If You Loved Me by Marilyn Reynolds

Author:Marilyn Reynolds
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biracial teens; Drug addiction; Adolescent sex; Anger
Publisher: New Wind Publishing
Published: 2017-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter

13

Thursday after school Tyler, Blake and I go over to the new karate place to try to sell an ad. The guy who runs it, Mr. Raley, asks us to wait until class is over and he’ll talk with us. There are about twenty kids, maybe seven or eight years old, in white pajama things with different colored belts. They’re constantly yelling “Yes sir,” like it’s training for the Marines. We watch for about ten minutes while they kick and block and get into unnatural positions. Finally, they say a loud, unison “Yes, Sir!” and run off the mat.

Mr. Raley listens while we give our sales pitch.

“I’ll buy a full page ad if you get three new people to sign up for a month of lessons.”

“Anyone?” Blake asks.

“Anyone from Hamilton High School,” Mr. Raley says, then hurries over to start the next class which is already gathered on the mat.

Back in Tyler’s car, Blake says, “I bet we can find three people easy.”

“I’m not betting,” Tyler says.

“I know, I know. You only bet on sure things, like seed identification.”

“Maybe Shawna’d like to sign up for karate,” Blake says.

“No way. Shawna gives all her money to her mom, just so they have enough for food and rent.”

Blake asks the question that’s on my mind.

“How do you know?”

“We’ve been working in the same section of the nursery, repotting plants. It’s strange, but Shawna’s really different at work than she is at school. At work she likes to talk.”

“Does she come out from under her hair at work?” Blake asks.

“Yeah. She talks to Mrs. Shaefer a lot, but sometimes she talks to me, too. Mrs. Shaefer told me Shawna’d had a hard life, but I’m not sure what she meant.”

“She helps support her family?” I ask.

“Yeah. Well, her father’s in prison. I know that much. Plus she has three younger sisters and her mom has some kind of disease—diabetes I think.”

“I’ll try to be nicer,” I say.

“Me, too,” Blake says.

We go through a whole list of possibilities for karate sign-ups. It may not be so easy after all.

“How about your friend Amber?” Blake asks.

Lately it seems that almost every time I see Blake he eventu­ally gets around to asking something about Amber.

“Amber’s mother would never let her take karate,” I tell him.

“Why not?”

“It’s not ladylike. Mrs. Brody’s got this thing about how Amber’s supposed to be ladylike.”

“What about volleyball?” Tyler says. “That’s not exactly something you’d see the Queen of England doing.”

“You don’t even know what Amber had to go through for her mom to let her play volleyball. For every hour on the court, Amber has to read the Bible for an hour. Not just read it either, but outline the major points of what she’s read.”

“Sounds like child abuse to me,” Blake says.

“Amber’s used to it. In a way, I think she sort of likes it. She’s learned a lot, anyway.”

“I’d rather read a seed catalogue,” Tyler says.

“Do you think she likes me?” Blake says.

I look at him, puzzled. What kind of “like” does he mean, anyway? Then I see how red his face is getting.

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