The Boxer and the Spy

Chapter 13

They were having coffee together in a shop on Main Street, across from the two-story brick building in downtown Cabot where Terry trained with George.

“Were you scared?” Abby said.

“I guess everybody’s a little scared before a fight,” Terry said.

“But there wasn’t a fight,” Abby said.

“I didn’t know that,” Terry said, “when I was being scared.”

“Everybody’s scared of Kip Carter All-American,” Abby said. “Even Tank, I think.”

Terry nodded.

“Would you fight with him if you had to?”

“I guess,” Terry said.

“You can box,” Abby said.

“I’m learning,” Terry said.

“Maybe you’d win,” Abby said.

“Maybe,” Terry said.

He sipped his coffee. He didn’t like it exactly. But he had decided he was too old now to be going out for sodas and frappes. He felt more like a serious guy drinking coffee. Abby had some too.

“Thing is,” Terry said, “it’s like George says. You learn how to box, you also learn how to not get in fights over nothing.”

“And Kip Carter All-American is nothing?”

“Nothing to me,” Terry said.

“Even though he says you can’t do what you want to?”

“I’m going to do what I want to,” Terry said.

“Try to find out what happened to Jason?”

“Yeah.”

“What if he catches you and tries to beat you up?” Abby said.

“I’ll try to make him stop,” Terry said.

“What if he wins?”

“George says losing is part of fighting. Everybody loses. George lost eighteen times,” he said. “Mohammed Ali lost once to Joe Frazier.”

Abby was looking at him and frowning a little, the way she did when she was thinking about something. Terry believed it was the greatest look that was possible.

“If you gave it all you had when you won,” Terry said. “And you gave it all you had when you lost. It’s all anybody can ask you to do, George says.”

“George, George, George,” Abby said. “Do you believe everything George tells you?”

“I guess,” Terry said. “The way George is, is a nice way to be.”

“He doesn’t seem all that successful,” Abby said.

“I don’t mean that,” Terry said. “He seems like he’s not scared of anything and he’s not mad about anything and he’s got nothing to prove to anybody, you know?”

Abby nodded.

“You’re more like that than most kids,” she said.

“Not like George,” Terry said.

“It’s too hard to be like George when you’re a kid,” Abby said. “I mean there’s all the crap around you. Get good grades, get into college, be popular, do a bunch of extracurricular activities so the colleges will think you’re well rounded. You’re supposed to, you know, not have sex, not get drunk, not smoke dope, even though all the adults do it, and you have to listen to them always telling you about how these are the best days of your life.”

Abby paused for breath.

“What crap,” she said.

Terry smiled.

“Feel better?” he said.

“You know it’s true.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I do.”

“So how do you deal with it?” Abby said.

“I try not to pay so much attention to it,” Terry said. “I just try to sort of keep going, do what I do. We’ll grow up in a while.”

Abby put her hand on top of his. He felt it throughout his whole self.

“I think maybe you already have,” Abby said.

Terry felt as if the air were fresher than it had been and he could breathe deeper. It was as if the fresh air went into every part of him. He didn’t know what to say. So he simply nodded. The waitress came down the counter and poured them more coffee. Terry put sugar and cream in his. Abby drank hers black. They both drank some coffee from the thick white diner-style mugs. Abby held hers in two hands.

“Who do you suppose told on you?” Abby said when she had put her cup down.