She stood up to leave, but the door was blocked by people arriving. An elderly woman, spindly as a tree in winter, came in, helped by a young man in a suit. A long-haired skateboarder holding the trucks of his board with one hand and a bottle of seltzer in the other followed them.
“Is someone sitting there?” he asked, pointing to the chair she had just vacated.
“Lucky is,” called Hockney Glasses from behind her. “It’s her first meeting.”
Lucky turned to glare at him, but the boy’s face lit up.
“Sick,” he said, offering his fist for her to bump. “Welcome.”
He took a seat a few spots to the right of her and Lucky sat back down, staring into her lap. Why was everyone so pleased she was there? Couldn’t they see this was punishment for her? The low hum of chatter filled the room as more people arrived, greeting each other familiarly. She glanced up every now and again as new members entered the space, taking their place around the circle. They all looked so happy. It was fucking weird.
“All right, let’s get started, shall we?” said Cooper, and the room began to hush.
A tall couple bounded in arm in arm, gamboling over each other like puppies as they fell into a pair of the last remaining seats directly across from Lucky. The woman was holding a battered guitar case covered in stickers, which she placed next to her seat. Her hair was dyed the hue of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. She wore orange-lensed glasses with thick black frames, a vintage peach silk slip dress, and baby-pink ballet slippers, the satin kind worn by real dancers. She looked like a sunset. Her companion, by contrast, was the sea. He was wearing suede flares the color of the deepest part of the ocean and a periwinkle mesh shirt, beneath which Lucky could see the outline of his heavily tattooed torso. His hair, like Lucky’s, was bleached the white of surf spray.
Lucky couldn’t stop staring at them. They were so cool. The woman looked up and caught Lucky’s eye, her face cracking into a wide grin. Hi, she mouthed. Lucky averted her eyes quickly to Cooper, who was reading from a binder fanned open in his lap.
“Welcome to a Big Book Study meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. My name is Cooper and I’m an alcoholic.”
“Hi, Cooper,” the room chimed back cheerily.
He kept reading as Lucky’s heart began to thump in her throat. Big Book Study? What did that even mean? At Cooper’s prompting, the skateboarder read from the laminated card Lucky had refused earlier, but Lucky couldn’t focus on what he was saying. She thought meetings were just people sitting around complaining about how they’d messed up their lives and couldn’t drink anymore. This was so organized; just like school, but worse, because they were all choosing to be there. She wished Avery was with her to explain what the hell was happening.
“Thanks for your service,” said Cooper once the skater was finished. “In this meeting, we read a portion of the Big Book, each reading a paragraph at a time, starting on page—” Cooper checked his notes. “Page eighty-one. Who would like to begin?”
“I will,” said the orange-haired woman brightly.
She introduced herself as Butter and began reading loudly in a cheerful British voice. Her accent was very different from either Chiti’s or Troll Doll’s, Lucky noted. She pronounced “think” as “fink.” Definitely not posh. It was a nice voice, but Lucky couldn’t listen to it too closely, because she was now having to count the number of people between her and this eager flame-haired British woman named after a dairy product, then scan the pages to see what passage would be hers to read. Butter was sitting directly across from her, so no matter which way they went around the circle, Lucky was fucked.
As each person read, Lucky begged herself to get up and leave. These people didn’t matter. She would never have to see them again; she could extricate herself just like she’d extricated herself from the chanting volleyball circle.
“Pass,” said the man next to her after reading his passage.
She willed herself to leave, but something—embarrassment or grace or some combination of the two—kept her in the chair. She stared down at the book clutched between her hands. The words looked like lines of tiny black ants ready to march off the page. Ain’t nothin’ to it but to do it, she reminded herself, and took a deep breath.
“The alcoholic is like a tornado roaring its way through the lives of others,” she began in a low, shaky voice.
Then she took another breath and kept reading. Thankfully, her passage was on the shorter side, ending, for reasons inexplicable to her, with a description of a farmer coming out of a cyclone cellar to find his house ruined, then pretending nothing was the matter. She heard a low murmur of agreement rustle around the room, punctuated by a few knowing chuckles. Lucky glanced up. Were they laughing at her? But their faces showed only encouragement. She let out a long exhale.
“Pass,” she said.
As the next person read, Lucky kept her gaze on the page, not daring to look at anyone. But if someone had been watching closely, they would have noticed a new light in her eyes, some kindling warmth of confidence in a corner of her that had previously been dark. It was nothing, she told herself. Who cares that she had read one measly paragraph? But there was another, softer voice inside of her that was saying one word: miracle. A small one, granted, imperceptible to anyone but her, but a miracle nonetheless.
Chapter Eleven Bonnie
“I’m wrapping you Mexican style,” said Felix.
He spun the strip of fabric between her fingers and around her palm in the shape of an X, humming under his breath. Bonnie cast her eyes behind his head. Word had gotten around in the gym that Danya and Bonnie would finally be sparring, and a cluster of fighters, done with their own workouts, had already gathered to mill around the ropes. Everyone, apparently, wanted to see what would happen.
Bonnie had left that awful argument with Avery and Lucky and gone straight to the gym. It was hard for her to acknowledge being angry with her sisters, even to herself, but she was. It pained her to admit it, but they were assholes. There, she’d said it. She loved them, but they were not always good people. The admission brought her no comfort. She missed Nicky, whose nature as the fellow middle child was closer to her own. They were both mild-tempered and even-keeled, endowed by birth order with a diplomacy that their fiery eldest and youngest sisters did not share. Lucky and Avery couldn’t see it, but they were too similar. At their worst, they were selfish, stubborn, and self-destructive. At their best, they both possessed a fearless surety that demanded the most from themselves and everyone around them, invigorating their lives with the potency of destiny. It was easier to be furious with Avery, who was robust enough to take it, but until Lucky was safe—committed to some kind of sobriety and happy, or at least happier—Bonnie’s concern for her would always outweigh her anger. And yet, what Bonnie longed for most as she barreled down Central Park West toward the gym was to be free of this love, just for a day. It was too sticky, too consuming, what she felt for her sisters. She craved the simplicity of the boxing ring, for a fight that had rules she could understand.
Avery should never have said what she said, but she was right about one thing: Bonnie was running out of time. Being an athlete was not like other careers. You didn’t get decades to grow into yourself. There was a brief window in which your skill, experience, and fitness were all at their apex; just a few more years and Bonnie’s speed and stamina would inevitably wane. She had already wasted one year of this golden window in L.A.; she couldn’t lose another.
She cannonballed into the gym on the fumes of the argument with her sisters and marched straight up to Pavel, who turned to her with a look of mild surprise. She paused before him and took a breath. He crossed his arms without speaking.
“You gave me a chance letting me spar,” said Bonnie. “And I didn’t show up for it. I won’t give you an excuse because that’s not who I am. There is no excuse. But you always told me, you can’t change the last round. The only round that matters is the next one. I’m here to say that the next round is my round. I was a champion for a reason, and I will be again. If you give me this chance, I will not waste it. I will not falter. This is where I’m meant to be, and I know that now. I’m here.”
She let out a shaky breath. It was probably the most she’d spoken at one time in years, and she felt a little winded from the effort. Pavel blinked slowly. Anyone else, and he would have told them to get out of his gym; he had already given her a second chance, and you didn’t get third chances in boxing. But Bonnie was not anyone. He uncrossed his arms and gave her a long look. She knew what he would say before he said it. She could see it in his eyes.
“Go warm up,” he said and walked away from her to the ring.
—
The other fighters were lolling on the ropes, towels around their necks, sweat-soaked and spent from their own workouts. A hum of anticipation hovered over them.
“Give ’im hell, GG!” one yelled, followed by a smattering of laughter.
Golden Girl, that’s what they’d called her. Bonnie had always kept to herself during training, but she was not unpopular. Too shy, too serious to engage in the kind of fast-talking banter that made a fighter really liked, she was respected nonetheless. Her IBA Women’s World Boxing Championship pedigree and reputation for relentless hard work had ensured that. And while there was a handful of other female fighters who cycled in and out, she was the first to have been trained from start to finish at Golden Ring. Her success brought a pride to the gym they all shared. Until, of course, she left.
“Don’t worry about them,” murmured Felix. “You just do like we practiced.”
Danya was in the other corner, talking to Pavel in low, intimate tones. Bonnie knew Pavel wasn’t worried about her hurting Danya, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked her. Danya’s third professional fight had been pushed to the following week; she knew that the week prior to a fight a trainer wanted sparring partners who will work their fighter hard but not beat him up. And, though the more experienced fighter, she was out of practice. Aside from what happened outside of Peachy’s, she hadn’t hit a person in over a year.
But she was trying to not think about what happened at Peachy’s. In fact, the list of things Bonnie was actively not thinking about before stepping back into the ring kept growing: her humiliating loss to the South African last year, Pavel’s ever-deepening coldness toward her, and, of course, her asshole sisters. And always, underneath all that, there was Nicky. Ever since returning to the apartment Bonnie had started dreaming again of that long, pointless pilgrimage to the elevator. She could still sometimes feel her sister’s body in her arms, see the pale blue lips making her face strangely unfamiliar. She didn’t want to think about that doomed, desperate struggle to save a life that was already gone, so she gave the thought to God. You take care of Nicky, she prayed. And I’ll take care of this. Immediately, she felt calmer.
“Spread fingers more. Now grip. Too tight or okay?”
The human hand is not designed for destruction. Twenty-seven bones in each one, most of which are no thicker than a Virginia Slims cigarette. A good hand wrap is essential, which is where the trainer comes in. The cosmic transformation every fighter must undergo before stepping into the ring, the revolution from mortal to fighter, begins the moment a trainer starts to wrap.
