Until I Find You

“I’m sorry, baby cakes—this may hurt, but it would be criminal to let you grow up with ears like these poor guys. You’re gonna be too good-looking to ruin your prospects for the future with dog-turd ears.”

Jack could tell that Chenko and Pavel and Boris were offended. Their cauliflower ears were badges of honor, not dog turds! But Emma Oastler had made Jack’s future her business, and she was not to be denied.

A so-called cauliflower ear is caused by fluid; when the ear gets rubbed on the mat, or against your opponent’s face, it bleeds and swells. When the fluid hardens, you have a lump where you used to have an indentation. The trick is not to let the fluid harden. You drain it with a needle and a syringe. Then you take some gauze, dipped in wet plaster, and press it into the contours of the ear. When the plaster hardens, your ear can’t swell—it can’t keep filling with fluid. The original shape of the ear is retained.

“It’s a little uncomfortable,” Chenko forewarned Jack.

“It’s better than a sore penis, honey pie.” (Even the Minskies agreed with Emma about that.) So Jack went home with a gauze plaster on one ear and a mat burn oozing on the opposite cheek.

“Look at your Jackie, Alice,” Leslie Oastler said, when they were eating takeout that night. “Those thugs at the Bathurst Street gym are going to kill him.”

“It’s better than a sore penis,” Jack said.

“Not to mention the language those Russians are teaching him,” Mrs. Oastler said.

“Jack, I’ll ask you to watch your language,” his mother said.

The next night, Emma had a cauliflower ear. Jack and Emma were pretty proud of their matching gauze plasters. He’d caught her in a cross-face cradle, and while he was grinding his right temple against her left ear, she kicked out of the cradle and pinned him with a reverse half nelson.

“You can’t cradle someone who’s built like her, not if you’re built like you,” Chenko told Jack.

True enough, but Jack knew that it was good for him to have a workout partner as tough as Emma Oastler. The wrestling turned out to be good for Emma, too. She lost eight pounds in a week. Jack knew that Boris and Pavel had impressed her—if not their ears, at least their diet. The Minskies were disciplined—not only their workouts, but what they ate. “You could have saved your money by sending me to the Bathurst Street gym instead of the fucking fat farm,” Emma told her mom.

“I’ll ask you to watch your language, too, young lady,” Mrs. Oastler said.

“Penis, penis, penis—” Jack chanted.

“That about covers it,” Leslie Oastler said.

“Go to your room, Jack,” his mom told him.

But Jack didn’t care. He wanted to say, “You’re making Emma be a miserable boarder and you’re sending me to fucking Maine, and you want us to watch our language!” Instead, he said, “Penis, penis, penis,” all the way up the stairs.

“That’s really mature, Jack!” his mother called.

“Don’t be angry with him, Alice—he’s just upset about going away to school,” Jack heard Leslie Oastler say.

“No shit—that’s fucking brilliant,” Emma said.

“Go to your room, Emma,” Mrs. Oastler told her.

“Enjoy washing the dishes!” Emma said as she stomped upstairs. (Emma was usually the dishwasher.)

Emma and Jack were workout partners in more ways than one. They had at last become true friends—in part because their mothers were separating them. With each mat burn, split lip, black eye, or cauliflower ear that they gave each other, Emma and Jack thoroughly convinced Alice and Mrs. Oastler that the contact between them—whatever it was—wasn’t sexual. Jack could get up in the middle of the night and go to Emma’s room and get into bed with her—or she could come to his room and get into bed with him. Their mothers said nothing.

The summer was almost over anyway. What did Alice and Leslie Oastler care if Emma and Jack beat each other up at the Bathurst Street gym all day? (Not that Jack ever “beat up” Emma, but he succeeded with a shot or two.)

“It’s just hormones, in Emma’s case,” Mrs. Oastler said. In Alice’s mind, Jack was still about the business of learning how to defend himself from boys.

In two weeks, Emma had lost twelve pounds—and it was clear that she would lose more. It wasn’t just the workouts; her eating habits had changed. She liked Chenko. “Everything but his ears.” With the exception of their ears, Emma liked Boris and Pavel, too.

When Jack lay next to Emma in her bed, or when she held him in her arms in his, it pained him to ask her who she was going to work out with—he meant after he had gone to Maine.

“Oh, I daresay I’ll find someone else I can beat the shit out of, baby cakes.”

Jack had learned how to kiss her and keep breathing, although the temptation to hold his breath until he fainted was strong. And Emma’s attention to the little guy never wavered; true to her word, his penis had healed. A combination of the moisturizer, which Emma continued to apply to the little guy—long after Jack could discern any visible need for it—and the welcome cessation of Mrs. Machado’s attention to his penis, which evidently had been excessive.

“Do you miss her, Jack?” Emma asked him one night. He had been thinking that he missed some of the things Mrs. Machado did, but not that he missed her. He felt awkward telling Emma about the things he missed. Jack didn’t want her to feel that he was ungrateful to her for saving him from Mrs. Machado. But they were true friends and workout partners. Emma understood him. “It sounds like you were excited but frightened,” Emma said.

“Yes.”

“I shudder to think what kind of trouble the little guy can get into in Maine,” Emma said.

“What do you mean, Emma?”

They were in her room. Emma had a king-size bed, if you didn’t count the stuffed animals. Jack was wearing just his boxers, and Emma was wearing a T-shirt that Pavel or Boris had given her. It was from a wrestling tournament in Tbilisi, but you had to be able to read Georgian to know where it was from; more to Emma’s liking, the T-shirt was faded and torn and it had old bloodstains on it.

“Take off your boxers, honey pie.” Emma was removing her T-shirt under the covers, which created a little chaos among the stuffed animals. “I’m going to show you how not to get in trouble, Jack.” She took his hand and placed it on his penis. “Use your other hand, if you prefer,” Emma told him. “Just do whatever’s comfortable.”

“Comfortable?”

“Just beat off, Jack! You can do that, can’t you?”

“Beat what?”

“Don’t tell me this is your first time, honey pie.”

“It’s my first time,” he admitted.

“Well, take your time—you’ll get the hang of it,” Emma told him. “You can kiss me, or touch me with your other hand. Just do something, Jack—for Christ’s sake!”

Jack was trying. At least he wasn’t frightened. “I think my left hand works better,” he told her, “even though I’m right-handed.”

“It’s not as complicated as a Russian arm-tie,” Emma said. “We don’t have to discuss it.”

He hugged her as hard as he could—she was so strong, so solid. When she kissed him, Jack remembered to breathe—at least at the beginning. “I think it’s working,” he said.

“Try not to make a mess all over the place, baby cakes,” Emma said. “I’m just kidding,” she quickly added.

It was becoming difficult to kiss her and keep breathing—not to mention talk. “What exactly are we doing? What is this?” he asked Emma.

“This is how you survive Maine,” Emma told him.

“But you won’t be there!” he cried.

“You have to imagine me, baby cakes, or I’ll send you pictures.” Oh, that aurora borealis—those northern