Tiger's Quest (4 page)

The martial arts studio was large and took up half the building. I wandered into the back. An open area was surrounded by mirrors and large blue mats that covered the floor. There were five other people already there. Three young men and one fit young woman were warming up off to one side. Stretching on the floor in another corner was a middle-aged woman who reminded me of my mom. She smiled up at me, and I could tell she was a little scared, but she also had a determined gleam in her eye. I sat down by her and bent over my legs. “Hi, I’m Kelsey.”

“Jennifer.” She blew her bangs out of her face. “Nice to meet you.”

Our teacher wandered into the studio, accompanied by a young man. The white-haired instructor seemed old but very spry and tough. In a thick accent, he introduced himself as Chu . . . something, but said we should call him Chuck. The young man next to him was his grandson, Li. Li was a younger version of his grandfather. His black hair was cropped short, and he had a tall, wiry, muscular frame and a nice smile.

Chuck started the lesson with a short speech: “Wushu is Chinese martial arts. You know about the Shaolin monks? They do wushu. My studio’s name is
Shing
, which means ‘victory.’ You will all have a chance to feel victory as you master wushu. Do you know the name kung fu?”

We all nodded.

“
Kung fu
means ‘skill.’ Kung fu is not a style of martial arts. It just means you have skill. Maybe the skill is riding horses or swimming. Wushu is a style. Wushu is kicks, stretching, gymnastics, and weapons. Now, who are famous people that use wushu?”

Nobody answered.

“Jet Li, Bruce Lee, and Jackie Chan all use wushu. First, I will teach you greetings. This is how you greet your teacher each class. I say, ‘
Ni hao ma?
’ And you say, ‘
Wo hen hao.
’ This means ‘How are you?’ And ‘I am fine.’”

“Ni hao ma?”

We responded with a stuttered,
“Woo hena how.”

“Wo . . . hen . . . hao.”

“Wo hen hao.”

Chuck grinned at us. “Very good, class! Now let’s start with some stretching.”

He guided us through calf and arm stretching and then encouraged us to sit on the floor and reach for our toes. He said he wanted us to stretch several times a day to increase our flexibility. Then he had us do splits. Four of my classmates were doing fine, but I felt bad for Jennifer. She was already huffing and puffing just from the stretching, and she was making a very determined effort to sink down into splits.

Chuck smiled at all of us, including his struggling student, encouraging her on. Next, he brought his grandson forward to demonstrate the first stance he wanted us to work on. It was called a horse stance, which looked like it sounded. From there, we moved into bow stance, which killed my calf muscles, and the cat stance. The flat stance was the hardest. The feet stay parallel, but the body has to twist awkwardly to the side. The last one we learned was the rest stance, which didn’t turn out to be restful at all.

For the remainder of the class, we practiced the five different stances. Li helped me position my feet properly and spent some time demonstrating the flat stance, but I still couldn’t get it. He was very encouraging and smiled at me often.

Jennifer was red-faced but seemed happy when our class was over. The time flew by very quickly. The exercise felt good, and I looked forward to my next class—which was the same night as my date with Artie.

I looked for Artie in the language lab three times on Tuesday to clear things up and hopefully cancel. When we finally connected, Artie made a big show of rescheduling our date and kept flipping pages in his day planner until I ran out of excuses. I started to feel guilty and decided that it wouldn’t kill me to go out with the guy just once. Even though I had zero romantic interest in Artie, he could end up being a friend. So I accepted an invitation later in the month.

The next couple of weeks passed without incident, but I soon found myself in another unusual situation. My anthropology partner, Jason, asked me to the homecoming football game.

His request totally surprised me. Then something snapped in my brain, and I realized I’d missed all the clues that he’d been sending. I’d been looking at the world through a film of plastic wrap. My mind was so focused on schoolwork that I had assumed he just wanted to work too.

Jason seemed like a nice guy, but he didn’t hold a candle to the man I left behind in India. I quickly made a mental list of each, and Jason’s side came out short. I knew it wasn’t fair to compare the two.
Nobody
could compete with
him
. Still, Jason didn’t make me feel excited or scared, happy, or nervous. My heart didn’t race with anticipation. I couldn’t even tell if we had any chemistry. I just felt numb.

I have to get over him someday. I have to move on, and try to date
, I told myself. I bit my lip.
He’s probably ruined my chances of being happy with someone else. How could I ever like other men when they couldn’t possibly compare with him?

Disgusted with my circular argument, I told Jason I would love to go with him to the football game. He seemed delighted at the prospect, but I worried that he mistook my enthusiasm to forget the past with my interest in him.

That night in wushu class, we learned kicks. There were several types: the front stretch-kick, the side stretch-kick, inside and outside circle-kicks, and heel-palm-kicks. My favorite was toe-fist-kick. It made me finally feel like I could punch something.

We practiced kicks all evening until Chuck started randomly calling out kicks to see how fast we could remember them. During the last part of the class, we teamed up in pairs, and I worked with Jennifer. Li asked me to demonstrate the kicks and helped position my arms properly, guiding me through the stance, before moving on. Soon, Li announced that class was over. I thanked him and practiced some more on my own.

“Li likes you,” Jennifer whispered conspiratorially when I had finished. “I don’t know if he’ll muster up the courage to do anything about it, but it’s obvious. He watches you all the time. How do you feel about him?”

“I don’t have any feelings about him. He’s a nice guy, but I never thought of him that way.”

“
Oh.
There’s someone else.”

I frowned at the thought. “
No.
Not anymore.”

“Oh, honey, you can’t just let life pass you by while you nurse a broken heart. You have to get back up on that horse and try again. Life is too short not to have love in it.”

I knew she’d been happily married for fifteen years. Her husband was a sweet, balding man who obviously adored her. Every night after class he told her that she looked amazing and was getting so thin that he couldn’t see her from the side anymore. Then he’d kiss her damp curly brown hair and open her car door. If anyone was an expert on love, it was probably Jennifer.

I thought about what she’d said. I knew she was right.
But how do you change your heart?

Jennifer smiled sympathetically, gathered her things, and squeezed my shoulder. “See you next week, Kelsey.”

I waved as they drove away and stared out at the black, empty street for a few minutes, lost in thought. When I turned back to gather my things, I noticed that everyone had left already. Li was standing by the front door, waiting patiently for me to go so he could lock up.

“Sorry, Li. I guess I just lost track of time.”

He grinned at me. “No problem.”

I scooped up my towel, car keys, and water bottle and headed for the door.

Just as I got into my car, Li called out, “Hey, Kelsey. Wait.” He ran over to my door as I rolled down the window. “I wanted to invite you to a game night. A bunch of my friends are getting together on Halloween to play Settlers of Catan. It’s a build-up-your-empire type of game, and there will be good eats. My grandma loves to cook. Would you like to come? I can teach you to play.”

“Umm.” I didn’t have any plans for Halloween. I knew kids wouldn’t come up to my house because it was way too far off the beaten path. Going over to Mike and Sarah’s didn’t seem like a good option either. All the neighborhood kids avoided their house because they gave out sugarless treats and lectured the parents on the evils of too many sweets.

Li was still standing there waiting for an answer; so I gave him one. “Sure, it sounds like fun.”

He smiled. “Great! See ya!”

I drove home feeling weird. When I walked in the door, I threw my bag on the couch and pulled a bottle of water out of the fridge. I went upstairs, opened the door to my bedroom balcony, and sat on a deck chair. Leaning my head back, I stared up at the stars.

Three dates. I had three dates in two weeks, and I wasn’t looking forward to any of them. Something was definitely wrong with me.

DATE
1

I couldn’t believe the time for my date with Artie had arrived so quickly. I drove to campus, parked, and sat in the car, stalling. I really didn’t want to go out with Artie. His persistence had paid off, and I suspected it wasn’t the first time he had used the same tactic.

Resigned to get the date over with, I made my way to the language lab. Artie was standing there staring at his watch with a brown package tucked under his arm. I wandered over to him and slid my hands into my jean pockets.

“Hi, Kelsey. Come on. We’re running late,” he said and walked briskly down the hall. “I have to drop a package off at the post office first for an old
friend
.”

He wasn’t only big. He was tall, and his stride was much longer than mine. I had to almost jog to keep up with him. Artie strode right through the parking lot, turned onto a sidewalk, and started heading for town.

“Uh, shouldn’t we take your car?” I asked. “The post office is a mile-and-a-half away.”

“Oh, no. I don’t own a car. They’re much too expensive.”

Good thing I wore my tennis shoes
, I thought.

Artie was walking silently and stiffly ahead. I decided it was probably up to me to get the conversation going. “So . . . who’s the package for?”

“It’s for my old high school girlfriend. She goes to another school, and I like to keep in touch. She dates lots of people on and off, the same as me,” Artie boasted. “I date lots of girls. You should see my day planner. I’ve got dates lined up for years.”

It was the longest walk of my life. I tried to pretend I was walking in the Indian jungle, but it was too cold. The sky was dark and overcast, and a stiff wind was blowing. It wasn’t walking-outside weather. I shivered in my jacket and passed the time half-listening to Artie and half-admiring the houses that were decorated for Halloween.

We finally reached the post office, where Artie mailed his package. I looked around at the different tiny restaurants on Main Street and wondered which one we would be dining at. I was starving. I’d forgotten to eat lunch because I was too wrapped up in studying. The smell of Chinese food wafting from next door was mouthwatering.

By the time Artie finally stepped outside, I was really cold. I clapped my hands and rubbed them together for warmth. If I had known we’d be outside this long, I would have brought gloves. It turned out Artie had a pair of leather gloves in his pocket, but he put them on his own hands.

My glutton-for-punishment brain insisted that
he
would have given me his gloves. Heck,
he
would have given me the shirt off his back if he thought I might have need of it.

“So, where to next?” I asked. My eyes darted hopefully over to the Chinese restaurant.

“Back to campus. I have a real treat in store for you.”

I tried to plaster an enthusiastic smile on my face. “That’s . . . great.”

On the long walk back to campus, Artie talked about himself. He spoke about his childhood and family. He described all the awards he had won and mentioned that he was president of five clubs, including the chess club. He never asked one question about me. I would have been shocked if he even knew my last name.

My mind wandered to a conversation with a very different man.

I heard
his
warm, hypnotic voice very clearly. Suddenly, I was standing under a tree. The tree where I’d said good-bye. The tree where I’d last gazed into his cobalt blue eyes. The cold, chafing wind of Oregon dropped far away, and I felt a balmy Indian summer breeze blow softly through my hair. The gray overcast evening faded, and I was looking up at twinkling stars in a night sky. He touched my face and spoke.

“Kelsey, the fact is . . . I’m in love with you. And I have been for some time. I don’t want you to leave. Please . . . please . . . please . . . tell me you’ll stay with me.”

He was so beautiful, like a warrior-angel sent from heaven. How could I have denied him anything, especially when all he wanted was me?

“I want to give you something. It’s an anklet. They’re very popular here, and I got this one so we’d never have to search for a bell again.”

My ankle tingled as I remembered his fingers brushing against it.

“Kells, please. I need you.”

How could I leave him?

My mind snapped back to the present, and I struggled to contain the strong emotions that surfaced when I allowed myself to think about
him
. As Artie droned on about how he’d won the debate championship single-handedly, I berated myself for allowing my thoughts to take me to a dangerous place. The fact was, even if I
was
having second thoughts about my choice to leave,
he
hadn’t called. That proved that I made the right decision, didn’t it? If he really loved me as much as he said he did, he would have tried to contact me. He would have pursued me. He would have come for me. He needed space. I was right to leave him. Maybe now I could start healing and let him go.

I wrenched my attention back to Artie and made a real effort to listen to his conversation. There was absolutely no way Artie was the right guy for me—or for any girl for that matter, but that didn’t mean I was out of options. I still had a date with Jason tomorrow and one with Li next week.