-go-lucky fat kid on the playground that was fun to laugh at and easy to mock. The kid that other kids taunted. And I would laugh it off, until one day I’d had enough, and my happy-go-lucky slipped and became happy-don’t-likey.”

Amelie giggled softly and I continued. “That day, I used my fists and the anger that had been building for five, long years since Lyle Coulson had said I was too fat to fit in the little kindergarten desks. It didn’t matter that he was right. I was too fat to fit in the little desks, but that only made me angrier. The fight wasn’t pretty. I only won because I laid on Lyle and trapped his skinny arms beneath me and wailed on his mean, red face. I got sent to the principal’s office for the first time ever, and then I was suspended for fighting. But Lyle Coulson never bothered me again. I learned I like to fight. And I’m good at it.”

“Well, there you go.” She shrugged. “We’re not so different. I like to dance. And I’m good at it.”

“I don’t like you dancing at the bar.”

She laughed—a sudden, sparkling eruption that created a white plume in the frigid air and had me staring down at her upturned face, marveling, even though I knew I was about to take some heat. It was my bar, after all. I was her employer. It was my freaking pole, for hell’s sake.