I’m not entirely sure what people expect me to say when I’m not okay. Do I lie and say I’m okay just to get them off my back? Or do I say no, I’m not okay, but then have to deal with more questions about why I’m not okay. 

“You sure you’re okay?” She asks for the 50th time. I give my Mom a glare. Of course I’m not okay. Am I going to tell you? Definitely not. 

“I’m fine,” I say firmly. I fix the features on my face to resemble a clam, chill expression. Eyebrows soften, lips loosen slightly so that they are not pressed together, eyes look up and alive, and nose stops flaring. She looks at me again, one eyebrow raised and I can almost hear her ask, ‘you sure?’. 

I open the car door and let out a huge breath. The streets are empty and deserted. A lone street light flickers. Rodents under the street light scramble away and hide in an alley. The boxing club in front of me has a few lights on, but it’s clear that no one ever gets here this early. I glance back at my Mom, she rolls down the drivers side window of her red sedan and is about to ask me if I’m okay. I wave her off. I’m fine. I’ll get through this. I step onto the sidewalk and nearly jump back. Gum and spit marks are all over the curve. I take a mental note to never, ever step on the curve of this sidewalk. Especially since some of the gum on here looks fresh. Wet almost. I gag a bit. 

I knock softly on the dusty glass door and wait. From here I can see most of the club. There’s a couple of black heavy boxing bags, a smaller, weirder boxing bag hanging from the wall, and a row of beat up cubbies that have shoes and gloves stashed in them. I press my forehead to the cold glass to get a better look around and notice that there’s a digital clock by the air vent. It’s blazing red numbers read 5:45. Wow, it’s early. How am I not even tired? 

The glass door swings open and a short but muscular man stands in front of me. He has soft brown eyes and a huge afro that’s being held back with a violet headband. 

“We’re not open yet. We open at 6 on weekends.” He says curtly. 

“Actually I’m here for the job.” I say quickly before he closes the door. I slide my foot through the threshold so that he can’t close the door.

The man considers me for a moment, his brown eyes twinkle. Then he nods over the green and white ‘Help Wanted’ sign hanging by the window. “That you?” 

“Yes.” 

“Yes, sir.” He corrects me.

I feel my jaw drop but quickly bring it back up. I nod, “Yes, sir.” 

“Good,” he says quietly as if still judging me. Then he moves away from the door to let me in, and I exhale a long breath I didn’t realize I was holding in. 

“Yo boss, did you hire a kid to do the deck work?” 

I frown. Why did he say ‘deck’ work? This is a gym, not a boat, right? Or is this all a bad dream. Am I still dreaming? Please tell me I’m dreaming. Please tell me I’m still on the private beach with my parents where I can sleep in until the warm sun wakes me up, and where the ocean water is never cold, and I can swim and play with the rising and falling of the waves. Please, please, please let this be a bad dream. 

“Ruben, how many times have I told you to not refer to cleaning the gym as deck work?” Says the voice of a woman in a green tracksuit. She has long, yellow earrings, and blue lipstick. She closes the door she emerged from and holds out a hand to me. “Welcome.” 

I reach out my own hand and grasp hers. Her hand is hard and firm, steady and strong. We shake hands and then I quickly pull my hand away, wondering if anyone saw how badly it was shaking. 

“So, Evangeline, right?” She says. I try to look her in the eye, but my eyes keep darting back to my feet. It’s respectful to look at people in the eye when speaking to them, I tell myself. 

“Yes…ma’am.” I wince at the hesitation in my voice. I need to stand strong. I need to make a good impression. I’m not the same person I used to be. I can’t afford to be that person anymore. Things have changed and I need to adapt. 

“Ruben, you been messin with her already? ‘Cause last I checked no one refers to me as ma’am.” She says with a laugh. It’s beautiful. It fills the dimly lit boxing club with life. 

Ruben only shrugs. But yes, he did tell me to call him sir, I want to tell her. But I can’t. It seems like my lips have been sealed by super glue and that my tongue has turned into saw dust. My blood feels heavy and slow. I feel like a germ under a microscope.  

“Well Evangeline, this here is Ruben, and I’m Sharline,” says the woman in the track suit, “but most people just call me Shar. Not ma’am.” She gives Ruben a sharp look before beckoning me to follow her into the room she initially came out of. I reluctantly follow her into the room, my movements choppy and stick figure-like. Ruben’s eyes burn into my back. I feel my muscles tense up as Shar closes the door behind me. She hesitates and then yanks it back open. I nearly jump out of my skin. 

“Yo, Ruben, why don’t you get a start on the deck work!” She teases. She turns back to me and raises an eyebrow, “Well, you’re a jumpy little thing aren’t ya, Evie?” 

“Evie?” 

“What? You don’t expect me to call you Evangeline all the time, do you?” Her gaze holds mine. There’s something about Shar that’s so… empowering. 

“No.” I say finally. I look around the room. There are shelves all along the wall. Trophies, medals, decorated belts, and pictures all stand tall and proud on the shelves. 

“Is that you?” I ask, noticing a tall, thin, bald woman in one of the pictures. She wears a huge smile on her face and a trophy the size of her torso is cradled in her arms. 

“Yep. That was in 1999. One year before I opened this place,” Shar gestures around the boxing club. 

“Cool.” I say, trying to sound polite. If I’m being honest, I never knew this place existed until a few days ago. And a few days ago I thought things were going to get better from a few weeks ago. 

“So, sugar bean. Can you clean?” Shar asks me, her voice is clear and pristine. It sounds like she’s singing. 

“Yes. I think so. What do you need me to clean?” I ask tentatively. 

“Well the mats need to be wiped down after a boxing session, dumbbells and heavy weights need to be organized when they’re out of place, and heavy bags need to be wiped down as well. Ruben takes care of the locker rooms, so you don’t have to worry about that.” 

“Okay.” This shouldn’t be too bad. I can wipe mats down for four hours. 

Shar eyes me carefully, “So odd.” she mumbles to herself. Her watch beeps and she checks the time. 

“I guess I just wait until someone is done with equipment?” I ask tentatively. 

“Yeah.” Shar eyes me again. She opens her mouth to say something, but then changes her mind. She tells me to go sit on top of the cubbies and wait. 

I sit down on the cubbies, Ruben sits down next to me. I casually glance around the club, to avoid any form of eye contact. There are hidden stairs leading up to a second floor. 

“That’s restricted.” Says a gruff voice. 

“Right.” I mumble. Out of the corner of my eye I catch Ruben staring at me. Studying me. Carefully watching me. 

Old, fraying, faded blue tumbling mats are stacked in the center of the gym. Pictures line the wall. I get up and look at the pictures. 

Most of them are cut outs from old newspapers. Some of them are recent, though. All of them are about the boxing club. Major win tonight for the East Side Boxing Club. Once again ESBC makes it to the final championships. Calvin Vinn to fight tonight for ESBC!  

A small chime sounds and I nearly jump out of my skin. I turn to the door where Shar is now flipping an ‘open’ sign. She flicks on the light switch and the club illuminates. I gasp. It looks so clean and professional. Shar looks at me coldly. 

“Didn’t I tell you to sit on those cubbies?” She asks me. There’s an edge in her voice. I cringe and dash towards the cubbies. I sit down on the cubbies and watch the door carefully. Waiting to see who comes into the club first. Shar shakes her head at me again and retreats into her office. I glance at the digital clock on the wall, 6:00. Only four more hours until I can go home. I let out a sad, unenergized sigh that catches Ruben’s attention again. 

I feel his gaze burn into the side of my face that faces him. I keep my gaze on the ground and study my feet. I resist the urge to glance over and see if he’s stopped looking at me. This is quite possibly the worst summer ever. I bite the inside of my cheek to remind myself to keep it together. 

The door chimes and I watch as a man in his mid 50s walks inside. He’s followed by a younger man who has a hoodie pulled over his face. He slumps into the studio and crashes into the cubbies next to Ruben. The older man gives Ruben a nod and me an eyebrow raise. I look away quickly and become very interested in my shoe laces. 

“Calvin, get off the bench, come on.” The older man says. He has a deep, rough voice. My head snaps up, could it be… the Calvin in the picture? The younger man groans and slowly gets off the bench, Ruben also gets up and gives him a friendly slap on the shoulder. 

“I’ll get you guys a mat. Are you training weights today?” Ruben asks the older man. 

“Nah.” The older man waves Ruben away, “Get that hoodie off. Come on!” He yells at Calvin. The hoodie flys off almost immediately. Ruben pulls out a mat for them and then comes over to me. 

“You saw what I did? Now, you can take care of them. Whatever they need, you get it for them. I’ll get everyone else.” He doesn’t wait for me to agree, instead he gives me a nod and then scuttles over to the chair by the door. 

I blink a couple of times before I realize that the older man is calling for someone. 

“Girl, hello? Girl? I said I needed some tape.” He sneers in my direction. 

I nod and quickly rush over to Ruben to ask where the tape is. 

“Tape is over here!” The man calls out. I feel my face burn up and go red like a tomato under the summer sun. I follow the man’s arm direction to a small box by the heavy bags. I find a roll of tape and quickly run it over to the man. He rolls his eyes and yanks the roll out of my hand forcefully. I stagger back to the cubbies to wait for them to need something else. 

“Ruben!” Shar’s voice calls out. 

“Yeah boss?” 

“You know Evie doesn’t know where everything is. She’s got cleaning today.” 

The older man laughs. I duck my head into the space between my shoulders. Never have I ever been more embarrassed in my entire life. I sneak a glance up and see Calvin wrapping the tape around his forearms. The man stands there watching him. He has piercing, cold blue eyes and pale blond hair. He has a few scars that run across his face. Now that Calvin is no longer wearing his hoodie, I get a better look at him. He’s young, and like the man in front of him, has piercing blue eyes and pale blond hair. 

Once Calvin’s done with the tape, I stand up to take the roll back. 

“What? Going to take it back so soon? I need the tape too.” The man snaps in my direction. I cower back to the bench. I look at the locked office door, desperately wishing that Shar would come out. Once he’s done, he throws the roll in my direction. I leap over to the roll of tape and quickly put it back in the box. 

I sit back down on the bench and watch as Calvin warms up. His muscles flex under his shirt and sweat starts to drip down his forehead and run down his face. Slowly, the room begins to fill up, and I’m no longer sitting on the cubbies. Instead, I have a rag in one hand and a cleaning solution spray in the other hand. I’m spraying a mat nearby Calvin and Mr. Snotty and catching bits and pieces of their conversation. 

“They’re not going to hold back. This is the real deal now.”

“It was always the real deal for me. I always gave it all I had.”

“No. You did not. If you can walk off that ring, then you did not. Now, I want you to keep going. I’m going to head home. And when you can’t feel your arms anymore, then you call me and I’ll pick you up.” The man moves away from Calvin and grabs his duffel bag by the cubbies. He nods at Ruben, who is just coming out of the locker rooms. I glance at the clock for what must be the 600th time today. 9:40. I smile to myself. 20 more minutes. I can do this for 20 more minutes. I get up and move on to the next smelly and sweaty mat. Then I glance over at the weight area. It would be wonderful to just let Ruben do the organizing, but I need this job. My eyes burn and my nose gets runny. I swallow hard and resist the urge to cry. I can’t cry. Not here. 

I lift the last dumbbell onto the rack and then walk over to Shar’s office. I walk in, and stop dead in my tracks. Shar looks up from her desk and standing in front of her, Calvin, also turns around and looks at me. 

“I’m leaving now.” I mumble to the floor. 

“Okay. Have a good day, Evie.” Shar says, she waves me away. I swallow hard and rush out of the club. 

Once I’m outside in the warm sunshine, I take a huge, deep breath. The tears have never been closer to falling. The air smells so clean, pure and fresh. I squint through the sunshine, looking for my mom’s red car. I see it by the bright red stop sign and hurry over to it. 

“Hey, how was your first day at work?” Mom asks. I can almost hear the hidden question underneath it, Are you okay? You don’t look okay? Do you need me to get Molly to massage your back? Molly. Oh, how I miss Molly. She was the family’s masseuse.  

“It was…” I think of Ruben and Shar. Both odd, tough, and straightforward, “interesting.” 

I crawl into the car and click my seat belt in. I let my back ease up and rest against the car seat. “I could use some coffee.” I admit.

“Hmm.” Mom’s eyes focus on the road ahead as she drives back to downtown. “I could use some coffee too. But we’re on a budget now. I mean, we’ve always been on one, but… now it’s more limited.”

She takes a few turns and I feel my stomach flip. I know where we’re going, but the feeling never seems to go away. I blink back the tears as I gaze ahead. The small orange apartments loom before us. From afar, they look like decent little homes, but up close you can see the paint peeling and the rust on the iron railings. We’ve been living here for almost a month now. Mom parks the car in the only parking spot that doesn’t have a huge pothole. I open the car door and press my lips together to suppress a scream. What would my friends say if they saw me now? 

I watch Mom as she gets out of the car. She seems unpulsed. She swings her bag over shoulder and gives me a curious look. 

“Something wrong?” She asks. The morning sun glints off of her sunglasses that are pushed up her forehead and rest on her hairline. 

“No.” I mumble. I follow her up the cement stairs to our apartment. 

Once inside the apartment, Mom sits down on the brown sofa with cat scratches that we found at a garage sale. She opens up her laptop and starts scrolling through emails. I watch as her sunglasses slowly slide down her forehead until they suddenly plop down onto the bridge of her nose. 

“Oops, forgot I still had these on. Evangeline, why don’t you fix some breakfast?” She says calmly placing the sunglasses on the wooden coffee table in front of her. 

“Breakfast?” I ask. “What time is it?”

Mom laughs softly, “It’s still morning, only 10:45. Long morning?” 

“No, just four hours of work.” I say sarcastically. Mom frowns. “It’s a joke. I know why I have to work. And I know it’s just temporary.” 

Mom’s eyes soften, but she shakes her head, “Actually, Evangeline, this isn’t temporary. I spoke with the lawyer this morning after dropping you off. The money’s gone. Your father…” her face wrinkles, “spent all the money at a casino.” 

“I thought he was investing it… I thought…” My mind rushes and all the nights the front door was left unlocked and the dogs barked at random hours in the night suddenly made sense. 

“I brought us back here because I used to live in these apartments. I know the lady who rents these apartments and she’s given us the first month at a 10% discount.” Mom closes her laptop and rests her head on the back of the sofa. 

“Have you thought about college?” She asks me with her eyes closed. 

“College…” How could I have forgotten about college? “I’m not going to Amherst anymore, am I?” 

“No. You can try if you want to, but I think you’ll find that working and studying at the same time is challenging.” 

“Then where am I going to go this fall? I’ve already been accepted into Amherst.”

“I know. And I don’t think that’s right for you. I never did. Why don’t you enroll in a community college nearby? You can still work at the boxing gym and after work I can drive you to school?” 

“Community college?” There’s a heavy rock in my stomach at the moment that keeps dropping.  

“I went to community college. And then I transferred and then I became the most successful businesswoman in the United States.” Mom opens her eyes and catches my gaze, “Think about it, okay?” 

“Okay.” I mumble. Her cell phone rings and she answers it. I take two big steps and open the small, smelly refrigerator. There’s a can of soup and a can of tomato sauce. There aren’t fresh sandwiches or fine steaks. Or fun tropical fruit drinks or fancy wines. There’s just two cans. And one of them’s my lunch and the others my dinner. I grab the can opener and open the first can. I grab the pot we found at the same garage sale where we bought the sofa, and pour the soup into it. As it heats up, the top of the thick soup seems to explode like geysers. I turn off the stove and think about the chef we used to have. Chef Pat always made the finest soups using only the freshest ingredients. Chef Pat would die knowing that I’d be eating this today. 

“Mmm, smells good.” Mom says, smiling from ear to ear. I feel my patience begin to spill over and finally explode. 

“Why are you so happy? I have to work, I have to go to community college and I have to live here and eat this, and you’re so happy? Don’t you want the best for me?” I slam the string spoon down on the yellow counter. Mom once again, looks unpulsed. 

“You know what, I do want the best for you. That’s why we’re here.” She serves herself soup and then goes to the sofa to eat it. I shake my head and grab the keys that are on the coffee table. 

“Where are you going?” She asks. 

“Back to the boxing gym.” I respond sharply. 

“Why?” She asks. 

“I’m mad. I want to hit something. I want to get away from here. I don’t know.” I unlock the door and then slam it behind me.

Once outside of the apartment, my fears catch up to me. A family living across the hallway from me eye me warily and hurry inside. I slowly walk down the cool staircase. Every foot step echos. The eerie yellow lights cast shadows across the faces of those going up the stairs. 

I step out into the sunshine and find the red car. I drive back to the boxing gym and wait in the car. The timid side of me also decides to catch up to me. I’m glued to the car seat. My hands are unable to move and my brain doesn’t function. Why am I here? Why did I want to come here? This is so dumb, an hour ago I was dying to leave this place. I put the car into reverse and back out of the parking spot, then I drive back to the apartments. 

“Back so soon?” Mom asks, she’s holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a donut in the other. 

“I thought you said we couldn’t get coffee?” I ask, ignoring her question. 

“Well, not a four dollar per cup coffee at a coffee shop.” She pushes over another cup. “There’s already cream and sugar in it.”  

“Thanks.” I say softly. I set down the keys on the coffee table again and sit down on the sofa. “I’m sorry for blowing up on you.” I mumble. I take a small sip of coffee and realize that its the perfect drinking temperature. Mom definitely already messed with the coffee machine. She likes to experiment and mess around with things. 

“That’s okay. I kind of blew up on myself after you left. Which is why I went and got donuts.”

I laugh and give her a hug. 

“Look, everything is going to be okay, this is new, it’s uncomfortable, and it’s okay for you to not feel okay. What’s not okay is to not do anything about it.” Mom says. I take another donut and pour myself some more coffee. 

“Yeah you’re right. I guess I just wish it wasn’t all over the news. ‘Famous millionaire loses it all’ and I wish there was an easy solution to this.”   

“I’d like a little more privacy on that too, but you get what you get. And we got donuts.”

☆ ☆ ☆

I’m back to wiping down matts again, tomorrow marks week three. Mr. Snotty is back to yelling, and Calvin… doesn’t look good. Ruben’s starting to trust me more, but he still gives me a hard time. Shar only shows herself when two boxers fight and she’s needed to bring order. 

“CALVIN! HARDER! FASTER!” Mr. Snotty yells. Since I’ve started working here, I’ve noticed that Calvin’s movements have progressively gotten slower. He’s taking more and more rest. Training harder and harder. Sometimes he and Mr. Snotty are here before the gym is even open. Everyday, Mr. Snotty leaves after an hour or so, and Calvin stays for another hour and a half to two hours. 

I put away the cleaning supplies and tell Ruben I’m leaving. He doesn’t say anything, and I’ve learned that that’s his way of saying ‘okay, fine’. Shar told me that Ruben is who I come to when there’s a problem. She said that she has a lot of work to do, and that seems to be true, considering that I see less and less of her. 

Ruben practically owns the gym at this point. During the weekdays he teaches a beginners class, and it’s like watching military boot camp. He cleans every single corner and makes sure that the gym looks top-notch. 

I step outside and feel the warm sunshine on my face. Mom lets me drive the car, now that she’s found a job where she can work from the apartment. She says that we could be out of the apartment and back in New York by next summer. On this particular day though, Mom needed the car for a meeting, so I have to wait. I sit down with my back against the gym’s glass windows. 

“Mind if I sit here?” Asks a young man with blond hair and piercing blue eyes. 

“Sure.”

He sits down next to me and exhales loudly. “I’m Calvin, by the way.” 

“I know. I hear your Dad yell at you everyday.”  

His face scrunches up. “Yeah my Dad’s… something, isn’t he?” 

I bite the inside of my mouth and realize that I shouldn’t have said that. “I’m Evangeline.” 

“So, what are you doing here, working in a gym?”

“What do you mean?” 

“Well… ” Calvin gestures with his hands, “most kids our age are either in college, military, or in internships. You know, fresh outta high school, still have big dreams. Huge hopes, all that stuff.” 

“I didn’t know you were in high school.” 

“Technically I’m not. I graduated last June. I also qualified for the Olympics… in boxing.” Calvin winces. 

“What’s wrong with that?” I ask. 

“What’s not wrong with that. Everythings messed up. I genuinely feel like I’m somewhere I’m not supposed to be. I mean,” He runs a hand through his hair, “I wanted to go to college. Major in engineering. But all my Dad wants me to do is box. Everyday. I’m tired. I’m exhausted and I can’t believe I’m going to say this… I hate boxing. I used to love it, until my Dad started forcing me. Until I qualified for the Olympics.” 

“Believe me, I know how you feel. My life’s messed up too. I have to wake up at 5:30 everyday to come and clean and I used to live in New York, we had a private beach house in Hawaii where I’d spend all of my summers and now I have to go to community college because my Dad spent all of the money we had and I have to live in an apartment.” I stop myself. Getting it off my chest should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. I glance over at Calvin, his mouth is open in shock. 

“I’m sorry. That came out wrong.” I mumble, Calvin still doesn’t say anything. After what feels like an eternity, he says softly, 

“Do you still live with your Mom?”

“Yes.”

“Does she love you?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have enough food?”

“Yes.”

“You have a job, and I’m guessing she has a job?”

“Correct. Why are you asking these questions?”

“Look, maybe you don’t think you have a lot, but to me, it seems like you have everything. Love, food, housing. What more could a person want?” He gets up as a white toyota pulls up. I recognize the driver to be Mr. Snotty. But maybe he shouldn’t be called Mr. Snotty, maybe I should. I remember what Mom said a few weeks ago: she wanted what was best for me. And she was right, this is what’s best for me.