Holly was simultaneously pleased and dismayed: pleased to have met this
woman, who so quickly seemed to be a favorite aunt of long acquaintance
dismayed because she had met her and been accepted by her under false
pretenses.
All the way back to her rental car, Holly fiercely berated herself under
her breath. She was at no loss for ugly words and clever damning
phrases.
Twelve years in newsrooms, in the company of reporters, had acquainted
her with enough obscene language to insure her the trophy in a cursing
contest with even the most foul-mouthed victim of Tourette’s syndrome.
The Yellow Pages listed only one Tae Kwon Do school in Newport beach. It
was in a shopping center off Newport Boulevard, between a custom
window-covering store and a bakery.
The place was called Dojo, the Japanese word for a martial-arts practice
ball, which was like naming a restaurant “Restaurant” or a dress shop
“Dress Shop.” Holly was surprised by the generic name, because Asian
businessmen often brought a poetic sensibility to the titling of their
enterprises. Three people were standing on the sidewalk in front of
Dojo’s big window, eating eclairs and awash in the delicious aromas
wafting from the adjacent bakery, watching a class of six students go
through their routines with a squat but exceptionally limber Korean
instructor in black pajamas.
When the teacher threw a pupil to the mat inside, the plate-glass window
vibrated.
Entering, Holly passed out of the chocolate-, cinnamon-, sugar-, yeast
scented air into an acidic environment of stale incense laced with a
vague perspiration odor. Because of a story she’d written about a
Portland teenager who won a medal in a national competition, she knew
Tae Kwon Do was an aggressive Korean form of karate, using fierce
punches, lightning-quick jabs, chops, blocks, choke holds, and
devastatingly powerful, leaping kicks. The teacher was pulling his
blows, but there were still a lot of grunts, wheezes, guttural
exclamations, and jarring thuds as students slammed to the mat.
In the far right corner of the room, a brunette sat on a stool behind a
counter, doing paperwork. Every aspect and detail of her dress and
grooming were advertisements for her sexuality. Her tight red T-shirt
emphasized her ample chest and outlined nipples as large as cherries.
With a touseled mane of chestnut hair given luster by artfully applied
blond highlights, eyes subtly but exotically shadowed, mouth too lushly
painted with deep-coral lipstick, a just-right tan, disablingly long
fingernails painted to match the lipstick, and enough silvery costume
jewelry to stock a display case, she would have been the perfect
advertisement if women had been a product for sale in every local
market.
“Does this thudding and grunting go on all day?” Holly asked.
“Most of the day, yeah.”
“Doesn’t it get to you?”
“Oh, yeah,” the brunette said with a lascivious wink, “I know what ya
mean. They’re like a bunch of bulls ramming at each other. I’m not had
an hour every day till I’m so horny I can’t stand it.”
That was not what Holly had meant. She was suggesting that the noise
was headache-inducing, not arousing. But she winked back, girl-to-girl
and said, “The boss in?”
“Eddie? He’s doing a couple hundred flights of stairs,” the woman said
cryptically. “What’d you want?”
Holly explained that she was a reporter, working on a story that had
connection with Dojo.
The receptionist, if that’s what she was, brightened at this news
instead of glowering, as was often the case. Eddie, she said, was
always looking to get publicity for the business. She rose from her
stool and stepped to a door behind the counter, revealing that she was
wearing high-heeled sandals and tight white shorts. that clung to her
butt as snugly as a coat of paint.
Holly was beginning to feel like a boy.
As the brunette had indicated, Eddie was delighted to hear that Dojo
would be mentioned in a newspaper piece, even if tangentially, but
wanted her to interview him while he continued to do stairs. He was not
Asian, which perhaps explained the unimaginative generic name of the
business. Tall, blond, shaggy-haired; blue-eyed, he was dressed only in
muscles and a pair of black spandex cyclist’s shorts. He was on a
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